Posted on by TracyC

Revenge of the Mummy

Clue

#13 Revenge of the Mummy by A. E. Parker, 1996.

This book is a collection of short solve-it-yourself mini-mysteries based on the Clue board game. Each book in the series contains short mysteries that the reader is urged to attempt to solve before the characters do. The solutions to the mysteries come after each chapter.

Most of the mysteries involve a crime of some kind, but not all. Sometimes, characters try to steal things from each other, but there’s also a scavenger hunt, an ice cream tasting party, and a hot air balloon race.

In the final chapter of the book, it seems like Boddy, our host, has been murdered, and the reader has to solve his murder, just like in a game of Clue. However, Mr. Boddy doesn’t actually die. It’s a pattern in the series that he seems to have been killed in each book, but he always survives somehow to reappear in other books in the series.

At the end of the previous book of solve-it-yourself mini-mysteries, it looked like Mr. Boddy had been murdered, but at the beginning of this book, he explains how he survived. All of the books in the series follow this pattern. There’s generally a humorous twist to how he survives and explains the situation.

The book is available to borrow and read for free online through Internet Archive.

The Stories in the Book:

The Lion Ring – Mr. Boddy has obtained a new treasure for his collection: an ancient and valuable ring with a lion on it that once belonged to an African king. Naturally, his sticky-fingered guests all want it for themselves.

Full of Hot Air – Mr. Boddy and his guests are having a hot-air balloon race. Who will be the winner?

Urge to Earn an Urn – Mr. Boddy stops Mrs. White and Mrs. Peacock from arranging flowers in an old urn they found in the basement. It turns out that it’s a valuable Greek urn, and when the other guests realize it, someone plots to steal it.

Please Don’t Sneeze – Miss Scarlet is coming down with a cold and spreading it among the other guests. Mr. Boddy introduces them to his grandmother’s secret cold remedy.

For Goodness’ Snakes! – Mr. Boddy’s guests are frightened of his new pet boa constrictor, but when they try to catch the snake, the snake catches one of them.

The Inky Trail – Mr. Boddy has discovered that someone attempted to forge his signature on a $250,000 bond. Fortunately, the forger tried to use the pen that explodes ink if anyone other than Mr. Boddy uses it. Mr. Boddy thinks that it’s going to be easy to track down the ink-stained guest, but it’s more complicated than he thinks.

The Scavenger Hunt – Mr. Boddy’s guests are bored one evening, so he starts a scavenger hunt with them.

Screaming for Ice Cream – Mr. Boddy has an ice cream tasting party with his guests to determine the best flavor. However, not everyone is willing to eat certain flavors of ice cream. Readers have to determine who is the only person who tried every flavor.

Caught Bare-Handed – Someone attempts a daring but unsuccessful theft of Mr. Boddy’s priceless chandelier, which sends it crashing. Who was the attempted thief?

Revenge of the Mummy – Mr. Boddy shows his guests the mummy case that he has recently acquired. The guests are a little too fascinated after someone mentions that mummies were buried with their valuables. Mr. Boddy warns the guests that the mummy may get angry and seek revenge, but they don’t believe it … until someone has an encounter with the mummy.

Posted on by TracyC

The Screaming Skeleton

Clue

#10 The Screaming Skeleton by A. E. Parker, 1995.

This book is a collection of short solve-it-yourself mini-mysteries based on the Clue board game. Each book in the series contains short mysteries that the reader is urged to attempt to solve before the characters do. The solutions to the mysteries come after each chapter.

Most of the mysteries involve a crime of some kind, but not all. Sometimes, characters try to steal things from each other, but there’s also an apple-bobbing contest at a Halloween party, a snowball fight, and a pie-eating contest.

In the final chapter of the book, it seems like Boddy, our host, has been murdered, and the reader has to solve his murder, just like in a game of Clue. However, Mr. Boddy doesn’t actually die. It’s a pattern in the series that he seems to have been killed in each book, but he always survives somehow to reappear in other books in the series.

