Customer Reviews

The Case of the Karate Chop

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This book is about the adventurous life of Samantha Scarlet, Peter Plum, Greta Green, and Mortimer Mustard. This book will inspire you to get attached to reading. You will be able to find out who did what and where. These mini-mysteries are the junior version of the Clue mysteries. In The Case of Losing the Race, how does Peter know that Scott cheated. Well to find that out, and to unravel many more mysteries you will have to read these thrilling adventures.

This book lists eight mini-mysteries, ranging from about four to seven pages each. Each mystery is followed by a one-page solution. The book is written at a third grade reading level, and the type size and abundance of pictures are appropriate for first- to third-graders.

The problem with this series of books is that the stories all focus on the same group of five friends, and each "mystery" involves one of the five victimizing one of the others. One friend might steal from another, or cheat in a race to beat a friend, or commit vandalism and lie about it. I was aghast reading story after story of little kids committing such acts against their friends. The perception in the stories is that acting this way is normal -- each of the kids is guilty at some point of victimizing another, and the others are totally unconcerned with their friend's unethical behaviour, and are only interested in solving the "mystery" (which means proving that one of their friends is the criminal). The guilty party always apologizes, and then we move on to the next story and repeat the cycle.

I bought two books in this series at a used book store, read them, and then threw them in the garbage before my kids could see them.