July 11, 2023 by Sourcebooks Young Readers
E ARC provided by Edelweiss Plus
Grady and his father, a cabinet maker, live outside of the small town of Gifton, Georgia and are trying to make do after the death of Grady's mother in a car accident. When local eccentric "Kooky" Klinch dies, there is a lot of interest in her property (as well as her funeral, complete a meal afterwards provided by the local cooking club). Grady and his father are suprised to find out that they are distantly related, and in the absence of other relatives, are left an antique sampler that is rumored to be a treasure map. Never mind that her money has been left to take care of her abnormally large collection of cats! That would have been useful, since Grady's father is struggling to make ends meet and is almost certain to lose their house. When Grady finds this out, he enlists his friends Thad and Clemmie to help him solve the riddle of the sampler, and hopes that finding a treasure will allow him and his father to remain in Gifton. When someone breaks into their home and trashes the place, Grady suspects the thief is looking for the sampler, and when the local antiques store is also robbed, and one of the elderly owners is killed, he is sure the sampler will lead to a lot of money. Utilizing the local library an church resources, the children think they have a location and start to dig, only to find that things have changed a lot in the last 250 years, even in Gifton.
Strengths: Gifton was an amusing small town with a collection of inhabitants that were quite amusing. There's a diner, an antique store, library, and church, and these all play a good role in the mystery. It's a small enough town for Grady and his friends to be able to travel all over, but has resources to help them uncover the mystery. Their digging, but literal and figurative, meets just enough resistance to make things interesting, and the look back at history and how it affected Grady's ancestors was appealing. Thad and Clemmie are good foils, and there's even a town dog, Ophelia. This is about as close to a "cozy" mystery as I have seen for middle grade readers-- I think it's the antique store that really helps!
Weaknesses: The death of the mother was unnecessary to the plot. Reading about young people processing grief slows down middle grade books, and my students, who well may be different from other middle school students in other schools, don't enjoy this element. It used to be that they would ask if the dog died in the book; now they ask if the parents are still alive. I'm not a fan, either, although Grady's father was mostly functional.
What I really think: This is a good choice for readers who enjoyed McDonald's Pepper's Rules for Secret Sleuthing, Johnson's The Parker Inheritance or Strong's Just South of Home as well as Souders' 2020 Coop Knows the Scoop.
Weaknesses: The death of the mother was unnecessary to the plot. Reading about young people processing grief slows down middle grade books, and my students, who well may be different from other middle school students in other schools, don't enjoy this element. It used to be that they would ask if the dog died in the book; now they ask if the parents are still alive. I'm not a fan, either, although Grady's father was mostly functional.
What I really think: This is a good choice for readers who enjoyed McDonald's Pepper's Rules for Secret Sleuthing, Johnson's The Parker Inheritance or Strong's Just South of Home as well as Souders' 2020 Coop Knows the Scoop.
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