At the end of the previous book of solve-it-yourself mini-mysteries, it looked like Mr. Boddy had been murdered, but at the beginning of this book, he explains how he survived. All of the books in the series follow this pattern. There’s generally a humorous twist to how he survives and explains the situation.

The book is available to borrow and read for free online through Internet Archive.

The Stories in the Book:

Murder in the Cockpit – Mr. Boddy wants to take his guests for a flight on his private jet, but a fight breaks out over seating arrangements.

Baby Booty – Mr. Boddy has to watch his young nephew for a while, and he bribes his guests into helping him. Various guests take turns trying to make baby Frank happy, and readers are asked to figure out who has Frank.

Dance Until You Drop – Mr. Boddy and his guests were planning to have a croquet tournament, but they had to cancel it due to rain. To cheer everyone up, Mr. Boddy starts a dance party, but a couple of his guests take advantage of the situation and steal Miss Scarlet’s necklace.

The Halloween Costume Caper – Mr. Boddy is having a Halloween party for his friends, and he wants everyone to come in costume. When the guests arrive, no one is sure who is wearing which costume, but their identities are gradually revealed during a highly competitive game of bobbing for apples, where the guests are trying to find the apple that contains a “gold nugget.”

The Snowball Effect – It’s snowing, and the guests are getting on each other’s nerves because they’re cooped up inside. To change the mood, Mr. Boddy enlists everyone in a snowball fight. It’s up to the readers to determine who won from the information given.

The Case is All Sewed Up – Mr. Boddy is having an heirloom quilt restored, but the guests become interested when he says that one his ancestors hid the family treasures in the quilt during WWI. What are the Boddy family treasures, and who gets their hands on them?

Pie in Your Eye – Mr. Boddy is holding a pie-eating contest with his friends that unfortunately ends in a food fight. But, who is the winner?

Pea is for Pretender – The guests are talking about fairy tales when Miss Scarlet says that, like the Princess and the Pea, she would bruise if she tried to sleep on top of a single pea. The guests decide to put her claim to the test, and Mr. Boddy promises her a crown if she really bruises from sleeping on a pea. However, Miss Scarlet enlists the help of another guest to fake the results of the test. Who is her confederate?

The Thanksgiving Murder – Thanksgiving starts off peacefully enough with various guests volunteering to help Mrs. White prepare the meal and set the table … at least until Miss Scarlet realizes that Mrs. Peacock has removed her valuable jade ring and set it aside while helping. After Miss Scarlet swipes the ring, it changes hands several more times as others notice and take it for themselves. It’s up to the readers to figure out who finally ends up with it.

The Screaming Skeleton – Mr. Boddy unveils his latest acquisition – a skeleton made entirely of platinum. He’s planning to sell it to a museum, but of course, his guests plot to either steal the skeleton (or parts of it) or intercept the money from the museum. But, knowing his guests as he does, Mr. Boddy has also installed a security device on the skeleton that screams when someone tries to touch it.

Posted on by TracyC

The Secret Secret Passage

Clue

#2 The Secret Secret Passage created by A. E. Parker, written by Eric Weiner, 1992.

At the end of the previous book of solve-it-yourself mini-mysteries, it looked like Mr. Boddy had been murdered, but at the beginning of this book, he explains that he was only knocked unconscious. All of the books in the series follow this pattern from this point on – Mr. Boddy seems to be murdered in the final story, but he’s okay again in the next book, mimicking the pattern in the Clue board game, where players solve our host’s murder in his mansion over and over again. There’s generally a humorous twist to how he survives and explains the situation.

The book is available to borrow and read for free online through Internet Archive.

Stories in the Book:

The Secret Secret Passage – Professor Plum accidentally stumbles on a secret passage in the mansion that nobody knows about it. As various other guests either try to rescue Plum or try to follow his explanation of what happened to him, they also get trapped in the secret secret passage, until someone eventually tries to shoot Professor Plum over it.

