Customer Reviews

The Postcard

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The Postcard by Tony Abbott is about Jason who doesn't know anything about his grandmother. Jason keeps finding postcards which lead up to a story about his grandmother. He meets a girl named Dia, and they work together to find more postcards to help them learn about Jason's grandmother.


The story begins in Boston. Jason received a phone call and found out his grandmother died. His parents are divorced, and he has to go to his grandmother's old house to sort through her things.


The day Jason was at the funeral home, someone called his grandmother Marni. The next day he found a magazine and was reading through it. A story mentioned his grandmother as Marni. In those two pages, there was a postcard. This postcard had a pinhole. Where this pinhole was is were he would find chapter 2 of the story.


My favorite character was Miss K. She is a Japanese lady who was Jason's grandmother's neighbor. My favorite part was when Jason first met Dia. Dia was his grandmother's grass cutter. He didn't know she was so he told her to go away. Dia left with only one-half of the yard cut. Jason's dad got so mad.


I think the authors purpose of this book was to entertain. I liked the book very much. I almost thought I couldn't stop reading it. My eyes were glued to it. My recommendation would be to anyone who likes an adventurous mystery. That is all about Tony Abott's The Postcard.

Jason's grandmother has died. They weren't close, in fact, he never met her. He'd heard his parents talk about her dementia, believing she could fly and being pursued by alligators, but their concern had never brought him into close proximity to his father's sometime mother. The trip to Florida to be with his father and help clean out her house is going to mess up his summer vacation. If he survives it.

A strange call from someone unknown sends Jason searching through his grandmother's things where he finds an old post card and a magazine. This is the start of an intriguing scavenger hunt for pages of a story that help him know his grandmother, and learn more than even his father knows about his grandfather. Jason and his friend, Dia, aren't the only ones looking for the clues. There were some eccentric-looking funeral attendees, and they seem to be showing up wherever the clues lead. How do they know about these old stories? Are they really part of the circus thugs introduced in the story? Are the stories fact or fiction? Can Jason and Dia run fast enough to find out?

The Postcard is a page-turning mystery with a humorous twist. The main characters are human, likeable, and smart. You understand the teenager's confusion about family. Besides never knowing his grandmother, Jason learns his father never knew his own father, his great grandfather may have been a sociopath, and he isn't sure his parents will continue living together when this trip is finished. Add some circus clowns and you have a story both entertaining and well plotted.

Tony Abbott, Connecticut writes humor, fantasy, adventure books that get kids to read, and love to write. His best-known series, The Secrets of Droon, has nearly five million copies in print since the first books were published in 1999, and it is one of the best-selling series for its age group-ages 7 to adult.

Armchair Interviews says: Middle readers especially will enjoy this adventurous mystery.

Jason is unexpectedly sent to Florida to help his father clean up his grandmother's house. The temperature is sweltering, Jason is always damp in places he would prefer not to think about, the house is packed with all kinds of junk and his dad is losing it. See, Jason never really knew his grandmother and it seems like his dad didn't either. It turns out that Jason's dad doesn't even know who his father is! His grandmother was never married and spent most of her life as an invalid in wheelchairs. Jason is hoping that the funeral will be over quickly and he will back on his way home to Boston, but his dad seems to be falling apart. When his dad ends up in the hospital with a broken ankle after falling off a ladder, Jason knows that his dad needs his support and help.

Jason doesn't really want his mom coming down to Florida, as he knows that she won't understand what his father is going through (and he fears that they are on the way to divorce). He also doesn't want to tell anyone about the mysterious phone call that he received at his grandmother's which led him to a hidden postcard. The postcard has no message, but it has the address of an old hotel that is scheduled for demolition. Jason isn't sure what to make of it, but then he discovers an old mystery magazine with a story that seems to feature several of the people who showed up at the funeral - and his grandmother! Before Jason knows it, he is lying to the police, breaking into condemned buildings, hunting for postcard clues, and trying to unearth the truth of his grandmother and the love of her life.

