MIDDLE GRADE BOOK LAUNCH: Lantern Sam and the Blue Streak Bandits by Michael D Beil

Bring your favorite middle grader along to powerHouse on 8th for the launch of Michael D Beil's latest chapter book - Lantern Sam and the Blue Streak Bandits! 

Lantern Sam is the wise-cracking, sarcastic, talking cat (for those who can hear him, that is) who lives onboard the Lake Erie Shoreliner train and is one of the best detectives no one knows about. He doesn’t have much patience for humans (unless they bring him sardines), but when 10-year-old traveler Henry can’t find his new friend, the exuberant Ellie, Sam’s enlisted to help. A ransom note is soon discovered and just like that, Sam and Henry are on the case, with the help of Clarence the Conductor (who supplies Sam’s sardines). But is Ellie still on board the train? Did the salesman with his trunk full of samples sneak her off? And why does that couple keep acting so suspicious?

MICHAEL D. BEIL teaches English at an all-girls Catholic high school in New York City. He is the author of Summer at Forsaken Lake, as well as four installments of the Edgar Award-nominated mystery series The Red Blazer Girls. He lives with his wife, two dogs, and two cats.