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    The Wig in the Window
    The Wig in the Window
    The Wig in the Window
    Audiobook7 hours

    The Wig in the Window

    Written by Kristen Kittscher

    Narrated by Amanda Philipson

    4/5

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    About this audiobook

    In this funny and clever middle grade mystery reminiscent of Rear Window and perfect for fans of the Mysterious Benedict Society series, Sophie Young and Grace Yang are best friends, seventh graders, and spies.

    Sophie and Grace have made a game out of spying on their neighbors. On one of their midnight stakeouts, they witness a terrifying scene at the home of their bizarre middle-school counselor Dr. Charlotte Agford (also known as Dr. Awkward).

    At least, they think they do. When the girls are proven wrong, they are still convinced that Dr. Agford is hiding a terrible secret—and they're determined to find out what it is. Soon the girls are breaking secret codes, being followed by a strange blue car, and tailing strangers with unibrows and Texas accents. But as their investigation heats up, Sophie and Grace start to crack under the pressure. Will solving the case destroy their friendship?

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins
    Release dateJun 18, 2013
    ISBN9780062283641
    Author

    Kristen Kittscher

    Kristen Kittscher is a writing tutor in Pasadena, California, where she lives with her husband. The 2014 James Thurber House Children's Writer-in-Residence and a graduate of Brown University, she taught middle-school English for many years. She is the author of The Tiara on the Terrace and The Wig in the Window.

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    Reviews for The Wig in the Window

