Foiled by Carey Fessler

The Synopsis:

It’s 1947 on a U.S. Army base near Roswell, New Mexico, and eleven-year-old Kate’s friend and neighbor, Billy, shows her a secret. A CIA agent arrives at Billy’s house, to recover the Top Secret items, and threatens the family, warning them to never talk about the incident—ever! Special Agent Falco informs them of their sudden reassignment to Germany. Billy, not wanting to move to Germany or return his treasures, begs Kate for help. Feisty and fiercely loyal, she agrees to hide him.
Thus begins a most unusual road trip in which the two friends use their wits, their knowledge of the terrain and geography around the base, and sheer determination to evade capture. Kate must also reach her grandfather, more than two hundred miles away, and warn him of a dangerous threat … to anyone involved.
Their race has begun, and there’s no turning back.

I received this book from the author for the purpose of this review. All comments and opinions are entirely my own.

Review:

Conspiracies that the military is covering up an alien discovery, and two kids who just happen to have the proof that they ARE, is only the beginning of this story.

Kate and Billy are best friends, bonded by their lives on a New Mexico military base right after WWII. Kate is a wild, “fear-nothing and no one” type of girl who loves mischief, and Billy is the careful and smart boy who only takes risks if it’s worth it. Together, they are a cute, dynamic pair who are fond of adventures and prone to bickering.

Foiled is an extremely well-done, middle grade novel that had me laughing and actually gripping the pages firmly in some places. It is a historical fiction book with a little twist of science fiction and lots of action for this age group.

I really enjoyed the storyline and the race against the mean CIA agent. One aspect of Foiled that really stuck out to me as unique in middle grade, is that even though the kids were running and trying to save the day, they were both still very connected to their parents and would call to check in with them as often as they could. I often see in middle grade fiction, disdain for and rebellion against the kids’ parents (or an attitude of “we know more than the stupid adults in this story”), so it was very nice to see two kids admit that their parents knew better than them, but they still had one heck of an adventure!

At the end of the book, the author includes a note in which he details which parts of the story were based on real, historical events and which parts were just fiction. So that is a neat feature for the kids to learn a little history while reading.

Overall, Foiled is an excellent, clean middle grade novel that I certainly recommend for ages 8-13(ish)! I give it 5 out of 5 stars!