Fooled you, didn’t I? I bet you thought I’d pick mermaids for the letter M. Well, I couldn’t go with the obvious. LOL.
For the second book in my middle grade series (State Secret Keepers #2), the time traveling twin sisters and their trusty sidekick, Alex, find themselves in South Dakota in the middle of construction (deconstruction, maybe) of Mount Rushmore. If they can’t stop the bad guys (minions of the Chaos Maker), then George Washington won’t look like himself at all. The monument will be all wrong.

I won’t tell you who the Chaos Maker wants to immortalize instead of the first President. *rubs hands in evil anticipation* Also, Sophie, Piper, and Alex will have to dodge more rocks. Literary rocks (the plot kind), not literal ones—just in case you were wondering about that…although, where there is demolition, there will be rocks.
Mount Rushmore has a fascinating history. Here are three amazing things about the monument and how it was built:
- Dynamite was measured and placed carefully to remove the mountain face within inches to achieve the look they wanted…with the faces. (Yeah, I know. The sentence was too goofy not to keep. Sorry.) They removed 90% of the material with dynamite blasts.
- No one died in the making of this monument.
- The total cost of materials was less than a million dollars.
Source: National Parks Service (This link goes to a easy-to-read student guide. The website has all kinds of other great information.)
Have you ever visited Mount Rushmore? What’s your favorite national park or monument?