Fun Reads Friday: Research ‘The Man With The Plan’ for Crazy Operations

One of the best things about writing middle grade novels is research. I don’t mean like the boring research papers assigned in school when I had to dig out dry, dusty books that smelled like Aunt Mildred’s house (we didn’t have Google or Wikipedia in those olden days). No, my research is exploring the fiction shelves to discover fun new adventures. Reading keeps writers in tune.

That’s how I made the happy find of “Zoobreak,” the second book in Gordon Korman’s awesome “Swindle” series.

Korman assembled a team of Cedarville Middle School misfits and outsiders who outwit grownup swindlers, cheats and fiends.

The group is led by Griffin Bing, “The Man With The Plan,” a master strategist who writes out some of the sneakiest, kookiest, craziest ideas to get an operation into play. In “Zoobreak,” that’s first to figure out how to sneak a pack of stolen and mistreated animals off a creaky, old zoo boat, and then the second zoobreak, how to sneak the rescued animals into the Long Island Zoological Garden ten miles away without getting bit, eaten or caught.

The team also includes:

* Griffin’s best friend, Ben Slovak, a nervous kid with a secret narcolepsy infliction (he can fall asleep anywhere at any time—even in a hallway with a prowling alligator;

* Savannah Drysdale, the excitable animal-whisperer, who knows more about critters and how to handle them than pretty much anyone in the world;

* Extremely shy and nearly invisible Melissa Dukakis, who can plant surveillance devices and hack into most any computer network;

* Athletic Antonia “Pitch” Benson, the fearless climber who scales mountains, trees, fences, walls, roofs—whatever the situation needs;

* Logan Kellerman, an aspiring child actor and dramatic ham who’s appeared in a smattering of TV commercials and who can be (mostly) counted on to distract whomever needs to look the other way.

Not part of the team but always close behind and ready to rat out the other kids is money-hungry Darren Vader, an oversized bully who sometimes is tricked into using his muscles for good even when he didn’t mean to help.

The covers of the books prominently feature Luthor, a giant Doberman attack dog rescued and (barely) tamed by Savannah, and Cleo, Luthor’s pet capuchin monkey.

Confession time: I have yet to read “Swindle,” the first of the eight books in the series. So far, I’ve only checked off Book 2, “Zoobreak,” and Book 5, “Hideout.” While that means I missed a few pieces from previous books, you most certainly can read them out of order and still have a blast, like I am.

A word of caution: These are not faith-based books. The kids do lie to adults and carry out plans that aren’t exactly legal (as in breaking into a house to steal back a valuable Babe Ruth baseball card snatched in a swindle), but only when they can’t get the grownups to believe them or to understand how horrible the situation will become if they don’t act NOW. Those lies and desperate stunts, while ultimately saving the day, do tend to land them in heaps of headaches ad consequences.

I have found these books to be clean, curse-free tales with great moral values. The families are strong and loving. The kids have the best of intentions but not always the greatest reasoning. What they do have is Griffin Bing, “The Man With The Plan.”

I love research.