Escape to California

Flat Stanley's Worldwide Adventures #12

by Josh Greenhut, Macky Pamintuan (Illustrations), Jeff Brown (Creator)

Flat Stanley is back to save the day in the twelfth exciting Worldwide Adventures chapter book, just in time to celebrate his fiftieth anniversary! This time, we follow Flat Stanley as he explores San Francisco, California. The Lambchops are on a family vacation to San Francisco. But when Stanley saves a girl from barreling down one of San Francisco's steep hills in her wheelchair, he's shocked to find that she's actually been looking for him. The girl, Lily, is trying to perform an amazing trick that no one has done before—escaping from Alcatraz prison—and she needs Stanley's help! Can the famous flat boy help in this sticky situation?

Not only will kids love going on a fun adventure with Stanley, this installment of the Worldwide Adventures series has fun, fascinating facts about San Francisco in the back of the book, and is perfect for Common Core State Standards, like multicultural adventure, plot and character development story elements, and compare and contrast.

Supports the Common Core State Standards

Genres: Fiction, Childrens, Juvenile

133 pages, Kindle Edition

First published August 15, 2014

Reviews

[Katherine I Like To Read A Gajillion Books At Once Claude · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm reading this for my students and the plotline is so extra, and the characters contradict themselves, it bothered me so much.

Lily and her family are unbelievably shady, and basically kidnap Stanley and use him for media attention. They have been planning this for a long time, and her father's JOB has even created a special suit for Stanley to help Lily. At one point Lily says, "aren't you tired of being invisible?" And proceeds to give Stanley this suit that makes him a chameleon so nobody will see him as he helps her escape from Alcatraz.
Not to mention the spying on him with their video equipment...using this as emotional leverage to get Stanley to do their bidding...
AND they use his fame to get connections with Hollywood so that Lily can have media coverage as she escapes from Alcatraz. All the while, barely giving Stanley enough information. Every time they full fill a plan, Stanley and his father go along, but in reality are simply being exploited for Stanley's fame ...and his.. flatness(which helps with the escape). Not once does Lily seem interested in Stanley as a friend...
These character motives KILL me. Such a strange book.

[Alexandra Chauran · Rating 3 out of 5]

Cute. It's nice that this book involved a girl in a wheelchair, but this one didn't capture my kids' attention like the other FS books. After this one was done my daughter asked about the plot points she just heard as if she hadn't heard them at all, which is unusual for her. They still want more though.

[Heather · Rating 1 out of 5]

1.5 stars
The facts at the end were the best part of the book.

[Megan · Rating 5 out of 5]

a favorite series of my 7 year old

[Sharie · Rating 3 out of 5]

adventuresome early chapter

[Victoria Hall · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great

[Yvonne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cute story and I love that they added a character in a wheel chair who is AMAZING and has the big dreams and the big adventures.

[Fenco Chen]

Lexile®: 690L, 7327W, 70%, 6y4m

[Amber · Rating 3 out of 5]

Kids love when I read this series aloud. This one has been the best of them all so far.

[Kristi Drake · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love 😍 this series.

[Sheila · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fun book

My grandson and I loved reading this book. We especially loved the fun facts at the end of the book.

[Kc · Rating 5 out of 5]

52 mins

[Tisha · Rating 2 out of 5]

The craziest adventure so far. I didn't like how shady the girl trying to get Stanley to help her was. I didn't really like her or her dad.

[Alissa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great disability positivity message