Young Cam Jansen and the Speedy Car Mystery [Hardcover]

David A. Adler (Author), Susanna Natti (Illustrator)

Book Description

Age Level: 6 and up | Grade Level: 1 and up | Series: Young Cam Jansen

At her school?s Green Fair, Cam and her friends are learning how to keep the earth green. Everyone is having fun at the exhibits?until a student?s remotecontrolled car goes missing! Was it stolen? It?s up to Cam and her amazing memory to find Speedy.

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 6 and up
  
• Hardcover: 32 pages
• Publisher: Viking Juvenile (May 13, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0670061433
• ISBN-13: 978-0670061433
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.3 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,747,019 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

I write both fiction and non-fiction. I begin my fiction with the main character. The story comes later. Of course, since I'll be spending a lot of time with each main character, why not have him or her be someone I like? Andy Russell is based, loosely, on a beloved member of my family. He's fun to write about and the boy who inspired the character is even more fun to know. Cam Jansen is based even more loosely on a classmate of mine in the first grade whom we all envied because we thought he had a photographic memory. Now, especially when my children remind me of some promise they said I made, I really envy Cam's amazing memory. I have really enjoyed writing about Cam Jansen and her many adventures. For my books of non-fiction I write about subjects I find fascinating. My first biography was Our Golda: The Life of Golda Meir. To research that book, I bought a 1905 set of encyclopedia. Those books told me what each of the places Golda Meir lived in were like when she lived there. I've written many other biographies, including books about Martin Luther King, Jr; George Washington; Abraham Lincoln; Helen Keller; Harriet Tubman; Anne Frank; and many others in my Picture Book Biography series. I've been a Yankee and a Lou Gehrig fan for decades so I wrote Lou Gehrig: The Luckiest Man. It's more the story of his great courage than his baseball playing. Children face all sorts of challenges and it's my hope that some will be inspired by the courage of Lou Gehrig. I am working now on another book about a courageous man, Janusz Korczak. My book One Yellow Daffodil is fiction, too, but it's based on scores of interviews I did with Holocaust survivors for my books We Remember the Holocaust, Child of the Warsaw Ghetto, The Number on My Grandfather's Arm, and Hiding from the Nazis. The stories I heard were compelling. One Yellow Daffodil is both a look to the past and to the future, and expresses my belief in the great spirit and strength of our children. I love math and was a math teacher for many years, so it was fun for me to write several math books including Fraction Fun, Calculator Riddles, and Shape Up! Fun with Triangles and Other Polygons. In my office I have this sign, "Don't Think. Just Write!" and that's how I work. I try not to worry about each word, even each sentence or paragraph. For me stories evolve. Writing is a process. I rewrite each sentence, each manuscript, many times. And I work with my editors. I look forward to their suggestions, their help in the almost endless rewrite process. Well, it's time to get back to dreaming, and to writing, my dream of a job. David A. Adler is the author of more than 175 children's books, including the Young Cam Jansen series. He lives in Woodmere, New York.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Here a missing remote-controlled car for a science project offers brief sentences and visual clues in the drawings, July 22, 2010

By 

Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Young Cam Jansen and the Speedy Car Mystery (Hardcover)

David A. Adler's YOUNG CAM JANSEN AND THE SPEEDY CAR MYSTERY is made for Level 2 readers and receives fine drawings by Susanna Natti as it provides an easy reader of 32 pages revolving around Cam's detective work. Here a missing remote-controlled car for a science project offers brief sentences and visual clues in the drawings to help early readers progress.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Oh, No! Say it ain't so, Cam Jansen!, September 29, 2011

By 

Paula Lee Bright "I help kids who can't read ... (Online, U.S.A.) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Young Cam Jansen and the Speedy Car Mystery (Kindle Edition)

The real Cam Jansen books are a wonderful series! They are clever, include humor, fun and intriguing characters, and provide a good time for any reader with good 2nd and 3rd grade reading skills.

BUT this ain't that! This is a poor and paltry imitation. Books for young readers can *still* be enchanting, funny and smart.

This book is NOT. It's a dull, rote-sounding, contrived story completely *free* of charm and whatever that magic thing is that intrigues a young reader and compels them to read on.

I teach kids who can't read well, and do it online, so I buy lots of Kindle books. I bought this one. It's not even worth using. My students wouldn't be "caught up" by it, and in fact would probably say to me, "What? Huh? I don't get it."

Don't spend your money on this one! Try "Nancy Drew and the Clue Crew"Sleepover Sleuths (Nancy Drew and the Clue Crew #1) if you want your child to be delighted. It is girl-centric, involves affluent girls only, and they're white at that, but at least it charms the reader.

The writing is GOOD. In fact, two of my students have been SO charmed that they're on #2 and #5, and it's all good.

Best of luck, happy reading to your kids, and all the good karma I can muster is being sent to kids all over the world for happy reading experiences. :D

P.S. I'm on a campaign trying to get more authors to allow their books to be sold as ebooks. If you too need this to happen, please help me out and tell others! Thanks so much from The Kids and Miss Paula. :)

5.0 out of 5 stars Great for a beginning reader, January 6, 2012

By 

WildCat13 (Kaneohe, HI United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Young Cam Jansen and the Speedy Car Mystery (Mass Market Paperback)

This may not be a good book to read aloud to your kids as it sounds sort of odd given the reading level.

However, it is an excellent book for beginning readers. My kid loves Cam Jansen but is not quite at the readig level of the original series. She is so proud she can read this book and Cam Jansen was the hook that got her to read.