Daring Darleen Queen of the Screen by Anne Nesbet

From Darling to Daring

Darleen comes from a family of movie makers. When she was younger the studio had made movies about Darling Darleen but as this story begins Darleen is now 12 and so now the movies have changed their focus to  involve danger and villains and Darleen has been transformed into Daring Darleen.

"Chases, plunges, trains, and villans - that's what the public wanted these days. The year 1914 would surely go down in history as the age of the adventure serial: a new episode every week, and tension galore!"

Darleen's uncles and bossy Aunt Shirley decide their next movie needs extra publicity so they set up a fake kidnapping outside the theatre where the latest Daring Darleen film is premiering. The family do not know that real kidnappers are also in the neighborhood and they have plans to abduct Miss Victorine Berryman who is heiress to a fortune. On the night, the kidnapping goes wrong, Darleen steps into the wrong car and the two girls find themselves in the hands of ruthless kidnappers. The plot itself would make a terrific Daring Darleen movie as we watch the two girls climb down from the seventh floor where they have been held captive. The two girls are now on the run and Darleen is desperate to help her new friend but she also needs to discover the truth about the involvement of her movie co-star Jasper Lukes - the archetypal villain:

"Jasper Lukes seemed to go out of his way to be mean. You wouldn't think so to look at him: with his golden hair and uniquely pointy little ears ... (Darleen) spent her whole childhood being teased, tripped and tormented. Five years older than Dar, and he had never yet grown out of his basic meanness. Darlene's secret theory was that Jasper Lukes's heart must be as small and pointy as his ears."

The world of silent movies is a fascinating one and in this book I made so many discoveries about the processes and film techniques used in the early 1900s.  An author note at the back of the book gives more detail about movie making during this period. It makes sense that the author is teacher of film studies.

Daring Darleen Queen of the Screen is a longish book for a middle grade reader with 354 pages and so it did take me a while to read this book but the final scenes were excellent and I did race through the final chapters. The actual book design is very good - the pages have lots of white space and font is set at an easy to read size. Listen to an audio sample from the first chapter.

Huge thanks to Beachside Bookshop and Walker Books (Australia) for giving me an advance reader copy of Daring Darleen which was published this month.

Just like Darleen—a spunky blend of darling and daring. Kirkus Star review

Film studies professor Nesbet writes her intrepid heroine with swashbuckling verve and sweet familial affection, incorporating extensive knowledge of early-20th-century film making into a well-paced, gripping tale of staying true to oneself while stretching limitations. Publishers Weekly

Read more plot details in this review by Ms Yingling writing for YA and Kids Books Central.

As a way to introduce you to Anne Nesbet you might like to take a look at my review of The Orphan Band of Springdale.