#peter lerangis

[anneofteenfables]

The Sword Thief ⚔

39 Clues

[killian-whump]

Just saw the most relatable answer in a Q&A with Peter Lerangis about his Point Horror novels from the 90s...

Q: How do you think you would react if you experienced any of the occurrences or goings on in [your books]?

A: I’d move immediately and seek professional help.

[zhezhy]

I recently read the "Seven Wonders" books by Peter Lerangis. Marco makes me laugh all the time, he's funny!

[sawthefaeriequeen]

 The thing about Peter Lerangis’s ghostwritten Baby-Sitters Club books is that he was the only male writer, and he was very ‘boys will be boys' about it. Not in the misogynistic way but in the madcap “oh well, this might as well happen” way. Helicopter crashes? Iddy hurricane evacuations? Getting stranded in the badlands? Mallory related to Shakespeare? Stacey finds ashes of a WW2 veteran in her suitcase? These were all plots in BSC books by him and they were bonkers and it was great.

(And then you hit the California Diaries spinoff and he channels all that craziness into writing intense teen drama and…it works. It works remarkably well. A man of many hats, Peter.)

[rainbow-flavoured-skittles]

"Normal is the enemy of interesting"

-Jack McKinley, The Curse of the King

[thelightfluxtastic]

I was hoping to find some nostalgia fandom for the Spy X series (the scholastic kids books) but it's all completely buried in Spy X Family stuff

[kpopandbookschild]

Book poll round 1 #11

yes ik theres a lot of these but i can only put twelve on each

[havewereadthis]

"Trying to get the hang of becoming a better driver, Kirsten gratefully accepts Rob's offer of help, but when Rob disappears after their first lesson, Kirsten begins to realize that the driver's ed class may be more than she bargained for..."

[sparkbirdmusic]

sparkbird, age 15ish

I SPY:

- massive garfield collection

- the tip of a giant yellow crayon bank

- american flag but also a british columbia flag

- filing cabinet

- photo of me and gavin creel

- smiley face lamp

- krispy kreme hat

- ceramic nun

- garfield alarm clock

- pikachu

- some kind of page-a-day calendar (probably garfield)

lemme see what books I can ID…

- several by diana wynne jones (the dalemark quartet and dogsbody were my faves)

- cirque du freak series (vampire books)

- anne of green gables series

- replica series by marilyn kaye (clone books)

- watchers series by peter lerangis (also his antarctica duology but I found those tedious)

- several by karen hesse (I loved out of the dust)

- goose chase!!! by patrice kindl (fairy tale retelling, LOVED it at the time, I think it’s out of print now)

- holes (which I never actually read bc it was such a boy book)

- I thiiiink I see the deltora quest series

[barbielore]

As with almost all pieces of media with a sizable fanbase, there are those Baby-Sitters Club fans who interpret certain BSC characters as part of the LGBT+ community.

Kristy Thomas is often at the top of this list. She is persistently described as a sporty tomboy, who feels more comfortable in jeans and baseball caps than in skirts and dresses. She is an avid softball player and coaches a softball team of local children who aren't able to join Little League. The stereotypes are leaping off the page.

In the book canon, Kristy is loosely romantically linked with two boys: Alan Gray, with whom she goes to a school dance in Claudia and the Phantom Phone Calls and Bart Thomas who she first meets in Kristy and the Walking Disaster and has a quasi-romantic relationship with over the course of the series. This culminates in Kristy + Bart = ?, where Kristy and Bart face the nature of their relationship head on. Notably, though in this book they explore kissing, by the end of the book Kristy chooses to end their relationship, concluding that she is not ready for or interested in having a "boyfriend" at this time.

Her relationships with other girls have been noted by some fans as carrying some subtext as well. She becomes deeply jealous of Mary Anne forming close friendships with other girls, such as with Dawn Schafer most notably in Dawn and the Impossible Three. In fact, she goes to a school dance in Claudia Kishi, Middle School Dropout wearing a matching costume with Mary Anne: Little Red Riding Hood and the Big Bad Wolf. That's a couples costume if I've ever heard of one, girls.

In the California Diaries spinoff, many people have pointed out that Ducky reads as queercoded. He is described as "sensitive" and, though he kisses Sunny, reflects on the fact that he felt nothing when doing so. Ghostwriter Peter Lerangis confirmed on Twitter that Ducky was intended to be read as gay.

