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Kaleidoscope Eyes    by Jen Bryant Amazon.com order for
Kaleidoscope Eyes
by Jen Bryant
Order:  USA  Can
Knopf, 2009 (2009)
Hardcover
* * *   Reviewed by Lyn Seippel

Kaleidoscope Eyes is set in Willowbank, New Jersey during the Viet Nam War. Thirteen-year-old Lyza's world is complicated by more than middle school and summer vacation. Everyone has an opinion on whether their boys should be fighting a war on the other side of the world.

Lyza's two friends are Malcolm, a shy young black whose brother is being drafted and hyperactive Carolann. Liza's older sister is a hippie involved in protesting the war.

When her grandfather dies, Lyza finds an envelope with her name on it. She squirrels it away to open later and finds three maps and vague clues to a treasure buried long ago by Captain William Kidd. Grandfather was an adventurer and he invites Lyza to take on an adventure of her own. Lyza swears her friends to secrecy and their quest to find the treasure begins.

Bryant is a master at weaving a good story into past events. The book is written in verse with Liza weaving in poems about the tensions of the time.

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