The Challenge – Colonel Mustard is in a bad mood because he lost a tiddlywinks tournament and starts challenging everyone to a duel. Mr. Boddy and the other guests try to calm him down, but Mr. Green, who won the tournament provokes him into losing his temper. The two of them actually fight a duel, and readers are challenged to keep track of which weapons they use. (Of course, everyone survives the duel to appear in the other stories.)

The Joke Contest – The guests start telling each other jokes, but then they start to argue about who’s the best at telling jokes. To settle the matter, they decide to vote on it by secret ballot. Mrs. White wins, but Miss Scarlet is angry about losing. She wants to get back at whoever voted against her, and then, she realizes who it must be.

Mrs. White’s Horrible Plan – Mrs. White discovers that all of the other guests have left her something in their wills, and she makes a plan to eliminate them, but it has unintended consequences.

Boddy Language – Mrs. Peacock is so obsessed with good manners that she gets upset about the new mystery movie that Mr. Boddy funded and wants to show to his guests when she finds out that there is a scene where a white horse walks through a mud puddle. She just can’t stand any kind of “filth” in films. Mr. Boddy refuses to call off the showing of the movie, so she decides that she’s going to do something about it herself, but various others notice her attempts and thwart her. Readers are asked to figure out which weapon she was holding when she was thwarted for the last time.

Plum’s Plasma – Professor Plum has invented a fantastic cure for injuries, and after a series of injuries involving the knife, the other guests could sure use it … if readers can help Plum remember which room he left it in.

A Show of Talent – Mr. Boddy and his guests are putting on a talent show. Unfortunately, because the guests include the various weapins from the Clue game intheir acts, people end up getting hurt.

Trick or Treat – Mr. Boddy invites his friends to a Halloween party, but when they all show up in costume and start scaring each other, Mr. Boddy has to admit that he’s confused about who is who. Can you figure out who’s wearing each costume?

The Wrong Briefcase – Professor Plum is going to give the guests a scientific lecture about relativity, but when he goes to check his lecture notes, he discovers that he has the wrong briefcase. This briefcase is full of money! Professor Plum’s first thought is that he must have picked up the wrong briefcase while he was at the bank and that he should call the bank to let them know. However, the other guests try to persuade him to keep the money … and share it with them. When that fails, naturally, they decide to steal it from Plum themselves.

Mr. Boddy’s Pyramid – Mr. Boddy has decided that, when he dies, he wants to be buried in the style of an Egyptian pharaoh. He’s had a pyramid built for the purpose on his property with secret doors and hidden chambers full of treasures that he plans to have buried with him. Of course, he tells his guests all about it, asking them to make sure this last request of his is fulfilled. Also of course, someone tries to kill him for the treasure.

Posted on by TracyC

Who Killed Mr. Boddy?

Clue

#1 Who Killed Mr. Boddy? created by A. E. Parker, written by Eric Weiner, 1992.

This book is a collection of short solve-it-yourself mini-mysteries based on the Clue board game. It’s the first in a series that uses the setting, characters, weapons, and other tropes from the board game. Each book in the series contains short mysteries that the reader is urged to attempt to solve before the characters do. The solutions to the mysteries come after each chapter.

The book, like others in the series begins with Reginald Boddy greeting you and welcoming you to his mansion. Then, he tells you about his other guests and asks you to be on the lookout for clues in case anything suspicious happens.

Most of the mysteries involve a crime of some kind, but not all. In the final chapter of the book, it seems like Boddy, our host, has been murdered, and the reader has to solve his murder, just like in a game of Clue. However, Mr. Boddy doesn’t actually die. It becomes a pattern in the series that he seems to have been killed in each book, but he always survives somehow to reappear in other books in the series.

The book is available to borrow and read for free online through Internet Archive.

Stories in the Book:

Who Killed Pitty-Pat? – Someone has killed Mr. Boddy’s annoying parrot!

Who Stole Miss Scarlet’s Diamonds? – Miss Scarlet asks Mr. Boddy to put her diamonds in his safe. Mr. Boddy is sure that he’s the only one who knows the combination to the safe, but someone else finds out.

