Matthew is 12 and he is afraid of germs. 

This condition is triggered by the death of his baby brother who he didn't got the chance to meet in real life. He just know that his baby brother died and he thought it is his fault. 

So he tried to stay away from germs by being careful and clean. Also his need of staying away from germs make him stay home a lot and he was afraid to go to school. 

He watched his neighbors through the windows. He recorded what he saw in his notebooks. 

A toddler went missing and right before he was missed, Matthew was watching him through the window. 

Melody is a strange girl who wants to be Matthew's friend. They communicate via email. Now that the toddler Teddy is missing, and Matthew is house-bound. Melody is going to be his sick-kick investigator. 

Things got more interesting. There is also a bully called Jake who was Matthew's friend. 

The missing Toddler Teddy and the three young friends are going to solve this. 

The story is exceptionally touching. It is wonderful. 

Highly recommended it. 

Unexpected and very good story. Matthew is 12 and is afraid of germs. What I don't expected is the start of a Rear Window type of story. 

A toddler is missing and Matthew is the last person who saw the baby. So while the adults, parents, neighbors and police are all looking for the missing child, Matthew started his own investigation. 

As he didn't want to leave the house, he has a side-kick, Melody. 

Matthew suspected that it is a neighbors who had taken the child. And he is going to find out. 

Once it turned into an investigation, it run really well. 

If you read The Trouble with Goats and Sheep (or at the very least my review of it) then you won't be surprised to learn that I thoroughly enjoyed The Goldfish Boy by Colleen Oakley. The bare bones of this book is remarkably similar in that it's centered on a cul-de-sac in England where there are secrets behind every door and there's a mystery involving the disappearance of a small child. Yes, they're remarkably similar except...the main character is a young boy named Matthew who suffers from a debilitating case of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder or OCD which has resulted in him being unable/unwilling to leave his house. He is hyper-observant of everyone's movements and takes detailed notes which is how we get to know all of his neighbors. The majority of the novel takes place in his bedroom where the reader is trapped right along with him. Besides the discussion of OCD, Oakley tackles the internalized shame and fear of living with a mental illness. This is written in the style of Rear Window where the reader is seeing through the eyes of someone who is on the outside but also very much on the inside. (I'm deliberately being vague because to be anything else would give away the mystery.) This book made me wonder how common OCD might be in children and how this could be misdiagnosed as agoraphobia or vice versa. (Wait til you see how Matthew's parents view his behavior.) I felt that the author was extremely sensitive in her handling of this debilitating illness and wrote about it with just enough detail for us to feel as if we were getting a glimpse inside of Matthew without beating us over the head with it. Of note: I didn't much care for any of the adults in this book. Far and away, they were all pretty much useless cretins. The book though was riveting and I immediately passed it on to my co-worker who then passed it on to her teenage daughter. That marks it a winner in my books. 10/10

What I'm Currently Reading: The Portable Nineteenth-Century African American Women Writers and Quackery

"12:55 p.m. That time was important. I don't know why it stuck in my mind but it did, even without writing down.

At some point after 12:55 p.m. on that bright, scorching day, Teddy Dawson went missing."

I got a thing for good Middle grade books, despite the fact that my professors and probably a few family members would tell me I am too old for them. I don't care. There's something fascinating about books that manage to entertain children, but still hold a message that can reach up to an adult.

The Goldfish Boy is definitely one of those books. While we have a mystery disappearance going on and a main character with OCD, both of those are represented well. Matthew never gets in the way of the police while running his own little investigation, and his problems with cleanliness don't suddenly disappears after his secret gets out. If you choose to write about children with disorders, Lisa Thompson has a lot to teach about it. 

Sentence: Really good! So far my challenge readings have been hits.

Book read as part of the 2017 Goodreads Choice Awards challenge.

Two Truths and A Lie: It's Alive! presents nine chapters of three stories each about plants, animals and humans where each story seems a little crazy but only one is a lie! Each story is backed up with sources and pictures and might even be sprinkled with some truths making some stories very difficult to see through. 

This was a very fun book to read with middle school aged children. After learning about certain topics, we would read the three stories in a corresponding chapter and have a great discussion in trying to decipher which story was the lie. Our favorite group of stories was the very first one which contained stories of a human-shaped root, an entire forest made up of only one tree and plant communication. The only thing that I would have prefered is if the answers were directly after each section instead of all together at the end of the book, since this made it easy to see the false story for the next section. These stories were a fun way to engage kids and have them do some critical thinking, can't wait for the next one!

This book was received for free in return for an honest review.