Nancy Drew and the Clue Crew 12 – Valentine’s Day Secret

Carolyn Keene's Valentine's Day Secret is a Clue Crew mystery for 8 year olds about a nasty valentine that splits up three best friends.

What happens

On Valentine's Day the girls go to Farmer Fran's Barnyard Buddies, a shop where you pick a stuffed pig, cow, horse or sheep and dress it however you like. The staff are teenagers in animal suits who put on a song and dance. There's even a contest, with heart-shaped prize tickets hidden in some of the animals' pockets.

It starts going wrong almost straight away. A cow-mad girl called Colette snatches George's cow. George chases her, slips on some stuffing and flattens a whole pyramid of stuffed pigs. Bess and George end up bickering about whose fault the running was.

Then they swap the animals they've made for each other, as planned. A valentine drops out of the pocket of George's cow. It starts "Roses are red" and ends with something very rude about stinky feet.

Bess is sure George wrote it to get back at her. "We're not best friends anymore!" And just like that the Clue Crew is down to two.

This is the bit that makes the book. The mystery is fun, but the real story is Nancy stuck in the middle. She wants both her friends back. Then Bess has a party, and neither Nancy nor George is invited. Ouch.

If your reader has ever been caught between two friends who've fallen out, they'll know exactly how Nancy feels. It's handled kindly and it never gets too heavy.

The detective side is good fun too. There's a wad of blue bubblegum stuck to a cow's hoof, a time line from four o'clock to half past, and a soggy shop receipt rescued from a puppy's mouth. The suspects include a boy who's just been told off in class for handing out mean valentines (pizza-crust face, anyone?).

Chocolate Chip gets into trouble in the funniest scene, chewing up a cow-shaped slipper that still tries to moo.

It's very American, from the third-grade classroom to the dollars, but the feelings are universal.

What to read next

Another Clue Crew case about who does and doesn't get invited is April Fool's Day. It starts with a party invitation dressed up as a school report, and a girl who demands to know everything about a party she's not been asked to.