The Last Last-Day-of-Summer by Lamar Giles

The Last Last-Day-of-Summer by Lamar Giles
Art by Dapo Adeola
Rec Ages 8-13
304 Pages

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It is the last Monday in August. School is about to start and cousins Otto and Sheed are determined to do something special on this, the last day of summer. Adventure finds them as a photo taken with a camera from a mysterious stranger puts the entire town in a time freeze. These two resourceful tweens set out to make things right with the help of some out of ordinary, not to mention extraordinary, characters they meet along the way.

This story is the weird and clever of Gravity Falls meets Phineas & Ferb. These “Legendary Alston Boys of Logan County” are known for solving the wacky and bizarre all over their strange county. Just that summer they had battled laughing locusts and banshees. In fact, the cousins have been awarded the key to the city twice. They follow the peculiar and unknown with a notebook of clues and list of kooky numbered maneuvers that range from distracting Grandma to Jumping the Creek.

The illustrations in this middle-grade book pull the reader in and keep up with the fast pace of the story. While there is a mystery to solve and plenty of physics busting, time-twisting science fiction- with a touch of fantasy- fun to go around, this is also a story about relationships and choices that people make along the way that could have lasting consequences in the real world.  With bikes, robots, and arch-rivals turned allies, this is the perfect summer read and will fit nicely into any 4-7 grade library.