Summer of Firsts: Free Middle-Grade eSampler

By Coco Simon, Zoe Evans, P.J. Night and 2 more

This summer we have 5 new books that will fit perfectly into your summer plans! Take a look inside for excerpts from 5 books!

The Great Hamster Massacre by Katie Davies
Seven Sorcerers by Caro King
Cupcake Diaries: Katie and the Cupcake Cure by Coco Simon
You’re Invited to a Creepover: Truth or Dare by P.J. Night
Cheer!: Confessions of a Wannabe Cheerleader by Zoe Evans

• Language: English
• Publisher: Simon Spotlight
• Release date: Jul 5, 2011
• ISBN: 9781442445567

Coco Simon

From cupcakes to ice cream and donuts! When she’s not daydreaming about yummy snacks, Coco Simon edits children’s books and has written close to one hundred books for children, tweens, and young adults, which is a lot less than the number of cupcakes, ice cream cones, and donuts she’s eaten. She is the author of the Cupcake Diaries, the Sprinkle Sundays, and the Donut Dreams series. Her newest series is Cupcake Diaries: The New Batch. 

Book preview

Table of Contents

The Great Hamster Massacre

Seven Sorcerers

Cupcake Diaries: Katie and the Cupcake Cure

You’re invited to a Creepover: Truth or Dare

Cheer!: Confessions of a Wannabe Cheerleader

Keep reading for a preview of

The Great Hamster Massacre

The Great Hamster Massacre Cover

by

Katie Davies

Nine-year-old Anna’s dream is to have a pet of her own. After the unexpected death of her beloved grandmother, Anna’s mother decides to buy her and her younger brother Tom hamsters to ease the sorrow. Anna and her brother are thrilled they finally have hamsters to call their own—until tragedy strikes. One morning, Anna and Tom find their hamsters murdered. Something or someone has left some hamsters dead and one badly injured. Together Anna, Tom, and their friend Suzanne decide to become homicide detectives to solve the case.

With the help of a neighbor friend, the trio learns the necessary parts of solving a crime, and that everything is not always what it seems.

KATIE DAVIES has experience with hamster disasters. When she was twelve years old, after a relentless begging campaign, she was given two Russian Dwarf hamsters for Christmas. She has yet to recover from what happened to those hamsters. The Great Hamster Massacre is her first novel. Katie lives in North London with her husband, comedian Alan Davies, and their baby daughter. They do not have any hamsters. Visit her at www.katiedaviesbooks.com.

This is a story about me, and Tom, and our Investigation into the Hamster Massacre. I’m supposed to be writing my What-I-Did-On-My-Summer-Vacation story for school, but I’m going to write this story first because you should always write a Real Investigation up straight away. That’s what my friend Suzanne says. And Suzanne knows everything about Real Investigations. Mom said she didn’t think my teacher would like the story of my real summer vacation, and how the Hamster Massacre happened. She said, "Anna (that’s my name), some nice things must have happened this summer and if you can’t remember any, you can make some nice things up, and put them in your vacation report instead."

Mom doesn’t think it matters if my Vacation Report isn’t exactly true, but Graham Roberts got in trouble last year when he put that he spent the whole vacation in the dog bed. His dog had died, so maybe he did stay in the dog bed all vacation, but Mrs. Peters said he must have come out to eat and go to the bathroom and things like that, and Joe-down-the-street told Tom he saw Graham at Scouts. And you can’t be in a dog bed there.

Tom is my little brother. I’ve got another brother too, and a sister, but they’re older than me and Tom and they don’t really care about hamsters much, so they’re not in this story. Tom is four years younger than me, except for a little while every year after he has his birthday, and before I have mine, when he is only three years younger. But most of the time he’s four years younger, so it’s best to say that.

Anyway,