"Five friends who live, make mistakes, laugh, get mad, and keep learning about life in their northwoods home by the Big Lake."
-- from Children's Bookwatch review of Jackpine Point Adventure #1 "The Re-Appearing Statue."

Ice Festival, Book #2 of The Jackpine Point Adventures fiction series for young readers from Merritt Park Press, is just out and available now. Ice Festival joins Jackpine Point Adventure #1 The Re-Appearing Statue.

In Book #1 the five middle-school friends who live on Jackpine Point were pursued by a stolen baseball trophy.

In Book #2 the Pointers have entered their town's Winter Fun Frolic, competing in the Snowball Slow Pitch, B'Icicle Race, Snowshoe Sprints, Singin'-in-the-Snow, and the famous incredible Ice Sculpture Contest. Grand prize: a cherry-red snowmobile! Of course each Pointer has a favorite event, and each thinks his or her event deserves the most practice time.

Meanwhile, who's the strange hooded figure who shadows their planning sessions? And who keeps sending those mysterious diamond-shaped warnings about "Sabotage"?

Author Sandy Larsen says . . .

"What drives my stories forward is the characters-people."

That's author Sandy Larsen talking about Ice Festival and the entire Jackpine Point Adventure fiction series for young readers ages 10-14.

"Fast action and an interesting plot are great," Larsen explains, "and I try for both in my stories. But I believe a book will still be boring if the reader doesn't care about the characters or doesn't know the characters well enough to care. That's why all the Jackpine Point Adventure stories start with some conflict going on inside people-specifically, young people the age of my reader audience."

Middle school readers will especially connect with the narrator of the series, David Malloy. He has an unbeatable spirit, but he stumbles around, gets things wrong sometimes and right other times, laughs, gets mad, and -- along with his four other Pointer friends -- keeps learning about life in his northwoods home on the Big Lake.

"I take the thinking and problems and joys of young teens seriously," Larsen goes on. "Well, by seriously I don't mean the stories are heavy. I've heard both kids and adults laugh out loud when they read the crazy goings-on of the Jackpine Pointers: David Malloy, Marmy Albright, Dillon McBride, Cathy Knutson, Bobby 'Brownie' Brown, and Sugar the black Lab."

"The humor happens on several levels," Larsen says, "so younger kids who are good readers can enjoy the books, and older readers catch more of the subtleties."

Word plays going on in The Jackpine Point Adventures make it fun for the reader to figure out meanings. Sometimes a character misuses a word, and another character has to decide what was really meant. So does the reader, who has to differentiate between simple but similar-sounding words.

David Malloy's voice will continue in Jackpine Point Adventure #3 Something's Fishy (Autumn 1999) and #4 The Dark Lighthouse (Winter 2000).

For more information, contact:

Dale Larsen
Merritt Park Press
218-628-0618
dslarsen@spacestar.net
http://www.merrittpark.com