Happy Birthday, Mr. Green – It’s Mr. Green’s birthday. Various guests give him presents that are the weapons in the Clue game, but Professor Plum really takes the cake by telling Mr. Green that one of his presents is a time bomb (which he says that he thought would be really exciting), and he can’t remember which room of the mansion it’s in. Can the guests find it before it goes off?

The Ghost of Mrs. Boddy – The guests hold a seance to try to contact Mr. Boddy’s late wife, Bessie. Mr. Boddy is happy when the seance is successful and his wife gives raps to indicate that she’s happy and waiting for Mr. Boddy. However, after he goes to bed, the guests realize that one of them was faking the raps just to make Mr. Boddy happy. (A rare instance where they care about his feelings.) Can you find the faker?

Hide and Seek – During a game of hide-and-seek, Mrs. White is accidentally knocked unconscious at the same time that the mansion catches fire. Can you help the other guests find her in time to save her?

Where There’s Smoke, There’s Fire! – There’s another fire in the mansion, and one of the guests is responsible. Can you determine from their statements which of them caused the fire?

The Secret Changes Hands – Mr. Boddy forms a photography club with his friends. However, Professor Plum, desperate for money to fund his research about which animal blinks the most, takes the opportunity to spy on Mr. Boddy and learn the secret of his discovery for making extra-long-lasting gumdrops to sell to a rival company. Unfortunately, he’s not the only one interested in Mr. Boddy’s secrets, and after he photographs Mr. Boddy’s secret documents, other people try to steal his roll of film. Can you find the person who ends up with it?

The Sleepwalking Killer – A member of Mr. Boddy’s house party starts sleepwalking. After having a midnight snack in the kitchen, this person finds a gun and thinks that they’re supposed to shoot someone. Who is the mysterious sleepwalker?

Miss Feather’s Gossip Column – One of Mr. Boddy’s guests writes a gossip column about the others. Since the gossip columnist is obsessed with analyzing everyone’s manners, it isn’t hard to figure out that it’s Mrs. Peacock. When the others confront her, she refuses to retract the article, and the other guests later try to attack her while wearing masks. Mrs. Peacock demonstrates that she knows who all of the masked people are and invites the reader to figure out who is who.

Who Was Fiddling Around? – Mr. Boddy invites his guests to join him for a musical evening. However, a strange, hunchbacked woman also shows up and plays the violin. Then, Mr. Boddy’s rare Stradivarius violin disappears. It seems that the strange woman took it, but who was the strange woman, really?

The Night the Maid Became a Zombie – Someone hypnotizes Mrs. White to steal Mr. Boddy’s new statuette.

April Fools – A series of April Fools jokes seems to end in murder.

Who Killed Mr. Boddy? – Mr. Boddy tells his friends how much he’s appreciated their companionship since his wife’s death and reveals that he’s made them all heirs in his will. Naturally, someone plots to kill him.

Posted on by TracyC

Encyclopedia Brown Gets His Man

Encyclopedia Brown

Encyclopedia Brown Gets His Man by Donald J. Sobol, 1967, 1982.

The Idaville police department has an excellent record, but that’s because the chief of police’s ten-year-old son is Encyclopedia Brown. People praise Chief Brown, and Chief Brown doesn’t feel like he can admit how much help his son gives him because he doubts anyone would believe him. Encyclopedia himself doesn’t want to admit to other people that he helps his father figure out tough cases because he doesn’t want to seem too different from the others kids at school. However, Encyclopedia also has a detective business, helping the neighborhood kids to solve their problems for only 25 cents a day, plus expenses.

I always liked Encyclopedia Brown books when I was a kid! There are a couple of instances in this book of underage kids smoking, but I’d like to point out that smoking isn’t portrayed as a good think. Bugs is shown smoking in a picture, but he’s a young hoodlum and Encyclopedia’s nemesis, not one of the good guys in the stories. In another case, there’s a kid who smokes coffee grounds with a homemade pipe because he’s too young to buy tobacco. At first, he thinks he’s clever for figuring out how to do that and sneak a smoke without his mother’s knowledge, but it ends up getting him into trouble, and he promises Encyclopedia that he’ll give it up if he helps him out. Encyclopedia doesn’t lecture him, but he does refer to smoking as “burning your lungs”, so it seems that he isn’t in favor of it.

