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Frankie Dupont And The Lemon Festival Fiasco

Series:  The Frankie Dupont Mysteries
Written by Julie Anne Grasso
Illustrated by Alexander Avellino
Published by Julie Anne Grasso           3/302015
978-0-9873725-8-1
158 pages                 Age 8—12
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“Hot off cracking his first official case Frankie Dupont is on the scene when his new teacher takes ill. The pint-sized detective suspects a classic case of sour grapes, but the evidence leads him to the one placed he wouldn’t mind avoiding for the rest of his natural life. Enderby Manor has a few more secrets up her sleeve, and as Frankie begins to unravel them, he discovers a plot stinkier than a sardine sandwich. In Book 2 of the Frankie Dupont Mysteries, Frankie will make some new friends, upset some old ones, and of course, there will be lemon meringue pie.” [back cover]

Review (491)
It is the start of a new school year for Frankie and his friend Kat. Middle school is a now a combination of two grades in one classroom. Worse, the Appleby triplets—Angus, Archie, and Amy—are in his class and they annoy Frankie like an itch you can’t reach. Day one is short for the head teacher. His assistant, Miss Chestnut, made him a lemon meringue pie and, after one bite, he abruptly leaves for medical help. Frankie swiftly learns one of the pie ingredients is an organic weed killer. This one clue will take Frankie from confronting Miss Chestnut—bad idea—to accusing Merideth De Carlo, the daughter of Evelyn—of Evelyn’s Everlasting Cupcakes—and finally to Enderby Manor and Madame Mercure, a strange woman bent on taking over the hotel.

I enjoy the Frankie Dupont series because of the strange, yet plausible cases and the interesting clues. I love the fully fleshed crazy characters and their well-written stories with unexpected twists. The Lemon Festival Fiasco did not disappoint, though Frankie could be annoying. Unlike the first story, The Mystery of Enderby Manor, where Frankie was eager to show he could solve the case better and faster than Inspector Cluesome, one year later Frankie is arrogant, pushy, and most often wrong. It seems being the only ten-and-three-quarters-year-old to pass the private investigator’s test has gone to his head.

I do like the new character, nine-year-old Amy Appleby, one of the “annoying triplets.” She stays close to Frankie, which irritates the clues right out of him. Frankie does not like that she is smart, possibly smarter than him. It is clear early on that Amy is not trying to outsmart Frankie; she just wants to be close, like any nine-year-old girl with a crush on an older boy. Frankie never picks up on this. Hopefully, that crush will play out in the next edition.

The illustrations were done by a new illustrator and are quite good. Personally, I think Frankie looks too old for a 10 ¾ year-old boy and not as cute this time around. I imagine it is difficult to match the work of another illustrator. The Lemon Festival Fiasco can stand on its own, still I recommend reading book 1 first. There is information about the Enderby Manor characters that will help readers understand why Frankie dislikes the manor. Those characters are still a group of, mostly, likable oddballs.

The Mystery of Enderby Manor is an extremely well written mystery with strange, unexpected twists, and thus a difficult case to outshine. The Lemon Festival Fiasco, while a good mystery—that will entertain readers—readers will decipher this lemony mystery much sooner than Frankie. Reluctant readers will like the fast read and may stick with the story because they can solve this case faster than Frankie. Ms. Grasso is a gifted writer who improves with each new story. Her Caramel Cardamom series is a success, as will The Frankie Dupont Mysteries.

NEXT UP:  Frankie Dupont And The Science Fair Sabotage
FRANKIE DUPONT AND THE LEMON FESTIVAL FIASCO. Text copyright © 2015 by Julie Anne Grasso. Illustrations copyright © 2015 by Alexander Avellino. Reproduced by permission of the publisher, Julie Anne Grasso.

Purchase Frankie Dupont and the Lemon Festival Fiasco at Amazon—Book Depository—Julie Anne Grasso Books.

Learn more about Frankie Dupont and the Lemon Festival Fiasco HERE.
Educational Activity Booklet HERE
Meet the author, Julie Anne Grasso, at her website: http://www.julieannegrassobooks.com
Meet the illustrator, Alexander Avellino, at his website: http://www.alexanderavellino.com

Also by Julie Anne Grasso

Frankie Dupont And The Mystery Of Enderby Manor

Frankie Dupont And The Science Fair Sabotage

Escape From The Forbidden Planet

Return To Cardamom

Stellarcadia

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Review Section: word count = 491

Copyright © 2015 by Sue Morris/Kid Lit Reviews. All Rights Reserved

Tweet

By Mark Peters

If I had a lemon for every time I heard “When life hands you lemons, make lemonade,” I’d have enough lemons to open a lemons-only Wal-Mart. If I had another lemon for every time I heard a variation like, “When life hands you lemons, run straight home and hide them because the apocalypse is upon us and soon everyone will want them,” I’d have an absolute monopoly on the lemon market, fulfilling my boyhood dreams.

This expression and its variations are everywhere, nowhere more so than on Twitter, the richest source of jokes and un-self-conscious language use we have at the moment. For the month of April, I collected the many mutations of this idiom to look for patterns among the proverbs. Thousands of lemon-y tweets prove this isn’t just a cliché or a snowclone: lemon-ology consists of clichés within clichés, snowclones within snowclones—and every once in awhile, a burst of originality. Here’s a look at the lemon landscape.

First, some lemon history. In Fred Shapiro’s wonderful Yale Book of Quotations, he spots the first example of “If life hands you lemons, make lemonade” on Oct. 4, 1972 in the Dallas Morning News. But he finds this line in 1917: “If life hands you a lemon adjust your rose colored glasses and start to selling pink lemonade.” Sure enough, the Oxford English Dictionary shows handing someone a lemon has meant “to pass off a sub-standard article as good; to swindle (a person), to do (someone) down” since at least 1906.

Over a hundred years later, one of the most common forms of lemon subversion basically says, “Screw lemonade. How about some booze?” The alcohol-related suggestions all involve using the lemons in some kind of drink, like so: “When life hands you lemons find some vodka and make margaritas!” Hundreds of tweets are almost identical, though the booze-soaked suggestions do get a little more creative: “When life hands you lemons, have a tequila shot…errr crap, can’t for a week, darn antibiotics!”

Other distortions use the lemon juice not as an alcohol-enhancer but as a potential torture device, as in “If life hands you lemons, find an annoying guy with paper-cuts and make it worthwhile.” Here’s a more self-serving, self-abusing approach: “When life hands you lemons, squirt one in your eye and go on disability. Then sue the guy that grew them. He’s got insurance for that!” And here’s one for the S&M crowd: “When life hands me lemons, I put on my leathers and squeeze the juice into the eyes of the man hogtied & ballgagged in my closet.”

Violent variations go far beyond the painful properties of lemon juice. Various tweeters say you should take the lemons and “throw them at hobos,” “hurl them at a random CEO,” “freeze them so they can knock people unconscious,” “open a lemon aide stand and use the proceeds to buy an assault rifle,” “put them in a tube sock and beat a hipster over the head with it,” “whip them at those dumb jerk kids who set up lemonade stands to show them how you feel about their price gouging,” or “shove them down the bastard’s throat and laugh maniacally as he chokes to death.” I kinda like the bluntness h