Cottonwood Summer'45

Cottonwood SUMMER '45 Gary Slaughter Fletcher House June 2012 Jase Addison and Danny Tucker are best friends, or heroes, as most of the town calls them. Having spent most of their 11 years on earth sniffing out and conquering adventures, they have gained quite a name for themselves. And the summer of '45 is no exception. Living in Riverton Michigan, home of one of the wars POW camps, this young sleuthing pair found it almost impossible to stay away from detective work were so obviously destined for. Being taken hostage by a disgruntled POW and forced to co-pilot a stolen plane, discovering a soldier gone AWOL, and joining the police force in a seemingly dead-end robbery case, are only a few of the exciting feats this pair finds their selves mixed up in this summer. And that's just in Michigan. When a friend invites them for a 10 day stay in Nashville Tennessee, their only plans were to have fun, they were not expecting their detective skills and illustrious names to follow them on vacation. They had barely left on the train station when their new adventures began and they follow them into Nashville, they suddenly find they now have to balance their time between site-seeing and visiting the new southern friends they have made, due to their heroic acts upon their first days of arrival. Banding together and taking in every experience with relish and excitement, these boys, yet again, find themselves right where they love most to be, in the heart of the action! This was the first book I have read in the Cottonwood series. I feel the author did a great job making this book read as a stand-alone book. He also does a great job in including lots of interesting history. I especially enjoyed it in this one, as I currently live in Nashville, and learned quite a few new things. I had a little bit of a hard time with how the history was placed in the book, as I am used to reading the history weaved into the fiction story. In this book, it seemed a little disconnected at times, but as I have never read his other books, I may just not be familiar with his writing style. I also wasn't aware that this was really written in the style of a youth or young adult book. And so at first I was a little bored with the urealistic adventures in the story. I think now, understanding both of those things, I would be able to enjoy the rest of his books. And while I think these books are enjoyable to adults, I think a younger crowd would really love this. I know my children will, once they are old enough to read.