The Goatnappers.

Dave Jenkinson is a professor in the Faculty of Education at the University of Manitoba and the author of the “Portraits” section of Emergency Librarian.

This sequel to Lost Goat Lane introduces a few new characters while focusing on 15-year-old Justin Martin, who finds himself, legally speaking, a goat thief. After Justin becomes the first freshman in almost two decades to make his rural Florida school’s varsity baseball team, he needs a bicycle to get home after school because his ball practices mean missing the school bus. To purchase a secondhand bike, Justin sells a goat, his Christmas gift from his 13-year-old sister Kate, to Corky Grimstead, who intends to use Little Billy in children’s shows. However, when three seven-year-olds, Justin’s brother Chip and his two friends Luther Wilson and Lily Hashimoto, observe Grimstead physically abusing the two-month-old goat and locking him in a dark garage, they decide that the kid must be rescued and enlist Justin and Kate’s help. While successful, the juvenile goatnappers’ plan unfortunately does not extend beyond their hiding the purloined animal on a deserted farm. Also impacting Justin’s life is the sudden reappearance of his father, Charlie, who had deserted his family four years earlier to follow the transient life of a race-car mechanic. Charlie’s lifestyle, including his red sports car, seems romantic to Justin, who is tempted when his father offers him the opportunity to go and live with him on the racing circuit. While adult intervention is appropriately required to resolve the quintet’s “kid”-napping situation, Justin displays believable character growth as, emotionally caught between his estranged parents, he makes his own decision about Charlie’s offer. Recommended.