I picked up this book on a whim and found myself unexpectedly captivated at the beginning. I love scavenger hunts and this one was a doozy! Jason is your typical 12-year-old boy who has a difficult time realizing that his parents and grandparents had a life like he does. He realizes that the relationship between his mother and father is strained, but doesn't know what to do to help out. He can't really get his dad to talk about anything in his past, but finds himself pulled into this crazy mystery anyway! Dia was the facilitator of the whole adventure. She is a strong-willed, Hispanic girl who lives in his grandmother's neighborhood and is one of the few people Jason confides in. Dia is determined to follow the clues to the end and pushes and prods Jason until he goes in the direction she wants. I actually really liked Dia and thought she was hilarious! She was ready to jump into any danger and pulled Jason along with her. The adults in the book are sketched in and did not seem like real people. I am sure that Tony Abbott did this on purpose as kids don't really see adults as "people" like they do other kids. I wish that there was more about the adults, however, as Jason's dad, Jason's mysterious grandfather, and all of the people chasing after the kids (the bearded lady in purple, the slouchy man in the black beret, the barrel-chested man with a tiny waist, the German man who clicks his heels, and the man who looked like walking death) were very interesting and I would have liked to learn more about them.

The Florida setting was interesting and you could feel the heat and the humidity in the air. I have never been to Florida and so I would have loved to learn more about it different Florida locations, but I did enjoy learning some new things about the state of Florida. The kids visited several cool, random locations, which were a lot of fun to read about! The kids do not go to Walt Disney World or any of the other theme parks that Florida is so well known for. Instead, they visited an old luxury hotel, the sunken gardens, a seaside pier, some historic homes and even the old palace of the man who founded the Ringling Circus! These were really cool to learn about and were such mysterious, unique locations so I was glad that Abbott went with something a little less traditional to keep the story grounded and make it a bit more realistic for 2 kids to be able to sneak in and find clues that had been there for several decades.

I loved the first half of the book and found it a real page turner, but I did not find the ending as interesting. I still wanted to know what the solution to the mystery was going to be and rushed through to get to the end, but I was ultimately a bit disappointed. I felt that Abbott relied too much on the story within the story. See, as Jason finds postcards, they lead him to different sections of a mystery story that is loosely based on his grandfather's experiences in trying to get near his grandmother. These stories get longer and longer and Abbott does put the whole story in there for you, the reader, to read along with Jason and Dia. I found that, once the kids found the last section of the story, the book was wrapped up pretty quickly and I didn't get the resolution with Jason and his father and his newly found grandfather like I was hoping for. It was kind of one of those "hopefully ever after" endings instead of a real closure kind of ending. It was just too open for me.

I will say that I can recommend this book for kids who like adventure books or mystery books. It is well written and has short little chapters so younger readers can make quick progress. There is a lot of action and there seem to be threats around every corner as Jason battle against the Secret Order of Oobarab to discover the truth for his father. Boys especially will enjoy this book as it is always so difficult to find a good, action-packed book about boys for boys. There are no mushy-gushy feelings here and, even though Jason and his dad talk a little bit, there are no heart-to-heart talks between them or anything like that. If you have a 9 - 12 boy at home, this is a great book to check out of the library for a summer adventure.

I'm not going to give you a long summary. Read the other reviews for that. I just want to encourage everyone to read this book. It is incredible. You might even read it in one sitting. Wow!

The Postcard is the BEST book ever written!! It`s about a boy named Jason and he goes to Florida to go with his dad to his grandma`s funeral. After that, basicly everything is a clue for Jason that leads to many family secrets that he is soon to figure out! Now I`m not going to tell you the whole story beginning to end, but I hope that this is enough for you that you`ll want to read the book!

This book was a thriller and always kept you guessing. I really enjoyed this book and would recommend it to all my friends and my teachers as well. The Postcard took place mostly in St.Petersburg, Florida but travelled to Tampa and Sarasota as well. St.Petersburg is mostly populated by elderly folks such as Emerson Beale, also known as Nick Falcon and Marnie Monroe.