The book is available to borrow and read for free online through Internet Archive (multiple copies).

Stories in the Book:

The Case of the Marble Shooter

Algernon Kehoe is a master at marbles, but when he beat Bugs Meany, Bugs took all of his marbles, including his best shooters. Can Encyclopedia get Algernon’s marbles back?

The Case of Bugs Meany, Detective

Bugs Meany resents Encyclopedia for interfering with his schemes, but he can’t fight him directly because Encyclopedia’s detective partner, Sally, is the toughest and most athletic girl in their grade at school, and she’s beaten Bugs in a fight before. However, this time, he thinks he’s come up with a great way to get revenge – turn his gang, the Tigers, into a rival detective agency and beat Encyclopedia at his own game.

Someone steals a violin from the kids’ friend, Mario, and Bugs shows off that he can get it back before Encyclopedia and claim the reward for finding it. Of course, the kids’ first thought is that Bugs stole the violin himself. Can they prove it?

The Case of the Underwater Car

Encyclopedia and some friends want to go camping, and his mother tells him that he ought to ask Benny to go as well. Encyclopedia and the other kids like Benny, but they don’t like to camp with him because he snores badly. Sure enough, that night, Benny snores again, and Encyclopedia and the other boys have trouble getting to sleep. Encyclopedia leaves the tent for awhile and witnesses a bizarre car accident. The car misses a turn in the road, and the driver jumps out, screaming for help. The driver claims that he fell asleep at the wheel and that he woke up just in time to save himself. He says that his back is now badly injured, and he’s making a large claim on his insurance. However, Encyclopedia knows how to prove that the whole accident was staged.

The Case of the Whistling Ghost

A boy named Fabius hires Encyclopedia because he thinks his camera was stolen by a ghost. Fabius likes to study bugs, and he went inside the old, abandoned Morgan house to see if he could find any interesting bugs there. He was about to photograph a spider when a white ghost came down the stairs, making scary noises and an odd whistling sound. Fabius got spooked and ran off, leaving his camera behind. Later, when he got up the nerve to go back for his camera, it was gone.

The Case of the Explorer’s Money

A famous explorer dies, and a large amount of his money disappears. With so many people coming to his estate to attend an auction of the explorer’s belongings, how can Encyclopedia figure out how the thief plans to evade the searches being conducted by the police and get the money out of the estate?

The Case of the Coffee Smoker

A friend of the kids is being blackmailed. Someone is threatening to tell his mother that he’s been secretly smoking coffee grounds (because he’s too young to buy tobacco and thinks he’s found a clever way around the problem). He promises to kick the habit if Encyclopedia can stop the blackmailer. It isn’t hard to figure out who the blackmailer might be, but proving it will take more thought.

The Case of the Chinese Vase

A friend of Encyclopedia’s has a job cutting lawns to earn extra money for his family. While he’s working on a job, someone breaks an expensive vase in his client’s house, and they accuse Encyclopedia’s friend of doing it. Encyclopedia knows that it was actually the daughter of the house who did it, even though he wasn’t in the house at the time himself. How?

The Case of the Blueberry Pies

This year, there’s been a change to the pie-eating contest because local mothers think that the usual eating contest is gross and unhealthy. To make it healthier, they’ve limited the eating portion to two pies and added a race portion to the event. (Because running is a good thing to do immediately after eating two whole pies quickly?) However, one of the contestants seems to win too easily. How did they cheat?

The Case of the Murder Man

Cicero, a boy actor, wants to put on a mystery play with himself as the star as entertainment for an interfaith youth gathering. The problem is that he doesn’t have a good mystery story in mind, and he recruits Encyclopedia to write one that the audience can solve along with the characters.

