Spy School (review)
Elizabeth Bush · Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books./Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books · 2012
Reviewed by: Spy School Elizabeth Bush Gibbs, Stuart . Spy School. Simon, 2012. [304p]. Trade ed. ISBN 978-1-4424-2182-0 $15.99 E-book ed. ISBN 978-1-4424-2184-4 $9.99 Reviewed from galleys R Gr. 4-7. When a suave, dashing man in a tuxedo shows up at Ben Ripley's house offering him a slot at the CIA's Academy of Espionage, Ben has his bags packed in a heartbeat. His first moments across the academy's threshold are a clear tip-off that this will be a challenging educational program: the campus is deserted save for a cadre of terrorists who attack Ben and his guide and nearly kill the boy before he reaches the door of the principal's office to discover this was only an introductory test. Then things get worse. Ben realizes he's been selected on the basis of cryptography skills he knows full well he doesn't have; in fact, he is only being used as bait to flush out a mole who threatens to undermine the academy. Ben's pride kicks in, and he's determined to stick out the program and demonstrate his merits, but this will require some skillful counterespionage of his own, convincing his hostile classmates and some staff that he's the real deal. The plotting here is a little clunky, but there's plenty of fun to be had in the spy-story archetypes that surround our hapless hero, from the 007 wannabe, to the butt-kicking hottie Ben adores, to the doddering fool of a professor who's actually a razor-sharp tactician. Many, many kids enter middle school wishing they had a license to kill, but until the CIA comes knocking, this exercise in wishful thinking should keep them mightily entertained. Copyright © 2012 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois