National Archive Hunters 2: Eternal Flame

Twins Ike and Iris Carter race from D.C. to Paris to New York on the trail of one of America’s most iconic treasures, before it disappears like smoke. The second book in a breathtaking and hilarious middle grade action-adventure series.

Fresh off saving the French Four--a quartet of American treasures--and their mom’s museum, Carter twins Ike and Iris are back in Washington, D.C. when they’re summoned to the National Archives by the FBI Art Crimes Team because the Statue of Liberty is missing.

Well, not the statue. But pieces of the flame packed away in 1916 have somehow vanished. The Smithsonian has organized an elaborate, high-profile event around the artifacts in six days -- with the presidents of both the U.S. and France set to attend --and the flame’s absence will be a national embarrassment.

The National Archive Hunters jump into action, learning everything they can about Lady Liberty’s construction, including that Gustave Eiffel helped original sculptor Frederic Bartholdi by designing the supports for the flame . . . and that one of Eiffel’s original sketches is missing. They need to see what was so important on that page, and that means getting to France, where another set of Eiffel’s sketches is housed.

Ike and Iris need a French connection tout de suite, or the relationship between America and its oldest ally might be snuffed out.

A Junior Library Guild Gold Standard Selection

Matthew Landis is an eighth-grade social studies teacher (the one you wish you had). His middle grade books The Not So Boring Letters of Private Nobody, It’s the End of the World as I Know It, and Operation Final Notice have won many awards and accolades, including being named an ILA Teacher’s Choice and a Bank Street’s Best Book. He is also the author of the YA novel League of American Traitors. He lives in Doylestown, PA with his wife, four kids, chickens, and a boxer who acts very much like the forgotten eldest child.