The Case of the Million Pesos

Encyclopedia’s friend, Tim Gomez, is worried about his uncle, who is in jail in Mexico. He’s a famous baseball player, but he’s been accused of robbing a bank. Tim thinks his uncle was framed by a man named Pedro Morales because the woman he loved married Tim’s uncle instead, and he’s jealous. Tim’s uncle has an abili, but it’s not one that would be easy to prove. Even though the robbery occurred in another country, Tim asks Encyclopedia to consider the problem and see if he can think of something that will help.

Posted on by TracyC · 2 Comments

Encyclopedia Brown, Boy Detective

Encyclopedia Brown

Encyclopedia Brown, Boy Detective by Donald J. Sobol, 1963, 1982.

The Idaville police department has an excellent record, but that’s because the chief of police’s ten-year-old son is Encyclopedia Brown. People praise Chief Brown, and Chief Brown doesn’t feel like he can admit how much help his son gives him because he doubts anyone would believe him. Encyclopedia himself doesn’t want to admit to other people that he helps his father figure out tough cases because he doesn’t want to seem too different from the others kids at school. However, Encyclopedia also has a detective business, helping the neighborhood kids to solve their problems for only 25 cents a day, plus expenses.

This is the very first book in the series and introduces the character and how he begins solving mysteries. It also explains how he meets his detective partner Sally Kimball and his neighborhood nemesis Bug Meany, who is the leader of a gang of boys called the Tigers.

The book is available to borrow and read for free online through Internet Archive (multiple copies).

Stories in the Book:

The Case of Natty Nat

In Encyclopedia’ first case ever, he helps his father to find the real criminal in a robbery case.

The Case of the Scattered Cards

Deciding after his first success that he wants to be a detective, Encyclopedia starts his own detective business out of his garage. His first client is a boy named Clarence, whose tent has been stolen by Bug Meany and his gang of friends called the Tigers. This is the first time that Encyclopedia meets Bugs, who becomes his neighborhood nemesis.

The Case of the Civil War Sword

Bugs Meany offers to trade a sword that he says dates from the Civil War and was once owned by Stonewall Jackson to a boy in exchange for his bike. A real antique sword would be world a great deal more than a bike, but Encyclopedia can tell that it’s a fake.

The Case of Merko’s Grandson

Sally Kimball is one of the prettiest and most athletic girls at school, and she’s also one of the smartest. She wants to prove that she’s as smart as any boy and challenges Encyclopedia to a mystery-solving contest. It’s boy against girl, with Bugs Meany and the Tigers surprisingly rallying behind Encyclopedia. (Bugs has reason to resent Sally, who beat him in a fight after he was bullying another kid. He resents her more than he resents Encyclopedia.) Encyclopedia solves the mystery that Sally poses for him, but rather than becoming another nemesis, Sally joins Encyclopedia’s detective agency.

The Case of the Bank Robber

Encyclopedia and Sally go down to the bank to open an account for the earnings from the detective business, and they witness a robbery in progress. They see the robber collide with a blind beggar and run off, but when the police catch up with the robber, he doesn’t have the money from the robbery with him. A visit with the blind beggar settles what happened.

The Case of the Happy Nephew

A man with a criminal history is accused of robbing a shop. He says that he’s innocent because he only just returned from a long car trip, but his small nephew accidentally proves that can’t be true.

The Case of the Diamond Necklace

Chief Brown is embarrassed because a necklace that he was supposed to guard was apparently stolen from an event where it was supposed to be auctioned off. Encyclopedia notices an inconsistency in the witness statement that proves what really happened.

The Case of the Knife in the Watermelon

A member of a local gang of kids broke into the storeroom of a grocery store and tried to rob it. (It’s the Lions this time instead of the Tigers. First, I think it’s funny that they have the same name as a benevolent club, and second, I want to make a joke about how there should be a third gang in their town call the Bears – Lions, Tigers, and Bears, oh my!) Fortunately, he was frightened away before he took anything, but in his getaway, he accidentally tripped and stabbed a watermelon with his knife, leaving the knife behind. The owner of the grocery store becomes Encyclopedia’s first adult client (other than his father), hiring him to figure out which kid in the gang it was.

