White Flutters in Munich: an E.T. Madigan Mystery

by Steven Novak (Illustrator), Joan Wright Mularz

Overview

When Ellen Theodora Madigan's dad moves the family to Munich, Germany for his job, her paranormal sensitivity goes into high alert. Almost at once, she senses that something may have happened in the basement of Haus Falke, the home they have rented. Ellen's intuition, fueled by perceptive dreams, the remnants of an old WWII diary and an odd photo in an antique locket given to her by the boy next door, leads the two teenagers to delve deeper.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781518871603
Publisher:	CreateSpace Publishing
Publication date:	11/01/2015
Series:	The E.T. Madigan Mystery Series: Upheavals at Cuma, White Flutters in Munich, and Maine Roots Run de , #2
Pages:	362
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.75(d)
Age Range:	10 - 13 Years

About the Author

Joan Wright Mularz was born into a large family on an island in the middle of New York Harbor. Childhood days spent with five siblings, lots of cousins and dozens of neighborhood kids weren't organized but were busy and fueled by imagination.
Joan always enjoyed writing and drawing and her high school days were enriched with essay contests, Saturday art lessons and working at the public library.
When it came time for college, she commuted daily by ferry to Manhattan. Through her studies and especially art history courses, she developed a yen to see the places she read about. She scrimped and saved while still a student and headed to Europe, truly bitten by the travel bug.
When she met her husband, she found a kindred spirit with a love for exploring new places. They spent their honeymoon on an adventure in Venezuela.
After that, Joan began teaching, had two children, and earned graduate degrees. Her family life has been rich with travel opportunities in the U.S and Canada, Europe, Asia, Central and South America, and Africa - both for work and for pleasure.
Her experiences as a parent and a teacher, both here and abroad, have influenced Joan to write for young people. She has also written curriculums, educational grants, children's books for her own use in the classroom, and always makes notes about the places she travels.
Joan lived in Italy for 2 and a half years, and that became the inspiration for her first E. T. Madigan mystery, Upheavals at Cuma. Six years in Germany led to the writing of the second mystery, White Flutters in Munich.
When not traveling, Joan now divides much of her time between a small town in Massachusetts and a small town in the western hills of Maine. The latter inspired her alliterative alphabet book, Down West - the Other Maine. She enjoys reading, walking, kayaking, hiking, downhill skiing, snowshoeing, gardening, redecorating, art, and, most of all, her family and friends.

Editorial Reviews

2016-02-16
The Madigan family relocates to Munich, where another long-buried mystery awaits them in the second of a series aimed at preteen readers. Fourteen-year-old Ellen Madigan senses there's a mystery to be solved as soon as she enters the house her family has rented for the year in Munich. Ellen is learning to trust her psychic ability, awakened in her previous adventure, which connects her to people from the past. New readers to the series shouldn't worry; Mularz (Upheavals at Cuma, 2014) gives enough background information to keep them from feeling lost. Ellen soon learns that two young women died in the basement of the house during a bombing raid in World War II. But when she begins dreaming of one of the women, Liesi Falke, Ellen senses there is more to her story. With the help of Basti Hofstetter, the handsome boy next door, Ellen discovers that Liesi and her friend were medical students helping transport young children to the countryside, out of the reach of the Nazis. The two girls faked their deaths to escape Germany, but there the trail goes cold. As she tracks down clues to their fates, Ellen immerses herself in local culture, learning the language and trying new foods and traditions. Mularz sensitively addresses Germany's Nazi history, emphasizing the complicated feelings of present-day Germans about their past. "Hitler haunts us," Basti tells Ellen. Ellen's dreams depict Nazi Germany and reveal a little-known aspect of the resistance movement. While she unravels the historical mystery, Ellen juggles her growing crush on Basti and her desire to become more independent. A confident girl who loves science, Ellen is a terrific role model, but her natural doubts and insecurities also make her relatable. Occasionally, her psychic abilities too conveniently reveal the next clue, but a hefty amount of old-fashioned detective work provides balance. Digging into family secrets proves surprisingly suspenseful, and the end packs a satisfying emotional punch. A captivating read infused with a sense of history and culture.

Kirkus Reviews