Available:*
Library | Call Number | Status |
---|---|---|
Searching... Hardwood Creek Library (Forest Lake) | J FICTION PAU | Searching... Unknown |
Searching... Park Grove Library (Cottage Grove) | J FICTION PAU | Searching... Unknown |
Searching... Stillwater Public Library | J FICTION PAU | Searching... Unknown |
Bound With These Titles
On Order
Summary
Summary
Mudshark is the go-to guy for any mysteries that need solving. Lost your shoe? Can't find your homework? Ask Mudshark. That is, until the Psychic Parrot takes up residence in the school library and threatens to overturn Mudshark's position as the guy who knows all the answers. The word in school is that the parrot can out-think Mudshark. And right now, the school needs someone who's good at solving problems. There's an escaped gerbil running rampant, an emergency in the faculty restroom, and all the erasers are disappearing from the classrooms.
When Mudshark solves the mystery of who's stealing the erasers, he discovers the culprit has the best of intentions. Now he has to think of a way to prevent the Psychic Parrot from revealing the eraser-thief's identity. With a bit of misdirection and a lot of quick thinking, Mudshark restores order to the chaos . . . just for the moment.
Author Notes
Gary Paulsen was born on May 17, 1939 in Minnesota. He was working as a satellite technician for an aerospace firm in California when he realized he wanted to be a writer. He left his job and spent the next year in Hollywood as a magazine proofreader. His first book, Special War, was published in 1966. He has written more than 175 books for young adults including Brian's Winter, Winterkill, Harris and Me, Woodsong, Winterdance, The Transall Saga, Soldier's Heart, This Side of Wild, and Guts: The True Stories Behind Hatchet and the Brian Books. Hatchet, Dogsong, and The Winter Room are Newbery Honor Books. He was the recipient of the 1997 Margaret A. Edwards Award for his lifetime achievement in writing for young adults.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (5)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Without even trying, Mudshark is a very cool 12-year-old (he acquired his nickname after wowing his peers with lightning-speed reflexes during a game of Death Ball ("a kind of soccer mixed with football and wrestling and rugby and mudfighting"). He is mentally quick as well: his powers of observation and photographic memory enable him to tell kids where to find misplaced possessions. But when the school librarian acquires an apparently psychic parrot, Mudshark's role is threatened. This, he reluctantly admits, "rattled his cool," and he is determined to discover the whereabouts of the missing blackboard erasers before the parrot does, a feat that entails crafty and comical maneuverings. Additional diversions (chapters open with dispatches from the principal, offering updates on a loose gerbil and an escalating crisis in the faculty restroom) keep this compact story quick and light. Yet three-time Newbery Honor author Paulsen (Hatchet) delves deeper, shaping Mudshark as a credible and compassionate protagonist, despite his improbable abilities and the even more improbable situations that arise at his off-kilter school. Which makes this clever novel all the cooler. Ages 8-12. (May) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Horn Book Review
Lyle, nicknamed "Mudshark" for his rapid reflexes, is a careful observer and astute problem-solver--the "go-to guy" for trouble. He faces competition after a hyper-vigilant parrot moves into the school library. When chalkboard erasers start disappearing en masse, it's up to Mudshark to solve the mystery before the bird does. Sharp humor and quirky characters will keep readers entertained. (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted. All rights reserved.