    4/5

    22 ratings5 reviews

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    • 4/5
      Gosh for a middle school book, this was really fun and sweet and humorous. A great quick read for folks who like young lady spies, friendships with quirks, weird wigs, and juvenile car hacking for fun among other things. I would not be adverse to a sequel!
    • 3/5
      Best friends Sophie Young and Grace Yang, would-be spies and FBI investigators, become involved in a mystery surrounding Sophie's middle-school guidance counselor in this debut children's novel from Kristen Kittscher. Dr. Agford - AKA Dr. Awkward - had always seemed rather creepy to Sophie, but when she sees her guidance counselor committing what she think is a murder, and reports her to the police, the fallout reveals just how menacing Agford can be. Although she was only canning beets, Dr. Agford's reaction to being spied upon arouses more suspicion in Sophie and Grace, who continue to investigate despite adult pressure to desist. Eventually they discover that Agford is a fugitive, one on the run after involvement in a terrible tragedy that cost eight high school students their lives.I enjoyed The Wig In the Window, finding it an entertaining and (for the most part) lighthearted adventure-mystery, featuring two engaging young heroines. I was struck, during the course of my reading, by the fact that the mystery involves murder (or at the very least, manslaughter), as I feel that until recently children's mysteries have generally featured less fearsome crimes. Is it now more acceptable to feature murder in children's mysteries? I'm not sure, but this is the first example I can remember reading at the middle-grade level. I was also struck by the way Kittscher explored the cultural differences in Sophie and Grace's friendship. Grace is Chinese-American, but it is Sophie who is very interested in Chinese culture, being an admirer of Sun Tzu's writing, and a devotee of Feng Shui. This leads to tension at one point, when Grace expresses resentment during an argument, implying that Sophie is some kind of poseur, and unfairly judges her (Grace) as insufficiently Chinese for her own lack of interest in traditional Chinese culture. This was all very interesting, and quite current, with its examination of the idea of cultural appropriation. That said, it seems clear that there is also some insecurity on Grace's part - I vividly recall a similar experience I had with a friend whose parents were Russian immigrants, and who made a fuss over me when they learned I was reading Solzhenitsyn - rather than it being just a question of Sophie judging her. Sophie, for her part, has her own insecurities, worrying that Grace, who has always taken the lead in their friendship, doesn't truly value her, and is perhaps too sophisticated and fashionable for her. This last is something I suspect will be more fully explored in the sequel, The Tiara on the Terrace.However that may be, I appreciated the author's storytelling here, and her exploration of some of the many issues that young friends in contemporary America might confront. I appreciated the fact that her some of her secondary characters, particularly the indomitable Trista Bottoms, added so much to the story. I have already started the sequel, which is a high recommendation from me!
    • 5/5
      If you want a mystery for kids, this is it! Perfect for grades 4 and up, both boys and girls. Kittscher does a wonderful job twisting and turning the mystery and suspense through the entire story. It's a fun and lively book and one that I will be sharing with my students. Grace and Sophie are best friends, and spies. Their normal quiet neighborhood is turned into a den for suspects as they go out searching for criminals. Their "normal" nightly routine of spying on their neighbors turns scarily interesting when they spy Sophie's guidance counselor, Dr. A, raising a cleaver, yelling into a phone about ripping someone's throat out, and covered in red liquid. Scared, they call they cops and the story goes from there. Don't want to reveal too much, but perception and inferring are running rampant in this great middle grade read! Don't miss out!
    • 5/5
      There wasn't a thing I didn't like about this book. The nefarious Mrs A is suitably creepy, the twisting plot keeps you jumping and our main characters Sophie and Grace are relatable, likeable, and real. The writing was smooth and the characters are all fantastically drawn. Fantastic for middle grades - I hope we see more of this detective duo!
    • 3/5
      Kristen Kittscher's debut caught my eye with that brilliantly adorable cover, one which perfectly captures the book itself, which makes it even better. Though mysteries aren't my genre of choice, I couldn't resist checking this one out, because of the Rear Window connection. Pop culture references are for the win always. The Wig in the Window is above all a story of friendship and courage, with plenty of humor and adventure to keep readers of all ages entertained.The first thing I need to give Kittscher props for is how the mystery plays out. Reading mysteries intended for younger readers can be imminently frustrating for an adult, because the children often fail to note the most obvious of clues and the guilty party is clear from the first pages. This was not the case in The Wig in the Window. Kittscher adds evidence steadily, and keeps pulling the rug out from under Sophie's feet. Sophie does have a bit of a tendency to jump to conclusions, but she's never blindly oblivious to the facts in front of her.In fact, Sophie and her friends don't do a lot of the inadvisable things kids in novels often do. When they think they've witnessed a murder by their next door neighbor, they contact the authorities. They try to rely on and trust adults with information, but receive contradictory information and end up having to do the best they can alone. In addition to snooping around, since they like to pretend they're in the FBI, they also do Google searches. Sophie and Grace approach the situation as logically as they can.For me, the most meaningful aspect of The Wig in the Window is the friendship between amateur investigators Grace and Sophie. They've been friends since Sophie's family moved to the neighborhood, and go by Young (Sophie) and Yang (Grace). However, all is not perfect in their friendship, and the real mystery to solve brings all their issues to the surface. Sophie has always felt like the sidekick, following Grace's lead, which was fine until Sophie got in trouble for falsely reporting a murder and Grace didn't. Now Sophie feels abandoned, and has a chance to really come into her own, however painful that may be. They really have to learn to appreciate one another and not take their friendship for granted, which can happen in long term relationships of any sort.At school, Sophie's other friends ditch her in the wake of the reporting-the-school-counselor-for-murder scandal. In this awkward time, she's befriended by Trista, overweight and picked on (called Boom-Boom-Bottoms by the school's resident bully, who calls Sophie Ay-nus, a play off her French class name Agnes). Trista's totally my favorite character. She's sassy, can out-insult the bullies, loves herself for who she is, and has her friends' backs. Plus, she's a really healthy eater, so Kittscher's conveying that it's not necessarily lifestyle alone that leads to weight gain.The one thing that left me really uncomfortable was the portrayal of Charlotte Agford, the school counselor that Grace and Sophie think they see commit murder. Whether or not she's the villain, some of the descriptions for her made me really uncomfortable. She has this giant hair, which turns out to be a wig, and huge fake breasts, both of which are repeatedly used as evidence essentially that she's evil, and I'm just not really cool with that. There were a couple of other characters described in unsettling ways, but Agford is the best example. Whether someone's a good or bad person shouldn't be bound up in their appearance.The Wig in the Window is a fun mystery, sure to delight middle grade readers. There's humor, action, friendship, and even a little bit of romance. I'm glad to have read it, but am left a bit unsure about the overall message.