The Case of the Prank that Stank

Wright & Wong #1

by Laura J. Burns, Melinda Metz

Seventh-graders Agatha Wong and Orville Wright, who has Asperger's syndrome, try to prove that the prank they organized did not cause the fire that burned down their rival school's field house.

Genres: Mystery

192 pages, Paperback

First published April 21, 2005

About the author

Laura J. Burns has written more than thirty books for kids and teens, touching on topics from imaginary lake monsters to out-of-control Hollywood starlets. (Those two things have more in common than you'd think.)

With Melinda Metz, she has also written for the TV shows ROSWELL, 1-800-MISSING, and THE DEAD ZONE. Their next book is THE LOST MAP OF CHAOS, coming in 2018!

Laura lives in New York with her husband, her kids, and her exceptionally silly dogs.

Reviews

[Jennie · Rating 3 out of 5]

It’s the big football game against Lake Placid and the cool kids have a great idea for a prank. Even better, they need Agatha and Orville’s help. Well, they need Orville’s amazing skills with science and mechanics to make a fire-breathing lake monster. They have it all figured out, but when the big time comes, the field house explodes and the football field catches on fire! Everyone blames Orville for miscalculating the distance of the fire. Worse, everyone blames Orville and Agatha for the fact that everyone on the prank committee has a month of detention and all sports have been cancelled–not just for the season, but forever! Agatha was so excited to be accepted by the cool kids, and now she and Orville are social outcasts. Plus, Lake Placid is the rich town, Bottomless Lake is relativly poor. They've always been nasty rivals, and this has just made things worse. Agatha and Orville know it wasn’t the prank that caused the fire–Orville’s calculations are never, ever wrong. The timing was just a coincidence–or someone is framing them! Can Agatha and Orville figure out who really set the fire? Will anyone ever speak with them again?

[carrietracy · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is nothing incredible or fascinating. It is a perfectly adequate middle grades mystery. The writing doesn't impress, but the story and characters are on a par with a million other series books that are available. The difference is, this book has a main character with Asperger's Syndrome. It's handled well, and it's really nice to have a book that is in no way an issues book that features a character with Asperger's. You would have little problem selling this to any 4th grader who likes generic mystery series books and they might learn something along the way.

[The Third Place A Teen Library]

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