Sammy’s softball team is in contention for the Junior Slugger’s Cup, and all she wants to do is hunker down behind home plate and catch strikes. But Heather Acosta brings new meaning to the term “foul ball” as she schemes to get Sammy kicked off the team. And Sammy is thrown a wild pitch by a frantic girl in the mall. She begs Sammy to watch something for her and then dashes off before Sammy realizes that the bag she’s left holding contains a baby! Now there are some pitches that you shouldn’t even try to catch, but Sammy’s a take-it-in-the-chest-protector kind of player. So when the girl doesn’t return for her baby, Sammy decides to go find her. And her search leads her into situations that are just not covered in a softball playbook.
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Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com Review
Not normally a mall rat, young Sammy Keyes somehow finds herself at the video arcade with her best friend one day, blowing off steam before the big junior-high softball tournament. Naturally, fans of this plucky girl detective (Sammy Keyes and the Hollywood Mummy, Sammy Keyes and the Sisters of Mercy, etc.) will not be at all surprised to learn that this innocent outing winds up putting Sammy in the middle of another big, messy, dangerous mystery. In spite of her best intentions, our sleuth is soon exploring the seamy underbelly of her hometown, confronting gang members, pursuing a man with "hatred for eyes, steel for a mouth," and trying to take care of an abandoned infant--all while remaining undercover at her grandmother's adults-only apartment complex. Newcomers and veterans of the Sammy Keyes mystery series will immediately take to this not-so-hard-boiled seventh-grade detective and her funny yet issue-laden adventures. (Ages 10 and older) --Emilie Coulter
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Publishers Weekly
The intrepid detective lays her life on the line when she hunts down her latest suspect, a reptilian-looking fellow, in Sammy Keyes and the Search for Snake Eyes, the seventh in the series by Wendelin Van Draanen.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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More About the Author
"Through writing, I open up my heart and soul in ways I never could in everyday life. The joy, the pain, the wonder and loneliness I felt in growing up, meld into stories which I hope will help kids believe in themselves and have compassion for those around them."--Wendelin Van Draanen
Wendelin Van Draanen is the winner of the 1999 Edgar Allan Poe Award for Best Children's Mystery Book for Sammy Keyes and the Hotel Thief. Sammy Keyes and the Search for Snake Eyes is a 2003 Edgar Award nominee.
Visit Wendelin Van Draanen's Web site at www.wendelinvandraanen.com for the lastest on The Gecko and Sticky, Sammy Keyes, Shredderman, and more!
How in the world did I wind up writing a book about a kleptomaniacal, talking gecko lizard? I'm the first to admit-talking animals are not my thing. First person, realistic fiction-that's what I like. And yet, after Sticky appeared as a sidekick television character in my Shredderman series and uttered his first "Holy guaco-tacarole!" I was hooked. He's so funny. And so full of mischief.
I always develop a backstory for my characters to get to know them. Even if they're secondary characters, I have to understand their background and motivations before I let them into the story. The premise of the third Shredderman book (Meet the Gecko) is that a television crew comes to town to shoot an episode, and Shredderman helps out the star of the show. Not wanting to deal with the legal complications of using a real television show, I made up my own: The Gecko and Sticky. In the process, I came up with the hero (Dave Sanchez-a boy who has the "superpower" of being able to walk up walls, and is known as the Gecko), the sidekick (Sticky who is, as you already know, a talking gecko with . . . h'hem, sticky fingers), the villain (the deadly, diabolical, and definitely demented Damien Black), and Damien's sidekicks (the Bandito Brothers, who are, in fact, not brothers, but a thieving mariachi band).
It was definitely wilder than anything I'd come up with before, but hey-it was just a made-up TV show, right?
Ah, how diabolically infectious made-up TV shows can be!
Sticky, you see, got under my skin. His "Ay-ay-ay"s and his "What the jalapeno was that?" and his "You cut me to the quick, senor" enchanted me, and I was sorry when his role in the Shredderman books was over.
After the Shredderman quartet was complete, I began getting lots of fan mail from kids (and teachers) asking me to please write more Shredderman books. It was tempting, because I love Nolan and the gang. But I'd completed my mission with the quartet; so instead, I started writing The Gecko and Sticky.
My first attempt resulted in an over 200-page manuscript. That was closer to a Sammy Keyes novel than a Shredderman book. So I hacked it up, threw it out, and started all over.
My next try had me at 150 pages-still too long, and something about it wasn't quite right. So I chucked it and asked myself what in the world I was thinking, writing in the voice of a lizard.
But then on a flight from New York to California, I started hearing a voice. It wasn't my voice. Or the guy snoring in the seat beside me. It was, you know, a voice. One in my head.
Yeah, we writers hear them, and although we will almost certainly deny it if you press us about it, we also listen. It's how I wrote Swear to Howdy; how Bryce appeared in Flipped; where Holly's poems came from in Runaway . . . and it's how the narrator took over the storytelling for The Gecko and Sticky.
It's a man's voice in my head. (Okay, I concede that I might need some help.) But he's funny as all get-out, and I like to listen to him. He's the voice of someone who loves the art of storytelling; of someone who will hold a child's wide-eyed attention as he shares the wild antics of a boy and his mischievous gecko; of someone I'd plead, "Just one more chapter, please?"
So I hope that explains it, because I really must go. He's talking to me again and I've got to get back to Dave and Sticky. They are, after all, in the midst of some deep, diabolical doo-doo . . .
Wendelin Van Draanen is the winner of the 1999 Edgar Allan Poe Award for Best Children's Mystery Book for Sammy Keyes and the Hotel Thief. Sammy Keyes and the Search for Snake Eyes is a 2003 Edgar Award nominee.
Visit Wendelin Van Draanen's Web site at www.wendelinvandraanen.com for the lastest on The Gecko and Sticky, Sammy Keyes, Shredderman, and more!
