With the neighborhood witch out to get them, three friends will do just about anything to avoid her in The Pizza Gang: Facing the Witch.
Trying to stay out of the way of a mean old woman, twin brothers Joe and Ben, along with their best friend Katie, wind up volunteering to sort through lost property at the police station.
When they uncover a beautiful hat sent to a bride-to-be during a war decades ago, they find themselves in the middle of a mystery that needs solving. Determined to reunite the
hat with its owner, Joe, Ben and Katie come up with a plan involving their eccentric friend, Major Pain In The Butt and his turbo-charged wheelchair. The story gently touches on the relationships between the very young and the very old, and how elderly people can be easily misunderstood.
But a series of disasters involving the witch, a cardboard cutout of Brad Pitt, a bottle of nerve-calming sherry, a moldy theatre curtain and the theft of the hat bring a sudden end to the children’s quest. Will they ever find the hat’s owner?
The Pizza Gang: Facing the Witch
Published by Eloquent Books, July 2009
Mystery genre
Recommended for 8-12 year olds
80 pages
$9.95
Please read excerpts at www.thepizzagang.com
Publisher’s website: http://www.eloquentbooks.com/ThePizzaGang-FacingTheWitch.html
Maureen Hume was born and raised in Tasmania, Australia’s island state, and spent most of her early years blissfully running free on a sheep farm. When she wasn’t helping her mother feed multitudes of sheep shearers, she was helping out (her Dad would probably say hindering) with the diverse range of chores that a working sheep farm presents.
While the farm house didn’t have a television it did have a room lined with floor to ceiling books. Already possessing a vivid imagination, she didn’t need any further encouragement to spend all her spare time cocooned in this room. So began a lifelong love of the written word and the wonderful world they can create.
But as the fast-paced, busyness of early adulthood arrived, the half-formed dream of publication was temporarily pushed aside. During her early forties a minor illness forced spare time on her hands and The Pizza Gang was formed.
She lives a serene life with her wonderful husband Greg, in a mud brick house surrounded by bush. They share the outside with an abundance of wildlife and the inside with six adopted disabled bunnies. She is currently at work on the next book in the Pizza Gang series.