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Four-time Edgar Award winner and "half-Texan" Nixon set this mystery for 8-12 year-olds in Texas, and incorporates a historical event and genealogy to boot. Seventh-grader Andy Thomas has to do a family history project for school. His family and that of his best friend J.J. have lived in the (real) town of Hermosa, Texas, for generations, and Andy discovers a black sheep among his ancestors. Talking about this Cole Joseph Bonner upsets and embarrasses Andy's great aunt, particularly around J.J's great-grandmother, but Andy persists in trying to find out just what happened with "Coley Joe."

I loved how Andy uses a box of memorabilia in his great aunt's attic (including a family bible, an old photograph, and an heirloom), e-mail and genealogy bulletin boards (the book was published in 1996), library research (including asking the librarian for help--hooray!), and visits to the local cemetery to help solve the mystery. The Salt War is the real event that provides a setting for part of the story.

I can totally see this book being used for interdisciplinary studies 4th to 7th grade classroom, particularly for Texas history required in those two grades. It could also be used by a parent to spark a child's interest in genealogy and/or family history (there's a Bonner family tree at the beginning of the book) and ways to research them. There are also some nice lessons about friendship and respect for elders in the book as well.

© Amanda Pape - 2010 ( )

this was a very good and interesting read ( )

A school assignment leads 12-year-old on an investigation into his family’s secrets. Intrigued by a name that’s been crossed out in the family Bible and a shadowy face in a family portrait, Andy decides to find out why Cole Joseph Bonner was branded a thief by his family. Andy’s research takes him back into west Texas during the late 1800s. Despite discouragement from relatives and a suspicious anonymous letter-writer to leave family skeletons in the closet, Andy utilizes Internet message boards, library archives and cemetery searches to piece together the trail Coley Joe took with the money meant to stock the family’s new ranch with cattle. Andy’s final discoveries lead him into a moral dilemma between clearing the reputation of an ancestor or preserving the relationship with his best friend. Nixon weaves a suspenseful tale which includes some interesting facts of Texas’s wild west past. ( )