The Missing Manatee - Hardcover

Cynthia DeFelice is the author of many bestselling books for young readers, including The Ghost of Fossil Glen, Wild Life, Signal, and Weasel. Her books have been nominated for an Edgar Allen Poe Award and listed as American Library Association Notable Children's Books and Bank Street Best Children's Book of the Year, among numerous other honors. She lives in upstate New York.

Grade 5-7–It's spring vacation, and Skeet Waters, 11, wants to spend his time fishing in his boat just off the coast of his Florida home. Instead, his day begins with him overhearing his mother telling his father to move out for good. Things go from bad to worse when Skeet finds a manatee floating in the water, dead from a gunshot wound. He goes back to shore to get the sheriff, and when they return to the spot, the animal is gone. The boy makes finding the missing body and bringing the killer to justice his mission. Meanwhile, his father's buddy, Dirty Dan, takes Skeet out fishing for tarpon and drinks Jack Daniels all day. When Skeet discovers a gun in a storage bin, he begins to suspect that Dan is the culprit and confronts him. The man confesses that his special-needs son accidentally shot the animal. DeFelice offers a realistic adventure story that is fast paced and full of drama. Skeet faces many difficult problems throughout the book, each with serious consequences, and his first-person narrative rings true. The characters are multifaceted and well developed, and the story should prompt readers to think about cause and effect.–Alison Grant, West Bloomfield Township Public Library, MI
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