Book Review: Murder at the PTA (Maya and Sandra Mystery, #1) by Lee Hollis

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Murder at the PTA (Maya and Sandra Mystery, #1) by Lee Hollis is the first installment in the Maya and Sandra Mystery series, a cozy mystery series centered on private investigators. The story follows Sandra Wallage , the wife of a U.S. senator and the newly elected president of Portland High School’s PTA, who becomes the latest target of a vicious gossip website called Dirty Laundry . After a heated PTA meeting, Sandra crosses paths with Maya Kendrick , a private investigator who has uncovered the identity of the person behind the gossip site. When the two women attempt to confront the culprit, they instead discover a dead body. Was it really a suicide, or did someone have a motive for murder? I’m a longtime fan of books by Lee Hollis , which is actually the pen name for sibling writing duo Rick Copp and Holly Simason . They’ve written several cozy mystery series, and what I appreciate most about their books is that they aren’t overly kitschy, unlike some other cozy mysteries I’ve ...
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Book Review: Teamwork (Sweet Valley Twins, # 27) Created by Francine Pascal

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sweet valley twins # 27Teamwork (Sweet Valley Twins, # 27) created by Francine Pascal is a story about twin sisters, Jessica and Elizabeth Wakefield, deciding they want to visit their great aunt, but their parents decide that the girls need to learn a lesson about money and earning the bus fares themselves. Determined to show their parents that they know the value of money and being responsible, they decide to start their own dog walking business, which quickly expands to dog sitting. Taking on a second client for dog sitting, the girls and their friend, Ken Matthews, quickly learn that the dog has been abused and take matters into their own hands to keep him safe.

Sweet Valley Twins is the series that made me an avid reader, and now, that I'm rereading the series as an adult, I love the fact that it teaches kids valuable lessons about serious issues and how to deal with them as a kid. I know some adults might say that Teamwork glossed over the issue of animal abuse, but we have to keep in mind that the target age group of the book series are for kids between the ages of eight and twelve, so you can't go into too much detail about the issue so as to not upset or scars kids for the rest of their lives.

Why didn't the girls and Ken just tell Mr. and Mrs. Wakefield that they thought the dog named Joe was being abused? Well, the girls had been told by their parents that they needed to handle things themselves and not to come to them with complaints, so Jessica and Elizabeth took that as they couldn't come to their parents with such a serious concern because they didn't want to be seen as irresponsible. I actually think that many kids would have done the same thing . . . However, as a kid, I would've immediately gone to my parents if I thought someone was abusing an animal. 

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