Calendar Mysteries – December Dog

Ron Roy's December Dog is a Christmas Eve mystery for 5 year olds about a puppy found shivering in a snowbank.

What happens

This is the Calendar Mysteries book for December, and it's the afternoon before Christmas in Green Lawn. Bradley, Brian, Nate and Lucy head into town to see the puppies at Mrs Wong's pet shop. But the shop's shut, and every puppy has already gone to a new home.

Then Pal, the twins' basset hound, starts barking at a heap of snow by the door. Out pops a golden-brown puppy with four white feet (as if he's wearing little socks). There's a red ribbon round his neck and a gift tag. It says TO and FROM, and the rest has been torn off!

So somebody, somewhere, is meant to be getting a puppy for Christmas. The kids have until the morning to work out who.

What follows is a lovely little trail of clues. Pal sniffs out tiny paw prints in the snow. Mrs Wong is away scuba diving in Florida, and every phone call to her goes wrong (Nate decides a shark has probably swallowed her). Then the puppy vanishes from the twins' bedroom cupboard!

The twins are great fun. They're hiding the puppy upstairs because Mum is always saying no more animals. When he barks, Brian tells his parents it was probably their big brother Josh (who makes a lot of funny noises, apparently).

Brian is a born detective. He memorises a phone number in one go and keeps a snowy boot print in the freezer behind the frozen peas. Who wouldn't want their evidence next to the peas?

It's super cosy too. There's hot chocolate at Ellie's Diner, carols playing along Main Street and fresh snow on every roof. If your reader loves the build-up to Christmas, they'll feel right at home here.

Nothing in it is scary. The tension is all about getting the puppy to the right person in time. The clues are simple enough for a young reader to follow, and to have a guess at before the kids do.

What to read next

If they like a pet mystery, The Canary Caper is another one set in Green Lawn. This time the big kids, Dink, Josh and Ruth Rose, are on the case when pets start disappearing all over town.