LAUGH TILL YOU CRY
by Joan Lowery Nixon
Delacorte Press
ISBN: 0385730276
Ages 8-12
112 pages

• Read an Excerpt

When thirteen-year-old Cody Carter moves with his mother from California to Texas to be near his sick grandmother, he finds out just how different these two places are. Cody is the new kid at school, he has no friends, and his cousin Hayden is a bully. However, there are two good things about Texas --- his grandmother, Mrs. Norton, and his new friend, Officer Ramsey. Mrs. Norton tries to help Cody understand the confusing "Hamlet" for his English class. Ramsey is a police officer and an aspiring stand-up comic, who pays Cody for his original jokes.

Understanding William Shakespeare, however, is the least of Cody's problems. When a crime is committed at his school, Cody finds himself to be the prime suspect. Cody knows he didn't do the crime but realizes that in order to prove his innocence he must find the real suspect himself. However, time is running out and Cody has to solve the mystery quickly before someone gets hurt.

LAUGH TILL YOU CRY is an intriguing and humorous mystery that has something for all readers to relate to --- from being the new kid at school to trying to understand the sometimes confusing works of Shakespeare. This is the last of more than 130 books written by the prolific Joan Lowery Nixon, who passed away in 2003.

   --- Reviewed by Sarah Sawtelle (SdarksideG@aol.com)

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