Claws and Effect

Secret Smithsonian Adventures #2

Chris Kentz, Steve Hockensmith, Lee Nielsen, illustrator, Smithsonian Books Softcover $10.95 (64pp), 978-1-58834-567-7

Combining the colonial with the cretaceous, co-authors Chris Kentz and Steve Hockensmith cook up a smart new adventure in Claws and Effect. On their way home from the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum—and first-time travel experience—classmates Ajay, Josephine, Eric, and Dominique can’t help but notice that their neighborhood is overrun with dinosaurs, and no one seems concerned. Using data access retrieval conduits, or “DARCS,” in the shape of wristwatches, the gang is sent back in time to America’s first World’s Fair in Philadelphia, 1876, where “someone’s messing with history.”

Picking up where The Wrong Wrights: Secret Smithsonian Adventures #1 left off, Claws and Effect jumps right into action that follows the continuous trail of destruction left by the greedy Barris brothers and their scheming cohorts, this time centered around the National Museum of Natural History. With a little assistance from some “hypno-glass” and fellow fair-goers Alexander Graham Bell and a young Nellie Bly, the dangerous repercussions of shifted time are slowly set to rights.

Containing enough dinosaur facts and trivia to appease even the most hardcore Jurassic fans, a counterbalance is found in the historical connection to William Foulke, and the rise of paleontology and future fossil finders, giving the story a broader scope and perspective. Illustrations from Lee Nielson, in the classic graphic-novel style, further meld the clothing and styles of the late 1800s with prehistoric visitors and a group of thoroughly modern middle schoolers. An entertaining and imaginative adventure with brains, the Secret Smithsonian Adventure series is sure to please students and teachers alike.