Sammy Keyes and the Hotel Thief

by Wendelin Van Draanen

Overview

Sammy Keyes must be a magnet for trouble...

I mean it's bad enough that she has to live illegally in a seniors-only building with her grandmother while her mother tries to make it as a move star. And worse that she witnessed a burglary in progress—and that the thief saw her. And worse still that nosy neighbor Mrs. Graybill is onto her, and that the thief is after her. But on top of all that, she also manages to make an enemy of the queen of mean at her new school and get suspended on the first day.

Welcome to the wild world of Sammy Keyes!
 
Praise for the Sammy Keyes series:
 
“Sammy Keyes is feisty, fearless, and funny. A top-notch investigator!” —New York Times bestselling author Sue Grafton
 
“The sleuth delights from start to finish. Keep your binoculars trained on Sammy Keyes.” —Publishers Weekly
 
“Sammy Keyes is the hottest sleuth to appear in children’s books since Nancy Drew.”—The Boston Globe

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780679892649
Publisher:	Random House Children's Books
Publication date:	08/18/1998
Series:	Sammy Keyes , #1
Edition description:	Reissue
Pages:	192
Sales rank:	59,233
Product dimensions:	5.19(w) x 7.63(h) x 0.44(d)
Lexile:	760L (what's this?)
Age Range:	9 - 12 Years

About the Author

WENDELIN VAN DRAANEN was a classroom teacher for many years before becoming a full-time writer. The books in the Sammy Keyes mystery series have been embraced by critics and readers alike, with Sammy Keyes and the Hotel Thief receiving the Edgar Allan Poe Award for best children’s mystery. Wendelin is also the author of many award-winning novels, including Flipped, The Running Dream, Runaway, Confessions of a Serial Kisser, Swear to Howdy, The Secret Life of Lincoln Jones, and Wild Bird. You can find her online at WendelinVanDraanen.com and @WendelinVanD, and you can follow Sammy Keyes on Facebook.

What People are Saying About This

Sue Grafton

If Kinsey Millhone ever hires a junior partner, Sammy Keyes will be the first candidate on the list. She's feisty, fearless, and funny. A top-notch investigator!

Margaret Maron

A winning debut! This girl sleuth is no well-mannered Nancy Drew. She's endearingly hot-tempered, nosy, and not always obedient -- in short, she's someone I want to read about again.

Joan Lowery. Nixon

A great story with plenty of shivers and suspense. Make friends with Samantha Keyes.

Editorial Reviews

Praise for the Sammy Keyes series:
 
“Van Draanen offers such an explosive combination of high-stakes sleuthing, hilarity, and breathlessly paced action that it’s impossible to turn the pages fast enough.” —Kirkus Reviews

“There’s no stopping Sammy.”—Publishers Weekly

“An intelligent, gutsy, flawed, and utterly likable heroine.”—Booklist

"Move over, Nancy Drew—a new sleuth is on the scene.”—Girls’ Life

"Think a combination of Carl Hiaasen’s Flush and Janet Evanovich’s Stephanie Plum books and you’ll be right on target.” —School Library Journal

“A high-quality, high-amp mystery series.” —The Horn Book
 
“This funny, clever series is NOT for kids only. I challenge the most seasoned mystery reader to guess ‘who done it.’” —Cozies, Capers, and Crimes
 
“Sammy Keyes comes armed with attitude.” —Orlando Sentinel

“Sammy doesn’t find mysteries to solve—they find her.” —Arizona Republic

“Humor, romance and adventure; this story is an absolute blast.” —Chicago Tribune
 
“If you haven’t met Sammy Keyes yet, now is the time.” —Children’s Literature

From the Publisher

Sammy, an intrepid girl detective, discovers a number of secrets about the hotel across the street from her home. "The solution will likely come as a surprise, and the sleuth delights from start to finish," said PW. Ages 10-13. (Aug.)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Gr 5-7-In this recording of the first Sammy Keyes mystery by Wendelin Van Draanen (Knopf, 1998), actress Tara Sands brings the irrepressible Sammy to life. She gets the phrasing and timing just right, and manages to sound like a 13-year-old girl without overdoing it. She conveys the other characters' voices well, too, especially the flamboyant Gina, a.k.a. "Madame Nashira," victim of the hotel burglary Sammy witnesses in the first chapter. Sammy careens from one adventure to another--getting suspended from school on the first day of seventh grade, nearly getting her grandmother kicked out of a seniors-only apartment building, and sneaking onto the roof of the mall--all the while pursuing clues to the identity of the hotel thief. Fans of the series will enjoy this recording, and it is likely to create new fans as well.-Sarah Flowers, Santa Clara County Library, Morgan Hill, CA Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

School Library Journal

Samantha Keyes is one tough, smart, resourceful seventh grader-capable of holding her own against Mrs. Graybill, her nosy, suspicious neighbor (Sammy lives, surreptitiously, with her grandmother in a seniors-only complex); her nasty nemesis-classmate, Heather Acosta; the condescending policeman who heads the investigation into the theft Sammy witnesses; and, of course, the thief himself. Sammy is also pretty impetuous (there's a lot of "what I should have done was...but..."), which Van Draanen makes clear from the opening scene: as Sammy trains her Gram's binoculars on the burglary-in-progress at the hotel across the street, the thief looks up and sees her through the window; rather than call the police, Sammy waves. Events snowball from there as Sammy bests horrible Heather by uncovering the scam she is trying to pull at Sammy's expense, and deduces (through Van Draanen's clever and uncondescending clues) the surprising identity of the thief -- all while trying to avoid getting caught by Mrs. Graybill, suspended from school, or yelled at by Gram. Sammy, with her self-reliant personality and breezy first-person narration, is clearly the literary by-product of the better sort of fast-food adult mysteries such as Sue Grafton's . . .series, and Van Draanen has captured the adult-mystery knack of making the investigator's character and private life at least as interesting and complex as the plot. This may be light fare, but it's the kind you want to gobble up quickly-and in quantities.

Horn Book Magazine

Van Draanen (How I Survived Being a Girl, 1997) debuts a live-wire young sleuth in this nonstop whodunit. The day before starting seventh grade, Samantha peers through her grandmother's binoculars and spots the latest in a rash of burglaries. The burglar spots her right back, setting in motion a headlong chain of events that, over the next few days, takes Sammy and her rich but loyal friend Marissa from back alleys to the roof of the local mall in an effort to finger the crook while escaping his clutches. Meanwhile, Sammy also has to cope with a hostile police officer, a new school, malicious classmate Heather, and in the seniors-only high-rise where she lives with Grams while her own mother pursues a Hollywood career, a suspicious neighbor. Heather's villainy and subsequent public humiliation may be overdone, but Van Draanen expertly keeps all the subplots at a rolling boil while strewing the tale with red herrings, suspects, and clever clues. Children will admire Sammy's inadvertent genius for ruffling feathers as much as they'll like her sharp powers of observation and deduction; she is a tough new gumshoe with another caper scheduled for fall.

Kirkus Reviews