The Cassette Tape Secret

Herzog, Danielle. The Cassette Tape Secret
October 21, 2025 by Jolly Fish Press

E ARC provided by Edelweiss Plus
 

Alex Bennett, who suffers from OCD and anxiety, just wants to fly under the radar and not incur the wrath of his classmates, who are usually mean to him. When he works on a class project with the outspoken Ida May, he has to take some chances and step outside of his comfort zone. Ida May has a cassette tape that she found in a donation to the thrift store where she volunteers, and it has a message from the 1960s for Georgia. Thrilled to be able to investigate this, and hoping to reunite parted loves, Ida May wants to look into things. Alex's therapist challenges him to talk to more people, and bribes him with a ticket to see a YouTube creator he really likes, so Alex agrees to help Ida May. Since Alex's dad is not in the picture, and his mother is a very busy doctor and Ida May has just moved to town with her father while her mother pursues a career in acting, the two have a fair amount of leeway to go places on their own. They uncover some good information; the songs on the tape before the message are by Mack Densey, who had a band that went by a lot of different names. Not only that, but Alex's Grams was in the band! Sadly, he died in Vietnam in 1969. Alex and Ida May manage to track him down and visit his guitar shop. He's thrilled to hear the tape, but doesn't have much information for them. The local library has Mr. Collins, who is very helpful with the kids' research. Will the two be able to solve the mystery of Georgia and get Mack's message to the right person? (Spoiler: they do!)

Strengths: Today's children can't fully understand how many things people committed to tape forty to sixty years ago. I used to exchange taped letters with penpals, my father recorded himself singing lullabies when he was attending night school and couldn't sing to me in person, and my friends and I occasionally would have a tape recorder going at parties, since we couldn't take videos. That a cassette tape with songs and a message could be donated to a thrift store is entirely possible. There are also a few tape players around in the wild. Alex and Ida May both have trouble making friends, so it also makes sense that they would form a connection. There are enough people around to help them solve the mystery, and there's some fun family history as well as the sadder information about the Vietnam war. The story moves quickly, and has a satisfying conclusion. 

Weaknesses: The school librarian, Ms. Strickland, is portrayed as being behind the circulation desk in an empty library at lunch, perhaps watching Hallmark movies on her phone. I can't imagine having that kind of time. Also, the mystery reminded me of a VERY old joke about a father and son who are in an auto accident, and the doctor in the ER can't operate on him, saying "He's my son!" Fifty years ago, the listener wouldn't have assumed the doctor could have been his mother. There's some nice LGBTQIA+ representation, but things are a bit different now than they were in 1969, so Mack's romance might not hit today's readers the way it would have in the past. 

What I really think: This is a good choice for readers who want gentle mysteries with some historical connections like Johnson's The Parker Inheritance, Frantz's The Secret of Helmsbruck Mansion, or Salerni's The Tontine Caper.