The Netflix series that debuted in 2020 actually featured canonical, unambiguous LGBT+ characters for the first time. For example, Charlotte Johansson's parents are both depicted as women, unlike in the books where Charlotte has both a mother and a father. Dawn's father is also described as gay and her parents' divorce is attributed to this. The episode "Mary Anne Saves the Day", loosely based on the book of the same name, features a trans-fem child named Bailey instead of the book's Jenny Prezzioso, and Mary Anne's big moment of responsibility is stepping up and correcting medical staff who are misgendering her.

Claudia's older sister, Janine, comes out to Claudia as a lesbian in the season 2 episode "Claudia and the Sad Goodbye", revealing that she is in a relationship with Ashley Wyeth, first introduced earlier in the season in "Claudia and the New Girl". But possibly the most notable is that Dawn herself gives a speech to Mary Anne about romance where she says that she does not assign a label to herself but that she can see herself falling for someone of any gender.

And why not? Ann M Martin, the creator of the series and writer of a number of the books (though she outsourced many to ghostwriters of course) revealed in 2016 that she spent many years in a relationship with a woman - former co-writer Laura Godwin.

[wanderingmind867]

Okay, I didn't get through my whole bookshelf yet. And it's annoying having to search through my bedroom for all my books. So let's try to make this a lightning round, listing all the books I saw in my room (specifically, all the novels i know i read):

The Guardians of Childhood by William Joyce (These were the books that first made me love reading, I think. The first novels I ever read, in Grade 1 or 2. They were turned into that movie, Rise of The Guardians. But the movie came out before he was done with the books, and the books took forever to come out. He finally finished them recently, but now I feel like it's too late. Also, I didn't like the summary when I looked it up).

Alice in Wonderland (This book is amazing. Lewis Carroll is a genius. I have a whole massive book full of his works. It's too big to bring it to school, but I've read Alice in Wonderland many times. Genius book. Fun and clever and not at all depressing. I never really got into the sequel, Through the Looking Glass, as much. But I still like Lewis Carroll. He's also a great poet.)

Sherlock Holmes (Somehow, I ended up buying a big book of Sherlock Holmes stories at a library clearance sale or something years ago. It's now too old to feel safe reading it again, but I liked it. The short stories with Sherlock Holmes were the best. Arthur Conan Doyle is one of the few mystery writers I know I like. Although the full length novel didn't hold my attention nearly as well as the short stories did. I guess I couldn't handle a full novel of detective stuff?).

Roald Dahl's books (I read most of these, including the one where he wrote about his childhood. The only one of his children's books I skipped was the one about his war service. It was boring to me. But his books were pretty good. A bit creepy and weird in some spots, but never enough to scare me into dread the way many other things do. Also, I don't want to read his adult stuff. In elementary school I had to read a crime story he wrote. It was dark and weird, and it made me uncomfortable. So he's a complicated writer).

The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel (This series. God, this series. I started out really liking it. Historical figures, magic, mythology? It was amazing. But the ending. God, that ending. Time travel, time loops, immortality and more. It just became too confusing for me. I couldn't stand that last book. I did like how the book introduced me to Niccolo Machiavelli and Billy the Kid and other historical figures, though. I just really, really hated that ending).

The Seven Wonders series by Peter Lerangis (I barely remember these books. I don't think I actually ended up loving their ending, but I did somehow sit through them. So that was probably a deep disappointment to my younger self).

Fine. I have to stop again. Turns out I have at least four more book series. So I'll make a third part, then i'll probably be too burnt out to mske any more posts for an hour or two. But to think, I started making these posts hoping I could eventually use them to ask for suggestions for books for my Christmas List. But I guess that'll have to wait. sigh...

[anneofteenfables]

The Sword Thief

Title: The Sword Thief 

Author: Peter Lerangis

Genre: Mystery

Length: 4 hours

Summary: 

Amy and Dan Cahill have been located once again, this time in the company of the notoriously unreliable Alistair Oh. Could they have been foolish enough to make an alliance?

Spies report that Amy and Dan seem to be tracking the life of one of the most powerful fighters the world has ever known. If this fearsome warrior was a Cahill, his secrets are sure to be well-guarded... and the price to uncover them just might be lethal.

Review:

Another 39 Clues book! I barely remembered any of this book other than the airport scene. I really enjoyed the ability to sort of read this book for the first time again. As with the rest of the 39 Clues books so far, I really liked reading this book! In all honesty, I read this book and started to write the review but then my life got busy, so it’s been a little while since I actually read this book. 

