Calendar Mysteries – January Joker

Ron Roy's January Joker is a Calendar Mysteries story for 5 year olds about a snowy night, strange lights in the garden and a lot of very excited first graders.

What happens

It's the first book in the series. A noise wakes Bradley, and there's a yellow light in the back garden. Out by the barn, two small green creatures are hopping about in the snow. They look a bit like broccoli spears.

Bradley is sure they're aliens. His twin brother Brian is sure it's one of Nate's practical jokes (Nate once sent the big kids postcards saying they'd won a million dollars). Lucy, who's staying for a year from California, points out that lots of people there see UFOs.

By morning there's a huge circle in the snow and a trail of odd three-pointed footprints. Polly the pony has gone from her stall. And the three older kids who were meant to be babysitting have vanished too.

Then the phone rings. It's Bradley's big brother Josh, and he says the aliens have got them!

What follows is a brilliant morning of four little kids home alone and trying to be sensible. Lucy makes a list of clues. They hide in the cupboard under the stairs, lay a trail of grapes, lock all the doors (and then remember the aliens can't get in). They even tape a note to a mop and poke it through a vent in the ceiling.

It's pitched perfectly for new readers. The sentences are short and simple and the jokes come thick and fast. There's a lovely bit of suspense on nearly every page without anything that's properly frightening. The four friends have very different ideas, and they argue like real brothers, sisters and best friends do.

So has Green Lawn really been invaded? We're not going to tell you. But the clues are all there if your reader is paying attention, and the ending ties every one of them up.

If your reader likes spotting clues before the characters do, this is a great first chapter book to try.

What to read next

The big kids who go missing, Dink, Josh and Ruth Rose, have mysteries of their own too. Once they've finished this one, try The Canary Caper. Mrs Davis's canary has escaped on the hottest day of the summer, and the three of them go looking for him.