Jason's grandmother has just died. Jason's father went down there to start packing up the house to get it sold. Jason went down once school ended. Jason and his father attended the funeral. While cleaning the house Jason hears a loud sound, it was a girl mowing the lawn. Jason went to talk to the girl mowing the lawn, he said something rude about why she was cutting the grass and the girl stopped cutting the grass. Jason got a mysterious call that told him to look in the desk. Jason looked in the desk droor where he finds a postcard. Jason had no idea what it meant. Jason looked over the card many times until he came upon a pinhole in the window of one of the rooms in the Hotel DeSoto. Jason's father told him that Jason's great grandfather was once a millionaire and had owned the hotel as well as a lot of land. The card also had something that said air conditioning. The Hotel DeSoto was going to tore down, the workers left for their lunch break, Jason snuck in and went to the room with the pinhole, he looked and came upon the bathroom, he went in, inspected it carefully and saw a grate in which air conditioning was coming in, he unscrewed it and found some papers that said chapter III. Two days before while cleaning out the house he came upon a magazine. In it, it was about his grandmother. Around that time while trying to fix the gutter Jason's father fell off a ladder onto his head and got knocked out he also fractured his leg. He read the pages when he heard someone coming, he hid but it was Dia, the lawn mower girl. She followed him. Then, they heard someone else coming and they escaped.

They then went to many other places to find postcards that were hidden by Emerson Beale. They went to the living quarters of his grandmother, and Sunken Gardens and the Ringling's houses. Throughout all this they felt like they were being followed.

It turns out that they were being followed. Those following them were the Secret order of Oobarab who were people who tried to be in the circus but weren't good enough. They were the bad guys who worked for Fang, Marnie's father who also wanted her to be safe. He lost control of their auto gyro and they went off the Gandy bridge where Marnie had serious spinal damage.

After finding the last pages of the book the secret order of Oobarab trapped them but one of Nick Falcon's friends was on the roof where he threw his beret on the gun of one of the bad guys. One of his other friends who was Jason's grandmother's neighbor Mrs. K was on the roof as well. After going through all the stuff about why they were following them which was about the deed to a lot of land in which the secret order of Oobarab would own they found out that before it was worth millions of dollars it would only be worth 1,000s of dollars to the day. They all gave up and drove over to Emerson Beale in the care home. They then talked all about everything.

Jason went to his father in the hospital and told him everything, his father had mixed emotions but mostly good ones.

From then on everything went well.

As you can see this was a real thrilling book.


-Connor W.

When 13-year-old Jason finds out that his grandmother has died, he is not overcome with sadness as he has never even met her. Instead, he is overcome with annoyance. Now he has to leave his home in Boston at the beginning of the summer holiday and travel south to Florida to help his father clean out her house. To make matters worse, he fears that his parents are splitting up, and this one time with his dad will provide a great opportunity to talk. That is, if his dad doesn't drink too much alcohol.

Jason's first impression of Florida is HOT --- hot and flat, and filled with old people. He longs to go home, but that's not an option. His father picks him up at the airport and delivers him to a musty house filled with lots of stuff needing to be sorted through and thrown out in the dumpster. Plus, there's the funeral to attend, repairs to be made on the house in order to sell it, and dealing with his very emotional dad. This is definitely not the start to an awesome summer vacation. However, Jason buckles down and helps his dad, not knowing that things are going to start getting interesting.

First comes a weird phone call --- a stranger asking how smart Jason is and announcing that a person can learn a lot at a desk --- which he cannot get out of his head. He ends up searching his grandmother's desk for something and discovers an old postcard, which is the first clue. Then his father drinks too many beers, falls off the ladder and lands in the hospital for a few days. Jason wrangles an invite to stay with his grandmother's friend and next-door neighbor, not wanting his mom to find out that his dad had drunk too much. He returns to the cluttered house to continue working on the mess, and the mystery.

Jason joins forces with the spunky neighborhood lawn-mowing gal Dia, as they dodge the mysterious characters lurking around, explore historical buildings, gather clues and dive deeper into a family mystery almost as old as his grandmother. What starts out to be a boring, painful chore in a harsh environment turns into an adventure of a lifetime in a beautiful state rich with history and love.

