Today’s stack: a handful of kids’ books that involve mysteries—a couple are traditional mystery stories, and a couple are just stories that involve something mysterious.
The Sherlock Society by James Ponti
James Ponti is no stranger to kid detective stories: he wrote the Framed! series and the City Spies series, both of which I’ve covered in previous columns. This is the first book in a new series (out this week!), and it starts off with a splash—Alex and Zoe are out in the middle of Biscayne Bay, having narrowly escaped an exploding yacht. Of course, pretty soon we get the flashback to find out what happened leading up to this exciting intro.
Alex and Zoe Sherlock are siblings, and along with friends Yadi and Lina they decide to form the Sherlock Society Detective Agency to earn some cash—though they quickly run into problems when their mom, an attorney, explains all of the legal hoops they’d have to jump through in order to sell their services. Instead, their grandpa lets them explore his old unfinished stories from his time as a reporter at the Miami Herald, to see if there are any old threads they want to chase: an international jewel thief and the gem that was never recovered, the Bermuda Triangle (Yadi’s a bit of a conspiracy buff), tracking down the source of some art forgeries, looking for Al Capone’s lost treasure. While they don’t have much luck finding treasure, they do find something else, which soon entangles them in an ongoing mystery (that eventually leads to the aforementioned exploding boat).
It’s a fun story, and there are various clues so that the reader can try to piece some of it together before the kids arrive at the solution themselves. The cast of characters is also really good: the relationship between Alex and Zoe feels realistic, and Zoe in particular is figuring things out in terms of friendship and peer pressure. The grandpa is also great, teaching the kids how to investigate and really encouraging them while showing them some of his old tricks as a reporter. This one feels a little more grounded than the City Spies series, too. I mean, yes, a bunch of kids solve a big mystery, but in this case they don’t have access to a bunch of special technology or the resources of a secretive government agency. They just have their wits, their phones, and their grandpa’s 1964 Cadillac (named Roberta).
The Swifts: A Gallery of Rogues by Beth Lincoln with illustrations by Claire Powell
The Swifts are back! My daughter and I read the first book last year and both really enjoyed it (she’s re-read it countless times since then), and so we were very excited for the sequel. This volume finds the Swifts in Paris, encountering another branch of the family tree, the Martinets (whose names are all pulled from a French dictionary, the way the Swifts are named from an English dictionary). There has been a historical feud between the two families, in part because of a famous clown painting that Swindle Swift won in a card game (at which the Martinets claim Swindle cheated). Fauna decides that it may be time to put this feud to rest by sending a delegation to Paris.
But then the painting is stolen in the middle of the night, and the Swifts arrive in Paris to discover that some fo the artist’s other works are also being targeted by a mysterious group of thieves. The Martinet family’s fortunes depend on the last, most famous work still in their possession, but will they be able to catch the thieves? And there are mysteries upon mysteries, like whatever happened to the artist himself after he vanished in 1926.
One of the joys of The Swifts is the clever wordplay. All of the Swifts (and the Martinets) have names that are simply words, and most of them live up to their name in some way. Shenanigan is the central character, a bit of a troublemaker who isn’t afraid to rock the boat a bit—which sometimes gets her into trouble, but is also a useful skill while chasing down clues. This time, we get a lot of French words, both in the names and in the conversations, and it’s a fun way to learn some new vocabulary, including a lot of loan words that have made it into English. It really adds a lot to the story, and if you’ve got a kid who loves puns and other wordplay, I highly recommend this series. Looking forward to more adventures in the future!
The Books of Clash Volume 4 written by Gene Luen Yang, illustrated by Les McClaine and Alison Acton
This comic book series, set in the world of the mobile video games Clash of Clans and Clash Royale, have been a surprising hit for me and my daughter, despite the fact that neither of us have ever played any of the games. (I wrote about the first two books here.) Leave it to Gene Yang to take a video game featuring hordes of the same characters and give them some individual personalities and stories! Each of the books follows the story of one or two of the characters from the game, giving them a name, some distinguishing features that set them apart so they’re no longer identical to all the others of their class, and telling their story. The team that we get to follow is from Jazzypickleton, a little village that nonetheless has had a great battle record in the Royal Arena.
This latest volume (due out in November) follows two characters: a Valkyrie who has lost her memory, and … a log. They’ve been seen in previous volumes, so the reader will recognize Yolanda and Pam (the log). But what happened? Why doesn’t Yolanda know who she is? What happened to all the people in Jazzypickleton? And what are these weird little marks that they keep finding everywhere? This story incorporates a bit more of a mystery than the other volumes did, and although it’s still quite silly overall, we enjoyed discovering the answers as Yolanda and Pam restored their friendship with each other.
Cat’s Cradle Book 3: Suri’s Dragon by Jo Rioux
This is another comic book series that I’ve been enjoying (I’ve written here about Book 1 and Book 2), and while it’s not a mystery story in the strictest sense, this volume does finally provide some answers to some of the big questions that have popped up in the first couple of books. Suri is a self-proclaimed monster tamer; she was discovered in a traveling merchant camp as a baby and grew up with that nomadic family. In the first two books, she had some adventures, all the while being pursued by a group of caitsiths—cat-like monsters who can take on human form. They’re after her ball of magical golden twine, which powers their disguises, but she doesn’t even realize its value.
In this latest story, Suri and her group of traveling companions reach Bridgetown. When they hear she’s a monster tamer, they’re delighted because they have a bit of a monster problem: a dragon who’s been terrorizing the town. This triggers memories for Suri, who feels that this must be her dragon, who carried her across the mountains when she was a baby, though nobody else thinks it makes any sense. How will Suri get the answers she’s looking for? As with the previous books in this series, I really love the world that Jo Rioux has created for Suri. It’s filled with fascinating (and often funny) characters and bizarre places, and the artwork is delightful.
My Current Stack
My reading lately has been a little all over the place, though I’m still making my way through a few AI-related books, plus some more comics. With the election coming up, I’m also thinking about gathering up a selection of books about voting, democracy, and being a good citizen, though we’ll see if I have enough time to read them all. I’m getting to the point where the stack of unread books is feeling a bit overwhelming again, so it may be time for another big purge (always difficult for me because I have a hard time letting go of books I haven’t gotten to read yet).
Disclosure: I received review copies of the books covered in today’s column. Affiliate links to Bookshop.org help support my writing and independent booksellers!
