Stanley & Hazel

Gr 8 Up—In the midst of the Great Depression in St. Louis, two teens from very different socioeconomic backgrounds meet by happenstance. Hazel Malloy is a debutant, a "swell." She lives on Lindell Street where the Great Depression has hardly had an effect. Hazel begins to question her grandiose lifestyle as she becomes more aware of those struggling to make ends meet. Stanley is an Irish-Catholic newsie who lives in the poor neighborhood of Dogtown. He is leader of the Knights, a gang that "robs" garbage cans on Lindell Street to feed the poor. The night the two teens meet, they stumble across the body of a murder victim. At the crime scene, they find a baseball bat and a sequence of numbers on the victim's arm. Something doesn't add up and the police seem to be covering up pieces of evidence. Hazel and Stanley decide it is up to them to solve the murder while uncovering an even bigger scandal involving the city's wealthy elite. This historical novel is a well-crafted murder mystery with strong characters and the author's uses 1920s dialogue like "bananas," "his goose was cooked," and "dollface" to take readers back in time. The story line is slightly slow paced but it still entices readers to solve the mystery alongside the main characters.