Booklist Review
In this very short grade-school mystery, Paulsen introduces readers to Mudshark (real name Lyle Williams), a student with astonishing powers of observation, an iron-clad memory, and an ice-cool demeanor. Whenever something goes missing, Mudshark's the guy to find it. So when all the erasers disappear from the classrooms, the principal enlists Mudshark to uncover the culprit. Paulsen weaves in a wide cast of humorous characters, including an art-aficionado custodian and a psychic parrot who seems to be muscling in on Mudshark's beat. Paulsen's deft hand with detailing and sometimes-light, sometimes-heavy touches of humor draw the story along more than the mystery, as readers might arrive at the solution before they really realize what they're supposed to be on the lookout for. But Paulsen makes it a fun, if slight, ride all the same, and it's always refreshing to see a character that is legitimately cool because he's smart. Give this to readers who aren't quite ready for the adventures of the like-minded Calder from Blue Balliett's novels.--Chipman, Ian Copyright 2009 Booklist
School Library Journal Review
Gr 3-6-Twelve-year-old sports phenom Lyle Williams is known as Mudshark to his classmates. His amazing powers of observation have led to his reputation as the first person to turn to if one has lost something. Mudshark is much like Sherlock Holmes-he notices details no one else does, has a prodigious memory, and always solves the crime. There is a mystery of sorts in this brief tale-erasers are missing from classrooms-but it is more a humorous slice-of-life that many listeners will enjoy. Mudshark is challenged by a parrot that resides in the school library and seems to be even better at solving problems. Narrator Tasso Feldman has a great capacity for making each character in Gary Paulsen's entertaining novel (Wendy Lamb Bks., 2009) distinct. He does a super job of conveying Mudshark's cool elan while playing up the many humorous moments. Mudshark's frustration over solving the mystery of how the Psychic Parrot knows what he does is deftly presented. The school principal's increasingly absurd morning broadcasts that introduce each chapter, delivered in a completely deadpan tone, are worth the price of recording alone. Feldman never overplays the humor, even though it becomes absurd at points. Hand this one to kids who want a fast, funny read about a boy who is both intelligent and cool.-B. Allison Gray, Santa Barbara Public Library System, CA (c) Copyright 2012. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Kirkus Review
Paulsen's peppy, lightweight new classroom comedy about a super-sharp kid is meant to amuse, and it does. Set in a slightly surreal school populated by a host of idiosyncratic but identifiable character types, the story, told in the third person, revolves around the ever resourceful Mudshark, a boy blessed with perfect recall, lightning-fast reflexes and a good heart. Because of these attributes, everyone at school depends on Mudshark's whizzy brain until the librarian gets an all-seeing (and unfortunately always belching) parrot. Will the parrot eclipse Mudshark as school detective? Not the most profound question in the universe perhaps, but one that boys should delight in. The funniest part of the story is the principal's announcements ordering the superintendant to report to the faculty restroom with an increasingly dire list of equipment that runs from large stick to Geiger counter, and the most touching is the super's meditation on the impermanence of thought. Add in the mystery of the missing erasers, a bored cat and a course of aversion therapy, and it equals fun. (Fiction. 8-12) Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Excerpts
Excerpts
This is the principal. Would the custodian please report to the faculty restroom with a plunger . . . no, wait . . . a shovel and a plunger? And has anybody seen the gerbil from room two oh six? The Mudshark was cool. Not because he said he was cool or knew he was or thought it. Not because he tried or even cared. He just was. Kind of tall, kind of thin, with a long face, brown eyes and hair and a quick smile that jumped out and went back. When he walked down a hall he didn't just walk, he seemed to move as a part of the hall. He'd suddenly appear out of nowhere, as if he'dalways been there. Wasn't there. Then there. His real name was Lyle Williams and for most of his twelve-year-old life people had just called him Lyle. But one day, when he'd been playing Death Ball--a kind of soccer mixed with football and wrestling and rugby and mudfighting, a citywide, generations-old obsession that had been banned from school property because of, according to the principal, CertainInsurance Restrictions and Prohibitions Owing to Alarming Health Risks Stemming from the Inhalation and Ingestion of Copious Amounts of Mud--he'd been tripped. Everyone thought he was down for the count, flat on his back, covered in mud. Just then, a runner-kicker-wrestler-mudfightercame too close to him, streaking downfield with the ball, and one of Lyle's hands snaked out and caught the runner by an ankle. "So fast, it was like a mudshark," Billy Crisper said later. He always watched the animal channel. "Mudsharks lie in the mud and when something comes by, they grab it so fast that even high-speed cameras can't catch it. I didn't even see his hand move,I didn't see so much as a blur." After that game, no one called him Lyle. Mudshark's agility had been honed at home, courtesy of his triplet baby sisters--Kara, Sara and Tara. Once they started crawling, his father said that all heck broke loose, because nothing moves faster than a tiny, determined toddler heading toward a breakableor swallowable object. If Mudshark had only had one little sister or maybe even two, his reflexes wouldn't have been so keen, but living under the same roof as three mobile units at one time had increased his range of motion and speed exponentially. One night after dinner when they were about seven months old, the babies had been placed on a blanket on the floor and