How in the world did I wind up writing a book about a kleptomaniacal, talking gecko lizard? I'm the first to admit-talking animals are not my thing. First person, realistic fiction-that's what I like. And yet, after Sticky appeared as a sidekick television character in my Shredderman series and uttered his first "Holy guaco-tacarole!" I was hooked. He's so funny. And so full of mischief.
I always develop a backstory for my characters to get to know them. Even if they're secondary characters, I have to understand their background and motivations before I let them into the story. The premise of the third Shredderman book (Meet the Gecko) is that a television crew comes to town to shoot an episode, and Shredderman helps out the star of the show. Not wanting to deal with the legal complications of using a real television show, I made up my own: The Gecko and Sticky. In the process, I came up with the hero (Dave Sanchez-a boy who has the "superpower" of being able to walk up walls, and is known as the Gecko), the sidekick (Sticky who is, as you already know, a talking gecko with . . . h'hem, sticky fingers), the villain (the deadly, diabolical, and definitely demented Damien Black), and Damien's sidekicks (the Bandito Brothers, who are, in fact, not brothers, but a thieving mariachi band).
It was definitely wilder than anything I'd come up with before, but hey-it was just a made-up TV show, right?
Ah, how diabolically infectious made-up TV shows can be!
Sticky, you see, got under my skin. His "Ay-ay-ay"s and his "What the jalapeno was that?" and his "You cut me to the quick, senor" enchanted me, and I was sorry when his role in the Shredderman books was over.
After the Shredderman quartet was complete, I began getting lots of fan mail from kids (and teachers) asking me to please write more Shredderman books. It was tempting, because I love Nolan and the gang. But I'd completed my mission with the quartet; so instead, I started writing The Gecko and Sticky.
My first attempt resulted in an over 200-page manuscript. That was closer to a Sammy Keyes novel than a Shredderman book. So I hacked it up, threw it out, and started all over.
My next try had me at 150 pages-still too long, and something about it wasn't quite right. So I chucked it and asked myself what in the world I was thinking, writing in the voice of a lizard.
But then on a flight from New York to California, I started hearing a voice. It wasn't my voice. Or the guy snoring in the seat beside me. It was, you know, a voice. One in my head.
Yeah, we writers hear them, and although we will almost certainly deny it if you press us about it, we also listen. It's how I wrote Swear to Howdy; how Bryce appeared in Flipped; where Holly's poems came from in Runaway . . . and it's how the narrator took over the storytelling for The Gecko and Sticky.
It's a man's voice in my head. (Okay, I concede that I might need some help.) But he's funny as all get-out, and I like to listen to him. He's the voice of someone who loves the art of storytelling; of someone who will hold a child's wide-eyed attention as he shares the wild antics of a boy and his mischievous gecko; of someone I'd plead, "Just one more chapter, please?"
So I hope that explains it, because I really must go. He's talking to me again and I've got to get back to Dave and Sticky. They are, after all, in the midst of some deep, diabolical doo-doo . . .
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Fantastic Detective Series - Scariest Mystery Yet!,
By Marla Jo Friedman (Somers, NY USA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Sammy Keyes and the Search for Snake Eyes (Hardcover)
I read this book to my 3 sons, ages 13, 10, and 8. There were times they were all scared and times they didn't want me to stop reading to them because they had to know what happened next. What more could you ask for in a book? This mystery was dedicated to all people who fight terrorists, both big and small. It was written with 9/11 in mind, and, in my opinion, it is a tribute to all the heroes of 9/11. Sammy's inability to understand why any teenager would want to get mixed up in a gang offers the reader constant reminders on how bad gangs can be and how, once you're in, it's almost impossible to get out. In my opinion, this book should replace the novel called the Outsiders (about gang warfare written in the 60's) from middle school reading lists. It is a fresh, more modern view on the subject and better written). My boys and I have read every book in this series and can't wait until the next one.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Awesame book!,
A Kid's Review
This review is from: Sammy Keyes and the Search for Snake Eyes (Paperback)
This was the first Sammy book that I read and I really enjoyed it. It's very exciting and is a real pageturner. It has you guessing until the end and is written very well. The characters are also very likable, especially Sammy, who stands up for herself to the popular kids.Sammy is at the mall with her best friend Marissa when some stranger gives her a bag with a baby, because some scary guy is after her, "Snake Eyes" as Sammy calls him. Sammy has to sneak in to her Grams' apartment with the baby which is very hard to do. Then the girl disappears and Sammy is sure that Snake Eyes has something to do with it. Sammy is very brave and solves the mystery with help from her friends even though she often has softball practice because of the Junior Sluggers Cup. She also gets herself in very dagerous situatins but always manages to get herself out of them. Marissa and Sammy get also blamed on that they sprayed mean stuff on another school which is heathers's fault who made it look as if it were them when it really wasn't. I would recommend this book to anyone who is looking for an exciting book. Wendelin van Draanen is a very good writer and I loved all the Sammy books that I have read yet. The books keep you coming back for more and I got some new ones and am very excited to read them. I hope they are as good as the other Sammy books! This book is very excitng, has a good plot and you never know the end. I give it five stars since this book is excellent. The series is one of my favorites and is very good. So I strongly recommend it to you and I hope you enjoy it as much as I do!
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
sammy keyes-a ten year old,
A Kid's Review
This review is from: Sammy Keyes and the Search for Snake Eyes (Library Binding)
the book Sammy Keyes and the search for snake eyes is a really good book. Its about a daring girl named Sammy and her friend marrissa. They defeat all kinds of villains and enemys handle a baby and at the same time are going to school juggling homework and with all that they still have soft ball practice!!this book is action packed from begging till end !! over all I would give this book 5 stars
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