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Reviewed by Sharon Blumberg

Title: A Kit Mystery-A Thief In The Theater

Author: Sarah Masters Buckey

Publisher: American Girl Publishing, Inc. (2008)

Soft cover: 171 pages

ISBN: 978-1-59369-294-0

During the Depression era of the 1930’s, Kit Kettredge spends a week of her summer break doing volunteer work at a local theater called The Burns Theater. With dreams of becoming a reporter, Kit writes articles for the children’s section of a newspaper called The Cincinnati Register. Kit befriends a boy her age named Stirling Howard who is a boarder in her parents’ home. Stirling sells a different newspaper from the one Kit writes for, on a street corner. Stirling collaborates with Kit by agreeing to illustrate her article.

Stirling is often confronted by a group of brothers who bully him by stealing his papers and profits. This leaves him feeling intimidated and penniless. They are a force with which Stirling has to endure. Can he overcome them?

Kit and Stirling arrive at the Burns Theater to watch their first play together there when they hear that the theater will soon switch over to presenting Macbeth fom a Midsummer Night’s Dream. This choice is due to the theater management’s need to attract more patrons and revenue.

While Kit and Stirling help out at the theater and discuss plans to write a newspaper article on the play, someone inside the theater steals money from an unlocked cash box. So the actors not only have to deal with superstitions connected with this play Macbeth, but a thief wandering around the theater building.

Kit and Stirling see and hear more events taking place at the theater than they could ever imagine while they work with the management. Working together as a group, they try to crack the case. Can they find the culprit?

There is a section at the end of the book called “Looking Back-A Peek Into The Past,” explaining about entertainment in the 1930’s such as radio, TV, and theater. I have a fondness for this story because of personal connections through my family in the theater world.

About the Author: Sarah Masters Buckey lives in New Hampshire with her family. She is the author of A Light in the Cellar: A Molly Mystery and two mysteries featuring Samantha Parkington: The Curse of Ravenscourt, which was nominated for the 2005 Agatha Award for Best Children’s/Young Adult Mystery, and The Stolen Sapphire which was nominated for the 2007 Edgar Award for Best Juvenile Mystery.

She also wrote Three American Girl History Mysteries: The Smuggler’s Treasure, Enemy in the Fort, and Gangsters in the Grand Atlantic, a 2003 Agatha Award nominee.

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Sharon Blumberg is a junior high Spanish teacher in Illinois and a freelance writer. She has been teaching for 17 years. She currently teaches seventh grade Spanish in Illinois. She has two grown children and resides in Indiana with her husband and dog. She is an active member of the Children’s Writers’ Coaching Club and The Story Circle Network.