Treasure Hunters – All-American Adventure

All-American Adventure, the sixth Treasure Hunters book from James Patterson and Chris Grabenstein, is a fast, jokey read for 9 year olds about four bored children and the great-uncle who's supposed to be keeping them out of trouble.

What happens

It starts in the dark, in a museum, with an elephant looming behind them. The Kidd children are racing through the Smithsonian in Washington long after closing time. They've got fifteen minutes to reach the Hope Diamond and somebody is on their tail.

Then Dad steps out of the shadows with a stopwatch. It was a pretend hunt, and Beck calls it the lamest one ever.

That's the problem. The Kidds usually live on a boat and chase real treasure. Now Mum and Dad are stuck in the city for weeks, building a museum exhibit about the family's last adventure, and the children have nothing to do.

They do try. A riddle leads them to a tiny copy of the Washington Monument hidden under a manhole cover (Storm knows its official name, of course). It ends with a ride in the back of a police car.

So Mum rings her Uncle Richie. He quotes Teddy Roosevelt, shouts "Bully!" at everything and has just lost at cards again. He's also about to go looking for a Spanish pearl ship that's supposed to be lying somewhere in the Californian desert.

Would you let him babysit? Mum and Dad do, and soon all four children are up in his rattly old plane, which he won in a card game.

Bick is very funny about his family. Storm knows everything and says so, Tommy is in love by chapter seven and the twins have shouting matches that fizzle out in seconds.

There's a nice thread about Uncle Richie too. A snooty professor and his friends laugh at him in the street, and the twins are furious on his behalf.

Two small things. Storm loves a gory fact, so the Hope Diamond's curse comes with a man mauled by wild dogs and a queen losing her head. The history is all American too, and the presidents and monuments may need explaining to a British reader.

It also begins by telling you how book five, Quest for the City of Gold, turned out. Read that one first if you can.

What to read next

Capture the Flag would make a good follow-up. That begins in the Smithsonian too, in the history museum next door. Somebody steals the flag that inspired The Star-Spangled Banner, and three children stuck at a snowed-in airport find out their families share a secret.