A to Z Mysteries – The Invisible Island

A picnic, a hundred-dollar bill in the sand and a LOT of poison ivy kick off Ron Roy's The Invisible Island, a summer mystery for 5 year olds.

What happens

It's a steaming hot July day, and Josh's mum has packed lunch. The three friends wade out to a little sandy island in the middle of the river. Josh is sure pirates buried treasure there. Dink points out that you can't really be stranded somewhere you can paddle back from.

Then Ruth Rose spots something green poking out of the sand. It's a hundred-dollar bill!

What would your reader do with a hundred dollars? Josh has plenty of ideas. Ruth Rose insists on handing it in to Officer Fallon (it isn't theirs, after all). That little squabble is a lovely one to talk about together.

Next morning the fog rolls in and they go back with a shovel. There's a trail of giant footprints, a boulder that isn't quite what it seems and a shadowy figure rowing out of the mist. The fog makes it all wonderfully creepy.

Poor Josh spends the whole book scratching. It's a running joke, and it ends up being a clue too.

It's worth knowing that the book calls the island by a name that's a slur against Native American women. The name is used many times, by the characters and by the narrator, though no Native American people appear in the story. You might want to talk about it with your reader, or simply swap in another name as you read aloud.

There's also a tense bit near the end where the friends hide in a stranger's garage, with a barking dog outside. Nobody gets hurt, and the ending is a really happy one for Josh.

What to read next

If they're after a city adventure next, The Jaguar's Jewel takes them to New York, where a golden statue arrives at a museum with a fake emerald in its paws.