Tony Abbott has written over 60 books for young people, and THE POSTCARD is another winner. He has created a multilayered, action-packed mystery filled with unusual and memorable characters (especially admirable is the feisty Dia; maybe he would consider writing another mystery about her). He handles point of view and voice with a shine --- each character and storyline separate, distinct and highlighted, yet weaving together perfectly. Abbott's mystery will pull the reader through the pages with excitement, enthusiasm and a wallop of humor.

--- Reviewed by Chris Shanley-Dillman, author of FINDING MY LIGHT and THE BLACK POND

This book was a thriller and always kept you guessing. I really enjoyed this book and would recommend it to all my friends and my teachers as well. The Postcard took place mostly in St.Petersburg, Florida but travelled to Tampa and Sarasota as well. St.Petersburg is mostly populated by elderly folks such as Emerson Beale, also known as Nick Falcon and Marnie Monroe.

Jason's grandmother has just died. Jason's father went down there to start packing up the house to get it sold. Jason went down once school ended. Jason and his father attended the funeral. While cleaning the house Jason hears a loud sound, it was a girl mowing the lawn. Jason went to talk to the girl mowing the lawn, he said something rude about why she was cutting the grass and the girl stopped cutting the grass. Jason got a mysterious call that told him to look in the desk. Jason looked in the desk droor where he finds a postcard. Jason had no idea what it meant. Jason looked over the card many times until he came upon a pinhole in the window of one of the rooms in the Hotel DeSoto. Jason's father told him that Jason's great grandfather was once a millionaire and had owned the hotel as well as a lot of land. The card also had something that said air conditioning. The Hotel DeSoto was going to tore down, the workers left for their lunch break, Jason snuck in and went to the room with the pinhole, he looked and came upon the bathroom, he went in, inspected it carefully and saw a grate in which air conditioning was coming in, he unscrewed it and found some papers that said chapter III. Two days before while cleaning out the house he came upon a magazine. In it, it was about his grandmother. Around that time while trying to fix the gutter Jason's father fell off a ladder onto his head and got knocked out he also fractured his leg. He read the pages when he heard someone coming, he hid but it was Dia, the lawn mower girl. She followed him. Then, they heard someone else coming and they escaped.

They then went to many other places to find postcards that were hidden by Emerson Beale. They went to the living quarters of his grandmother, and Sunken Gardens and the Ringling's houses. Throughout all this they felt like they were being followed.

It turns out that they were being followed. Those following them were the Secret order of Oobarab who were people who tried to be in the circus but weren't good enough. They were the bad guys who worked for Fang, Marnie's father who also wanted her to be safe. He lost control of their auto gyro and they went off the Gandy bridge where Marnie had serious spinal damage.

After finding the last pages of the book the secret order of Oobarab trapped them but one of Nick Falcon's friends was on the roof where he threw his beret on the gun of one of the bad guys. One of his other friends who was Jason's grandmother's neighbor Mrs. K was on the roof as well. After going through all the stuff about why they were following them which was about the deed to a lot of land in which the secret order of Oobarab would own they found out that before it was worth millions of dollars it would only be worth 1,000s of dollars to the day. They all gave up and drove over to Emerson Beale in the care home. They then talked all about everything.

Jason went to his father in the hospital and told him everything, his father had mixed emotions but mostly good ones.

Then on everything went well.

As you can see this was a real thrilling book.

Who knew a trip to Florida because of the death of his grandmother could lead to car chases, running from deranged seniors, and trying to solve a mystery before his mom finds out he's living alone or his dad gets out of the hospital, whichever comes first. This charming novel reminds me of mysteries written in the fifties and sixties when kids could roam free and find adventure. The characters are realistic, even the eccentric ones who appear in the present day and in flashbacks. This is a novel that can be enjoyed by children as well as adults. The main character and his side-kick friend mix well with the senior crowd that populates this novel set in Florida. The postcards that illustrate each chapter add a bit of nostalgia. The author does a good job of weaving the past and the present and keeps the reader busy trying to figure out the story within the story. This is a fun read about a boy who finds relief from worrying about the state of his parents' marriage by investigating his grandmother's past. The screwball antics of the characters and the mysterious doings all make sense as secrets are revealed.