Customer Reviews

Double Trouble Squared (Starbuck Family Adventures)

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Double Trouble Squared is a great mystery about the Starbuck twins, their ability to use telepathy with each other and their interest in Sherlock Holmes. Liberty and July, twins, a boy and girl, born on the Fourth of July, hence the names, and their little sisters, the twins Charley and Molly, have long been able to telepath, communicate with thought, instead of words. In the recent weeks surrounding their move to London, mysterious things are happening with their telepathy. Echoes, sad, but not frightening, and static are begining to interupt their communication.The children must unravel the mystery, leadin them into fooggy London, wodded Sussex, the Tower of London, Stratford upon Frustration and finally back to their house at Devonshire Mews. It is a wonderful, engrossing, but not at all scary mystery mixing twins, Sherlock Holmes and Arthur Conan Doyle, and London in a splendid mix.This book about the Starbuck family will make you want more.

12 year old twins,Liberty and July, travel with their parents, tutor, and twin little sisters, Charly and Molly, to London where they find a lost manuscript and meet a literary ghost. Both sets of twins can communicate telepathically to any of the others which adds a really interesting twist to the book. I really loved this book because it's a wonderful, fast-paced, interesting mystery and it tells what it's like to be a twin. Once you've read this book you'll want to read the next two books in the series.

I am into Double Trouble Squared for the 3rd time and still love it. I recommend this book for anyone interested in Sherlock Holmes, twins (twinology) or if you just want to read a great book. Liberty and July are so life-like, and if you know twins, like me, you will notice the similarities! READ THIS BOOK--interesting for all ages.

When their father quits his job and goes on an environmental strike, the older Starbuck set of telepathic twins, girl Liberty, and boy July (the month), are greatly embarrassed. When their father brings his environmental stuff to a school assembly, July, Liberty, and their mother help convince him to take a job under the ambassador in England. Liberty and July, Charly and Molly the five year old twins, Dad, and Zanny the Nanny, move to England. Mom has to stay with her job. Zanny decides to be their teacher, and no more school! Upon arriving, the twins meet up with an evil man who keeps quoting from Sherlock Holmes novels. Soon, an interupting voice keeps breaking into their telepathic conversations. And, the house where they are living keeps revealing secrets from Sherlock Holmes novels. When the twins find a secret room, they start reading from an old manuscript, and . . . read this book for the rest!

ISBN 0152241272 - Always a mystery fan and a Bobbsey Twins fan, I was hopeful that Double Trouble Squared would turn out to be the start of a new series that I would really enjoy. It didn't quite meet expectations. About twice the thickness of the usual book for this age group, it had plenty of time to make up for its shortcomings, but it never really did.

July and Liberty are twins, a boy and a girl and the older siblings of Molly and Charly, also twins. Although they were born in twos and despite their unique ability to communicate via telepathy, the four children really don't like to be referred to as "sets" or "pairs". The story begins with the kids' recently unemployed father driving them crazy and embarrassing them at school, but the pay off for this embarrassment is that their father accepts a job in London - a job they'd really wanted him to accept because they wanted to go, too!

Young fans of Sherlock Holmes, the older twins want to visit the places from Arthur Conan Doyle's books and, with Zanny the Nanny, they do. They're a bit letdown, but they're more concerned with the periodic static that interferes with their telepathy. Clues slowly pile up, including a rather frightening man who seems to stalk them, until the children discover that they are the only ones who can solve one final Holmes mystery.

The first thing to disconcert me was the older twins' names: I know of one person named Liberty, he's a male; I know several July's, they're all female - but in the book, Liberty is the girl and July is the boy. Throughout the book, I had trouble keeping their genders straight in my mind. Next, the kids are eager to move to London, which is almost more unrealistic than the telepathy. Kids don't like to leave their friends behind, but the Starbuck kids almost beg for the chance!

The mystery, or even a clue to what the mystery was, takes a really long time to come out at all and some readers will find themselves ready to give up. When the first glimmer of an idea is mentioned, it's very vague and stays that way for a very long time. Lasky failed to reel the reader in early and stands a good chance of losing them for good. Still, I'd read another Starbuck Family story, in the hopes that the too-slow pace of this one was just a result of the author setting up the series. Hopefully the next one has a little more action!

- AnnaLovesBooks

This book is soooo good I love it I just got not even a year ago and Ive read it ten times thats good. I cant put it down

With the first book in her Starbuck Family Adventure Series, Kathryn Lasky will enchant you with chilling mystery, laugh-out-loud humor,and a setting of anyone's dreams.Zany characters, an unpublished work, a crack in the cieling, and many more small aspects make up this story of courage,mystery,and even some Sherlock....