The Case of the Missing Roller Skates

Encyclopedia had Sally’s roller skates because he was fixing them for her, but before he can give them back, they’re stolen from the dentist’s office during his appointment. Encyclopedia tracks down the thief!

The Case of the Champion Egg Spinner

A kid has been winning an egg spinning contest against other kids after convincing them to bet some of their prized possessions. The other kids ask Encyclopedia to find out how he’s been winning.

Posted on by TracyC

The 13th Clue

The 13th Clue by Ann Jonas, 1988.

This picture book is almost entirely pictures. The pictures present clues to a treasure hunt and reveal the true story of the book.

The book begins with a diary entry. At first, we don’t know who is writing it, but this person writes about what a bad day it’s been. We know that the person must be a kid because they mention school, and I guessed that it was the person’s birthday because people sang to them at school. But, she thinks that others have forgotten her birthday. The diary entry breaks off when the person notices a light going on in the house when, supposedly, no one else is home.

From this point on, until the very end of the book, the text is presented in the form of clues for our birthday kid (who turns out to be a girl, as shown in shadows and a reflection in water in later illustrations) to follow that lead to the place where her friends are waiting to give her a surprise party. Readers can figure out the clues along with the girl, some of which are easier and more direct than others.

I love puzzle books, and I thought that it was interesting how we don’t even know who the main character of the book is, only finding that out as the book continues. I liked the challenge of figuring out the clues as the book went along, although none of them were particularly difficult. They aren’t written in any kind of code, just kind of hidden in plain sight, most of them using objects that are part of the rest of the scene. Some of the letters of words are jumbled and have to be unscrambled. I’m sure it would seem harder to children.

This is a pretty easy book, but not one that would be suitable to read to children who can’t read themselves. There are no solutions provided to the puzzles, but that’s okay because, first of all, they aren’t very hard, and second, there are no opportunities for the reader to make choices based on the puzzles, so there is nothing for the reader to get wrong. The end of the story is obvious. Most of the fun is just studying the pictures to see the cute ways her friends decided to hide their “secret” messages. The hardest message to spot is the one written in the hillside.

The book is available to borrow for free online through Internet Archive.

Posted on by TracyC · 2 Comments

Meg Mackintosh and The Case of the Missing Babe Ruth Baseball

Meg Mackintosh Mysteries

MMBaseball

Meg Mackintosh and The Case of the Missing Babe Ruth Baseball by Lucinda Landon, 1986.

MMBaseballAlbumThis is the first book in the Meg Mackintosh series, and it was the first mystery story that I ever read, when I was about seven years old.  It started a life-long love of mysteries!

Meg’s grandfather shows Meg and her friend Liddy some old family photographs and tells them about the time when his cousin Alice took his prize possession: a baseball autographed by Babe Ruth.  Alice was a bossy girl who always liked to tease him, and so she created a kind of treasure hunt, challenging him to solve it in order to get the baseball back.  Unfortunately, he could never figure out the clues and still doesn’t know what happened to the baseball.

Meg’s brother, Peter, has a Detective Club, but he refuses to allow Meg to join, saying that she needs to prove that she can solve a mystery.  Seeing this as her chance, Meg decides that she’s going to solve this old puzzle and find the Babe Ruth baseball!  However, she also has competition from Peter, who thinks that he’s the better detective and tries to send Meg off in the wrong direction.

The book is currently available online through Internet Archive.

My Reaction

All of the books in the Meg Mackintosh series allow readers to try to solve the mysteries along with Meg, stopping periodically to ask them if they’ve noticed a clue that Meg has noticed or if they know what the significance of a clue is.  There are pictures to help, and readers are invited to stop and study the details before moving on. I think this is a good way to introduce children to puzzle-solving and help them develop critical thinking skills and an ability to notice details. I would recommend adults reading these books, or at least the first one or two along with children, so they can discuss the stories and clues with them, helping them spot clues as they begin to get used to the format of the books.

