Nate the Great by Marjorie Weinman Sharmat, 1972.

Nate is eating his favorite breakfast, pancakes, when his friend Annie calls him from her house down the street, asking for his help in finding a lost picture. When Nate arrives at Annie’s house, she says that she painted a picture of her dog, Fang, and then left it on her desk to dry, but it disappeared.

After establishing that Annie’s house has no trapdoors or secret passages, Nate declares that this will be a very dull case. But, of course, he investigates anyway.

Nate searches Annie’s room, and not finding the picture, asks Annie who else knew about it. Annie says that she showed it to Fang, her little brother Harry, and her friend Rosamond.

Determining that Fang didn’t bury the picture of himself and that Rosamond is only interested in cats, that just leaves Harry. But, if Harry took Annie’s picture, why did he take it and what did he do with it?

My Reaction

This is a fun mystery for young children, one of the first mysteries that I read as a kid. The pictures in the book have clues, and it helps if kids know how to combine colors to create new ones (hint).

Later editions of the book also have a section of activities in the back. Most of them have to do with art and color, and there is also a recipe for pancakes.