The Upper Case: Trouble in Capital City (Private I)

by Tara Lazar (Author) Ross MacDonald (Illustrator)

Reading Level: K − 1st Grade
Series: Private I

Just when Private I thinks all is calm-now that he's cracked the case of 7 Ate 9-Question Mark storms into the office.

Mark is worried. All the uppercase letters are M-I-S-S-I-N-G! But that's absurd. This is CAPITAL City!Private I is the last letter standing. Will he solve his BIGGEST mystery yet, the UPPER CASE, before it's too late?!

Filled with the same humor, wit, and quirkiness of the hit 7 Ate 9: The Untold Story, comes another laugh-out-loud whodunit.

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Kirkus

Both a hilarious spoof of a noir novel and a clever comment on modern punctuation misuse . 

Publishers Weekly

In a follow-up to 7 Ate 9, trouble comes to Capital City when every one of its namesake capital letters--except for Private I--disappear. Prompted by Question Mark and Exclamation, Private I immediately tackles the Upper Case. Punctuated by ample wordplay ("Hyphen was busy dashing around town"), Private I searches the city high and low for leads, finally spying the missing caps on a movie theater marquee. A twist reveals that Exclamation is "crooked," having made false promises of cinema fame to the capital letters in exchange for a little quiet. Peace is restored and Exclamation "straightened out" with assistance from the Grammar Police. Though many of the jokes are unlikely to resonate with readers at the lower end of the age range, Lazar hits every mark of a traditional detective story, and MacDonald's illustrations place readers on the scene of a Technicolor retro gumshoe drama. Ages 3-5. (Oct.)

Copyright 2019 Publishers Weekly, LLC Used with permission.

School Library Journal

Gr 1-4--In this second title starring Private I, all of the uppercase letters--with the exception of our hero--have disappeared. "This was serious...If all the capital letters were gone, there'd be incomplete sentences dangling everywhere." Private I tries to question Hyphen, Period, Ampersand, Apostrophe, and Comma, but they are all busy "dashing around," stopping traffic, minding p's and q's, packing belongings, and listing chores, respectively. Only the Quotation Twins are available: "'Yeah, something's definitely up, besides us...But don't quote us on that.'" Worst of all, I's favorite waitress, B, never showed up at work that morning. A mysterious glow from an abandoned part of town finally rouses his attention. Following B's trail of order slips, Private I discovers the missing letters trapped on a marquee, by none other than ...Exclamation! "'He promised to put us all in the movies...I always wanted to see my name in lights...Lock him up and throw away the keyboard!'" cries B. It turns out, poor Exclamation only wanted a little peace and quiet. "Capital letters are always calling me...They want me to join them. As if they're not loud enough on their own!" I ties up the case and is reunited with his girl. Clever wordplay and MacDonald's colorful retro illustrations add to the fun. The anthropomorphized letters and punctuation marks are accessorized with hats, shoes, ties, earrings, aprons, etc. Ampersand pushes her "p's and q's" in a double stroller, and the Grammar Police are represented by a pony-tailed Elements of Style and mustached Chicago Manual of Style. VERDICT This lively introduction to punctuation belongs in every elementary classroom.--Barbara Auerbach, Cairo Public Library, NY

Copyright 2019 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Review quotes

Praise for The Upper Case: Trouble in Capital City A Junior Library Guild Selection-
Tara Lazar
Tara Lazar finds it fabulous to be foolish about felines. She opened the door to a cat mewling, offered the stray a can of tuna, and the cat never left. She is the author of 7 Ate 9, The Monstore, Bloop and more. You can find them all--Tara, her husband, two daughters and a black cat--somewhere in New Jersey. Flat Cat is her 13th book. You can visit Tara Lazar online at taralazar.com.

Pete Oswald is the #1 New York Times bestselling illustrator of The Smart Cookie; The Couch Potato; The Cool Bean; The Good Egg; and The Bad Seed, all written by Jory John. Pete's authorial debut, Hike, was shortlisted for the CILIP Kate Greenaway Medal. He is also the illustrator of Sleepy Sheepy, written by Lucy Ruth Cummins, and the indie bestsellers The Attack of the Underwear Dragon and The Return of the Underwear Dragon, written by Scott Roth­man. In addition to making picture books, he works on numerous highly success­ful animated franchises as a character designer, concept artist, and production designer. He lives in Los Angeles with his wife and three sons. You can visit Pete Oswald online at PeteOswald.com.
Classification
Fiction
ISBN-13
9781368027656
Lexile Measure
-
Guided Reading Level
-
Publisher
Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Publication date
October 15, 2019
Series
Private I
BISAC categories
JUV019000 - Juvenile Fiction | Humorous Stories
JUV028000 - Juvenile Fiction | Mysteries, Espionage, & Detective Stories
JUV009010 - Juvenile Fiction | Concepts | Alphabet
JUV009080 - Juvenile Fiction | Concepts | Words
Library of Congress categories
Alphabet
Mystery and detective stories
Detective and mystery stories
Punctuation
Private investigators
Junior Library Guild
Selection

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