Broach, Elise. The Wolf Keepers.

Broach, Elise.  The Wolf Keepers.  Macmillan/Henry Holt        2016    343p    $16.99  ISBN 978-0-8050-9899-0     ms/jr   Mystery/Detective VG-BN

Lizzie loves growing up in the zoo where her father, Mike, is head zookeeper. She has direct access to all of the animals and the enclosures. She is especially focused on the wolves. She finds them entrancing, and she spends many an hour sitting by their enclosure just watching them. Her favorite is Lobo, the most majestic.
   

Tyler, a runaway, hides at the zoo and tries to steal food to survive. Lizzie befriends him and offers him food and a place to stay. Together they discover that wolves are getting sick and missing. Events more or less lead them to tracking the culprit. They also find that they are on their way to solving the mysterious legend of the location of John Muir’s cabin.
   

The author has packed a wealth of problems and situations into this novel. The characters are well developed and situations are effectively handled, such as Tyler’s runaway status.        

Summary: Lizzie Durango lives in a California wildlife park named after John Muir. When wolves start disappearing she starts to investigate. She makes friends with Tyler Briggs as they try to solve the disappearance and uncover the mysterious location of John Muir’s cabin.      

Wolves-Fiction                                                                                                           —Linda McNeil

Broach, Elise. Treasure on Superstition Mountain.

Broach, Elise.    Treasure on Superstition Mountain.  Holt  2012  280p  $15.99  ISBN 978-0-8050-7763-6        elm/ms      Mystery/Detective   E-BN     

It is only a few weeks after the end of the action that took place in the first title, Missing on Superstition Mountain, and the protagonists, the three Barker boys and Delilah, are diving headlong into more adventures.  While doing research in the library, they find a photograph of the first Julia Thomas, who looks strikingly like the current Julia Thomas, who is the librarian and president of the Historical Society.  The boys explore a nearby ghost town and recover the hotel ledger from it, which provides evidence that Julia Thomas visited the area just after the death of the discoverer of the mine.  Tradition says that she failed to find the entrance to the mine, even though she had directions.

When their parents plan a trip and Aunt Kathy comes to baby-sit the Barker Boys, they grab the opportunity to return to the mountain and look for themselves.  Delilah comes too, even with her leg in a walking cast.  The quartet is successful, but there is a lot of suspense along the way.

Well-written descriptions of the area and exciting, dangerous adventures fill this novel.  The rescue of the quartet each time they are in great danger seems a bit too easy, but readers will become involved in the adventures and the characters and overlook this problem.  Each of the four children has his or her own strengths and weaknesses, which means that they work very well together.

Both boys and girls will thoroughly enjoy the adventures of these four intrepid explorers.           

Adventure, Ghost towns-Fiction                                    --Joan Theal