This is an excellent series for introducing children to the mystery genre for the first time! When I was young and just learning what mysteries were, I was fascinated to discover that I already had all of the knowledge I needed to solve this mystery along with Meg because all of the clues to Alice’s treasure hunt had to do with nursery rhymes. If you can recognize the rhymes in the book, you’re well on your way to solving the mystery!

Posted on by TracyC · 1 Comment

Which Witch is Which

WhichWitch

Which Witch is Which by Pat Hutchins, 1989.

This is a cute picture book/puzzle book.  A pair of twins, Ella and Emily, are invited to a friend’s costume party, but they come dressed as witches in identical (or nearly identical) costumes.  Throughout the party, as the girls play party games, eat the party snacks, and give presents to their host, readers are invited to figure out which twin is which.

WhichWitchIntro

The main clue to the girls’ identities is that Ella’s favorite color is pink while Emily prefers the color blue.  Things that the girls have in those colors or objects that they select give away their identities

WhichWitchPresents

However, there are also other hints, like we are told what each of the girls ate at the party so that we can use the crumbs left on their plates (or the lack of crumbs) to determine which witch is which.

WhichWitchCake

The text of the book rhymes.  The illustrations are cute, and it’s a good book for teaching children how to notice details.

The book is available to borrow and read for free online through Internet Archive.

WhichWitchPlates
Posted on by TracyC

The Codebreaker Kids

CodebreakerKidsThe Codebreaker Kids by George Edward Stanley, 1987.

Dinky Lakewood likes living in Washington, D.C. because it’s such an interesting place, and he loves the stories about spies and government intrigue that appear in the local newspaper.  His father, who deals in plumbing supplies, thinks that all this sneaking and spying is awful and threatens to move his family somewhere else when he hears about another spy being caught, but Dinky decides that he’s going to get in on the action because he has a special skill that the spies really need.

The newspapers say that the reason why the latest spy was caught was because he and his associates were so bad at cryptology — they either picked codes that were way too hard or way too easy to decode.  Although Dinky’s parents don’t like spies, they did give him a book about secret codes for his birthday: The Complete and Total Book of All the Secret Codes That Have Ever Been Devised and That Ever Will Be Devised.  Dinky has worked his way through all of the codes in the book, so he feels qualified to open his own Secret Code Service, helping spies to encode and decode their secret messages.

Dinky recruits his best friend Wong and a girl he knows from school named Lulu to be part of his organization.  Lulu is a little strange, but Dinky knows that she’s always wanted to be a spy, so he figures that she would be good for dealing with real spies.  Wong is more interested in the money because he wants to get a new bike.

Their first clients are a little strange.  One of them is an elderly lady, Emma, who wants to stop her younger sister from snooping in her diary.  She turns out to be a repeat visitor because her sister turns out to have a talent for breaking codes.  The next client is Boris, the world’s worst Bulgarian spy.  He admits that he’s horrible with codes because he cheated at spy school, copying off of a cute female spy.  Dinky and his friends help him, although they start to question whether they’re doing the right thing since he is obviously spying on their country and they might be guilty of treason.

They decide that Boris is protected under their pledge of confidentiality, but soon, Dinky is approached by someone from the State Department, who turns out to be tracking Boris the Bulgarian.  Can Dinky and his friends continue their service, helping both sides at the same time?  Also, will they ever figure out a code that Emma’s sister can’t break?

The premise of the story is a little corny, with spies and government agencies going to a kid’s backyard clubhouse for help with some pretty simple codes, but the book is a lot of fun and doesn’t take itself seriously.  It’s a good introduction to cryptology for children, starting out with very simple Caesar ciphers (basic substitution codes) and gradually moving on to more difficult ones, like Trithemius’s Square Table.  There are points in the story where readers are given the chance to decode messages before Dinky does, and in the back, there are some additional secret messages to decode using the codes presented in the book.

The book is currently available online through Internet Archive.  There is a sequel to this book, but unfortunately, I don’t have it and never read it.