were playing with soft toys. Mudshark was doing his homework at the desk in the corner of the family room and his parents were watchingthe news and, frankly, dozing on the couch. Out of the corner of his eye, Mudshark saw a pink flash. His head whipped around. Two babies were sitting on the blanket, looking toward the door to the hallway. Two, but not three. His parents were half asleep and he didn't want to disturb them. As he leapt silently to his feet and took a step toward the door,he saw two pink streaks darting past him in the same direction. Mudshark reached out and grabbed both babies by the back of their overalls as they crawled after their more adventurous sister. He scooped them up and tucked one under each arm in one fell swoop,heading out of the room toward the rogue baby. Down the hall toward the kitchen, he saw a little rosebud-covered bottom (a quick glance at the faces he had clutched under his arms told him that Tara had made the first break) rounding the corner to the guest room. He took long strides toward her, Karaand Sara cooing at the jouncy ride. When he got to the guest room, he stared down at Tara, who had found one of the dog's squeezy toys and was happily gumming it (EEY-ah, EEY-ah . . . ). Three babies, two arms. He shifted the two girls he was holding to his left side, sliding his arm through their overall straps as if he were slinging a backpack over his forearm. They hung there, gurgling, while he bent over and plucked Tara off the floor. Mudshark and his wriggling crew returned to the family room, where his parents slept peacefully, unaware that the triplets had discovered mobility. From that moment on, Mudshark did everything he could to anticipate their moves and keep them out of trouble. He stood guard between the triplets and electrical outlets (there had been a close call with Tara, a Barbie doll and a surge protector), the dogbowl (Sara was especially fond of kibble) and the cat box (Mudshark made a flying leap across the room the first time he saw Kara sitting next to the litter box, reaching a small hand toward the mysterious clumps she saw. He snatched her up before she connected). Yes, he owed his speed and attentionto detail to Kara, Sara and Tara. But the way he moved wasn't why Mudshark was cool. And it wasn't his clothes. Sometimes his outfit fit in with the way everybody else dressed and sometimes it didn't. Once, he wore a green wool sweater that had a yellow leather diamond stamped with the head of a poodle in the middle of the chest. It wasas ugly as broken teeth chewing rotten meat, but by the end of the day everybody in school wished they had a green wool sweater with a yellow leather diamond and a poodle on it, too. That's how cool Mudshark was. It didn't matter to Mudshark what they called him or that he wasn't allowed to play Death Ball anymore because of how badly he'd frightened the other players with his fast moves (Death Ball was not known to require cunning or quickness, just the bruteforce and raw grit necessary to last the four quarters of, as parents and other adults shudderingly referred to it, That Game). Mudshark knew cool wasn't in how you moved or a name or clothes or whether or not you were asked to play on anyone's team. It was all in the way your thoughts ran through your mind, the way you managed the flow of electrical charges jumping from one brain cell to another to form ideas. That's what makes somebody who they are. And that's why Mudshark was so cool. He thought. While everyone else was hanging out or goofing off or playing video games or listening to music or watching TV or walking down the hallway in a funk or texting each other or surfing the Net, he was observing the people and objects and sights and scenesaround him. Thinking. Once, when he was just five and a half years old, he went up to his mother and said: "Mom, I think all the time." "About what?" "Everything." Deep breath, let it out, sigh. "What are you thinking about right now?" "Fingernails grow exactly four times faster than toenails, but it's not like we need toenails because we don't even use them for scratching and did you know that an octopus doesn't even have toenails . . ." He sighed again, and as he turned to walk away,he said, "It makes a man think." He also read all the time. His mother was the lead research coordinator at the public library, and from the time he was very tiny, she'd brought him to work with her, setting him on the floor behind her desk with a stack of books she'd absentmindedly pulledfrom the nearest shelf--never picture books or easy readers, but books on astronomy and astrophysics and the history of democracy and the rise and fall of ancient civilizations. He'd learned to read before he went to kindergarten and was always carrying twoor three books with him. He only had to read a page once to be able to quote from it word for word. As he grew older, his memory became better because of the way he learned to pay attention to every sight, smell, taste and sound every minute of every day. As with any skill, practice made him more proficient, and over time, he'd developed a nearly photographicmemory. Eventually people noticed his knack for quoting obscure facts and remembering tiny details, and when a kid at school had a question or problem, someone would say "Ask Mudshark." "Hey, Mudshark," Markie McCorkin said, "I lost my homework!" And Mudshark remembered him sitting by the steps in front of the school where two small kids had been playing with a ball, a yellow ball, that they'd thrown in the bushes back of where Markie sat. One of them had accidentally kicked Markie's orange folderso that his homework papers, held together with a red paper clip, fell out of the folder while he was telling Todd DeClouet about the new tires on his bicycle and how well they gripped in dirt, although not as well as he'd thought they might. And Markie ran to the front bushes and sure enough, his homework was there. Exactly where Mudshark had said it would be. Excerpted from Mudshark by Gary Paulsen All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.