As per usual, I really enjoyed the adventure in this book and the motivation. Obviously, each character wants to find all 39 clues but in The Sword Thief, we learn more about individual motivations. I especially liked learning about Alistair Oh’s backstory. He’s not just the microwave burrito guy, his father was killed and he’s working toward revenge. I think it really humanizes certain characters and adds perspective outside of what Amy and Dan think of their competitors. It really adds more depth and helps create more of this world of the Cahill Family. There is also a lot more that Amy and Dan learn about the Cahill Family and the original siblings. Again, the fact that they don’t know their branch creates a logical opening for exposition. Obviously, the reader wants to learn more about the Cahill Family and branch systems and so do Amy and Dan. I heard someone refer to (bad) exposition as “pointing and staring” but I think the 39 Clues books smartly move away from that. Amy and Dan are being presented with a lot of information but it's not sight-seeing and a lot of times they have to figure it out on their own. Instead of one character taking them around and showing and telling them everything they need to know just because the reader needs to know these things too, the exposition and world building is logical. Amy and Dan have to learn these things because it’s part of the clue hunt, often it is how they find the clues. Even though Alistair tells them a lot about Thomas Cahill and the original four Cahill siblings, this is because it’s important to the clue. 

Speaking of Thomas Cahill, this brings me to a detail of the book that sort of bothered me. I know that the 39 Clues books involve a good dose of rewriting to history to make all of these historical figures tangentially related to the Cahill line and the clue hunt. However, in this book there is a pretty blatant change by making Thomas Cahill, a white Englishman, the father of Toyotomi Hideyoshi, a pretty iconic Japanese figure. I understand that not a lot is known about Hideyoshi’s early life and his family but it still felt a little bit like they were whitewashing history by changing this fact. I think perhaps they could’ve kept Thomas Cahill as having moved to Japan but maybe he could’ve been an influential figure or ally to Hideyoshi, not his actual father. Otherwise, I enjoyed the history of this book which went outside of the European realm that this series tends to stick to. I also appreciated that they included a bit of Korean history, especially since most media at this time would’ve just stuck to Japan or China.  All in all, I enjoyed this book. It felt a bit short but there was still plenty of action and world building. I think Alistair really got a lot of good development, you feel bad as you learn his motivation but you also don’t like him after he faked his death. (again?) I think The Sword Thief definitely suffers by being written by a different author. There’s an obvious tone difference, especially with Amy and Ian Kabra being romantically inclined. Still, I think the overall tone and ideas of the series as a whole still wins out. Hopefully, I won’t be too busy and can read and review another book soon!

Divider: @/cafekitsune

Header Paintings: Jiraiya Riding a Frog by Tsukioka Yoshitoshi + Comtesse de la Châtre by Èlisabeth Vigée Le Brun

[blacky-ermittelt]

Die drei Fragezeichen Folgen Tournament: Runde 1, Gruppe 8

Klappentexte der einzelnen Folgen sind unter dem Cut.

und der Doppelgänger

Sollte es ihn wahrhaftig geben, einen zweiten... Justus Jonas? Jan, der sich aus Angst vor hinterhältigen Gaunern auf dem Schrottplatz einquartiert hat, weiß nicht, daß er dadurch die drei ???, und vor allem sein Ebenbild Justus, in große Schwierigkeiten bringt. Gefahr und Chaos lauern auf Schritt und Tritt. Justus wird an Jans Stelle von den Männern geschnappt und eingesperrt. Rätselhafte Botschaften! Politische Intrigen über Länder und Kontinente! Lebensgefährliche Irrtümer! Ein Gegner, der sich beinahe in der abgeschirmten Zentrale der Nachwuchsdetektive einnistet! Aber Bob und Peter beweisen, daß sie auch ohne ihren Chef richtig und überlegt handeln können. Eine wilde Verfolgungsjagd beginnt, denn es geht um Minuten!

Der Mann ohne Kopf

`DJ-Devil´, von der Presse auch reißerisch `Satans-DJ´ genannt, scheint wahrlich über teuflische Fähigkeiten zu verfügen. Der geheimnisvolle Discjockey ohne Kopf entlockt am Wochenende seinem Mischpult die unheimlichsten Beats, die die tanzenden Besucher in rasende Euphorie versetzen. Doch plötzlich gerät die Szenerie außer Kontrolle. Die drei ??? sind an diesem Abend zufällige Besucher in der Diskothek `Planet-Evil´ und werden Zeugen eines unheimlichen Phänomens, das Justus an die Grenzen seiner Logik katapultiert...

