ALA Booklist (Tue Nov 01 00:00:00 CDT 2022)

Lin Moser has been living her best life, traveling from adventure to adventure as one of the "Moseying with the Mosers" YouTube family. So, how will she survive a B.O.R.I.N.G., stationary summer in New Jersey? Help comes in the form of two unlikely new friends: pink-haired Tinsley, who couldn't care less what the other kids think, and introverted, allergy-prone Leo from across the street. They form an odd squad and research the local legend of "The Castle in the Sky," a place that many have searched for, but no one has found. The trio head out alone, planning to discover its location and uncover its treasures. Briefly thwarted along their way by the bullying Sanders boys, the young explorers cleverly persist and are rewarded with exciting discoveries. A cross between the Irwin family's adventures and National Treasure, this is an entertaining quest that touches on facets of home and family, bullying, and personal creativity. A quick read that will entertain and challenge readers to seek out adventures in their own backyards.

Kirkus Reviews

Feeling abandoned by her filmmaker mom, who's on a yearlong residency in the Dry Tortugas, a tween finds friendship, mystery, and adventure in a small New Jersey town.Lin loves her family's unusual lifestyle. Her dad restores old houses around the country, while her mom films the process for their popular YouTube channel. The three occupy a souped-up bus that they move from location to location. With Mom away and Dad occupied, Lin-formerly home-schooled, now enrolled in public school summer rec camp-is bored and disgruntled. That is, until she's befriended by pink-haired classmate Tinsley. When Lin confides her intention to make a film about her summer, Tinsley's thrilled. Their friendship evolves to include Leo, a shy, overparented King Arthur buff who tells Lin about an abandoned castle believed to lie nearby, off the Appalachian Trail. Tinsley confides that her dad's Freemason lodge has long unsuccessfully sought the castle. Lin persuades them to break into the lodge to search for clues to its presumed whereabouts and then to join her on an overnight camping trip to find it. Things get more complicated when they're pursued by a trio of bullies who intend to capitalize on any exciting discoveries. Meandering at first, the pace picks up with the search for the castle-as do the stakes. Rinker's affinity for treasure-seeking quests serves readers well, as do her clear interest in and affection for the natural world. Characters default to White.An enjoyably alfresco romp. (Fiction. 8-13)

Publishers Weekly (Fri Oct 06 00:00:00 CDT 2023)

Stuck in Newbridge, N.J., with her father while her mother participates in a yearlong film residency in the Dry Tortugas, 12-year-old Melinda “Lin” Moser feels miserable. She’s spent years traveling the country as part of her parents’ popular YouTube home renovation show, Moseying with the Mosers, and resents being left behind. Ditching summer camp for her own film project, Lin becomes determined to find and film Pen’s Castle, a rumored local haunt off the Appalachian Trail with purported roots in Arthurian legend and connections to Freemasonry. Along the way, she also hopes to prove that she—like both her mother and 19th-century mountaineer Annie Smith Peck, the subject of a book her mom sends her—is a true adventurer. Alongside musical theater enthusiast Tinsley Cooper, whose father is recovering from a work accident at local Sanders Construction, and bookish Leo Martin, bullied by another Sanders, Lin searches for clues about the castle while concocting a plan to spend two days hiking and filming in the woods. Rinker (The Dare Sisters) packs themes and plot points into a novel whose real strength is its characters; if the story sometimes bogs down as a result, the white-cued kids’ rapport and significant emotional arcs satisfy. Ages 8–12. Agent: Linda Epstein, Emerald City Literary. (July)