Hostage Paperback - 2001

First line

I'm the kind of person who loves being thrilled by a scary book or movie.

From the jacket flap

Kaci enjoys reading mysteries and adventure stories as long as there are other family members around and especially when she has a big bowl of popcorn nearby. Sometimes, though, she longs for a little excitement and wonders what it would be like to have a real adventure.

Kaci is feeling this way at the time her family moves to a house in a new development that is supposed to be safer than their old neighborhood. She likes everything about the new place except the nosy neighbor next door, Mrs. Banducci. She's a pain, always asking too many questions. She's around the morning Kaci comes home from school to get special medicine for her allergy attack, and her questions are about the deliveries made that morning to Kaci's house. What were they? Kaci doesn't know. She also doesn't know, when she gets to her front door, why it is open. No one is supposed to be home.

Although she doesn't realize it right then, this is the start of Kaci's big adventure. The new development, it turns out, is not so safe after all. A neighborhood where Mrs. Banducci is probably the only person home all day is ideal for thieves who want to break in and steal -- thieves who don't care what they do to you when they find you in a house where they don't expect you to be. Kaci's adventure is one that can even make her value Mrs. Banducci.

Once again Willo Davis Roberts has created an adventure story that leaves you breathless, yet makes you feel it could happen down the street, next door, or even to you.

Media reviews

Citations

• Ingram Children's Advance, 07/01/2001, Page 53