Brainwash

Verschollen, gefunden, endlich veröffentlicht: Eine Geschichten aus dem Jahr 1989 von dem amerikanischen Die drei ???-Autor Peter Lerangis. Als in einer Woche gleich zwei Bekannte der drei ??? verschwinden, vermuten die Jungen, dass die Sekte SynRea dahinter stecken könnte. Um die Vermissten zurückzuholen, fliegen die drei Detektive nach New York und treten in einer Undercover-Aktion der Sekte bei. Schon bald stellt sich heraus, dass die vermissten Jugendlichen tatsächlich dort sind. Was jedoch als einfache Rückholaktion geplant war, entpuppt sich zunehmend als unlösbare Mission - denn die Mächte der SynRea-Gruppe scheinen auch von Justus, Peter und Bob Besitz zu ergreifen.

und die Automafia

Mit Autos kennt sich Justus' Vetter Ty Cassey einfach phantastisch aus. Ein bißchen zu gut, findet Kommissar Maxim vom Sonderdezernat Autodiebstähle und nimmt den verdächtigen jungen Mann vorläufig fest. Zugegeben, der geniale Mechaniker in den abgerissenen Klamotten, der die meiste Zeit durch die Gegend trampt, wirkt schon etwas ausgeflippt - aber ein Autodieb? Die drei ??? setzen alles dran, Tys Unschuld zu beweisen. Dabei bekommen sie es mit ausgekochten Profis zu tun, die vor nichts zurückschrecken.

Dopingmixer

Sport läßt Justus normalerweise kalt. Besonders, wenn er an einem neuen Fall arbeitet. Aber was er da auf dem Sportplatz der Highschool von Rocky Beach erlebt, macht ihn stutzig. Einer der Jungs, die mit Peter für das Sportfest trainieren, läuft sensationell schnell! Und kaum versuchen die drei ??? der Sache auf den Grund zu gehen, taucht der Sprinter unter. Opfer gewinnsüchtiger Manager oder selbst ein gewiefter Dopingbetrüger? Wer hat da seine Finger im Spiel?

[revisitingstoneybrook]

#44 Dawn and the Big Sleepover

Remember I said I'd start this weekend? I decided to start earlier so you get this a day early!

This is another one of my favorite BSC books but there's just so much stuff to make fun of in it.

So here's the cover, courtesy of BSC Wiki:

It's more orangey here but the color of the actual here is a really ugly shade of reddish orange that clashes with the pastel covers of the rest of the books.

Once again, Dawn's hair is not so blonde, it's almost white, though it does look pretty long. I guess a white turtleneck and Mom Jeans tucked into white push-down socks are now considered "California Casual." She's also wearing red nail polish, which always struck me as weird, because when does Dawn wear nail polish? She needs to work on it too, it looks like she did her nails in the dark.

I have no clue who any of the kids are. I assume the one with the reddish hair is Jackie Rodowsky but if it was him, that pillow would be exploding. Because, you know, he's a WALKING DISASTER.

That elementary school gym also looks like a dungeon. Look how dark it is!

This is one of the BSC books written by a ghostwriter. Yes, the majority of the BSC series was ghostwritten. You can tell because at the beginning of the book there's a note thanking someone for their help in preparing the manuscript. This one's by Peter Lerangis, who can be over the top, but I do like some things he does. Especially how he writes Claudia, he makes her really sassy.

Also, to make the tags easier to access, since that's how I catalog everything, should I include links in every post? I appreciate feedback!

[ashleybenlove]

Reading a Baby Sitters Club book from June 1992, Jessi's Gold Medal by Ann M. Martin (ghost written by Peter Lerangis) and Jessi's narration says of her dad: "He sounds sort of like James Earl Jones, the famous actor."

She has got to be talking about him in the context of Darth Vader because The Lion King isn't out yet (not for 2 years). Unless she's seen Coming to America but that's an R-rated movie and she's 11, so less likely.

[arconinternet]

Little Monsters: A Novelization (Book, Peter Lerangis aka A.L. Singer, 1989)

You can digitally borrow it here.

From the author of Worlds of Power: Blaster Master.