Sizzle & Splat

Comedy / mystery: Strange happenings in a youth orchestra

• Best Books of the Year (School Library Journal)
• A Library of Congress Children’s Book
• California Young Reader Medal nomination
• Excerpted in Macmillan and Macmillan U.K. reading programs

When the Pirelli Youth Orchestra’s rehearsal room is vandalized and the orchestra is warned not to play Hans Kleiman’s trumpet concerto at the fall concert, no one can figure out why. Then the orchestra’s sponsor is kidnapped, and his abductors say they will return him after the concert—providing the concerto is not played.

Sizzle—Prudence Szyznowski—the star trumpet player, and her buddy Splat—Arthur Hadley Reavis Pauling III—the weird and wisecracking tuba player, decide to investigate. Who is the most likely suspect? A rival conductor who doesn’t want the orchestra to draw a large audience? The concertmaster, angry that Kleiman composed a trumpet solo instead of a violin solo? Or does the mystery lie in a cryptogram to be solved during the concert intermission for a $500 prize? Time is running out. If the puzzle isn’t solved and the culprit caught, the orchestra will fold.

So Sizzle and Splat take to the road in Splat’s 1949 Packard Custom Eight, in pursuit of their suspects. Readers will enjoy following the exploits of these fresh young sleuths in this hilarious and unusual mystery.

“Kidd has a wry sense of humor that never lets up during this unusual case, and his main characters are delightful individualists. The result is a book that is all sizzle.”

School Library Journal (starred)

“A lively mystery-adventure with high entertainment value.”

Booklist

“Fast, flaky stuff sure to please a sophisticated, media-wise audience.”

Kirkus Reviews (starred)