I couldn’t possibly have known that the books I managed to read this summer, in some convoluted way, would all share a common thread: success.
In "The Hidden Staircase" by Carolyn Keene, Nancy Drew, using her wits and intuition, solves the mystery of the old stone mansion successfully.
Splat, from Rob Scotton’s "Splat the Cat", has an anxious but ultimately very successful first day of school.
Don Freeman’s "Corduroy
", a department store bear missing a button who yearns to find a home, does.
Stephanie Plum, not surprisingly, figures out in the nick of time who decapitated the celebrity chef in Janet Evanovitch’s "Finger Lickin' Fifteen".