My letter “D” pick for this year’s A To Z Reading Challenge was THE DOUBLE DRASTIC TIME CAPSULE CAPER by Van Temple. I try to pick one middle-grade or children’s book each year, and I’ve always been pleasantly surprised. This time – not so much.

The book centers around a group of quirky friends, ages ten to twelve-ish, who believe their mayor is plotting to steal something valuable out of a time capsule that is soon to be opened by the town at its 100 year anniversary party. They take it upon themselves to dig up the capsule, steal the item first, then replace the capsule (all without anyone knowing) so they can donate the valuable item to a museum as it is intended to be.

This story is full of colorful characters and zany hijinks as everything goes wrong (of course), but aside from that, the plot is a loosely cobbled-together thing that is so outlandish it’s utterly ludicrous and wildly unbelievable. It’s like listening to the class liar in the sixth grade (everyone knows one) tell you a ridiculous story that everyone knows is completely fake but he’s funny so nobody calls him on it.

The kids break into the mayor’s office (redirecting the security cameras), rummage through his office, then determine that a century-old copy of a small-town newspaper from the middle of nowhere is worth tens of thousands of dollars. They dig up a park in the center of town while it’s crowded with people, they climb statues, redirect courier shipments to their own home, dodge raccoons and an army of slobbering pug dogs and finally get the true culprit arrested. All without anybody batting an eye or being especially clever about any of it. The dialogue was repetitive, and on the audiobook, the voice actors weren’t great at differentiating characters so I often couldn’t tell who was speaking. At least it was short. A kid might find this sort of fun at first, but most wouldn’t want their intelligence insulted this badly. I’ll give this one two stars for the characters, who were mostly quirky and fun.