Cluey Crew 3 – Grandma’s Game Show

Lisa Thompson's Grandma's Game Show is a quick, cosy Cluey Crew mystery for 7 year olds about a gran who ends up as the prize on a TV quiz.

What happens

Cluey Louie loves collecting clues almost as much as he loves his gran's chocolate chip cookies. So when the Crew turn up at her house for afternoon tea, he knows straight away that something's wrong. The cookies are warm and the lemonade is poured, but the house is empty.

Gran's lucky scarf and beaded bag are missing from the hatstand, and she only takes those somewhere important. There's a note by the cookies that says EAT ME (Tom doesn't need telling twice).

Then, at exactly half past four, the television switches itself on. And there's Gran, somewhere in a studio, looking more than a little nervous.

She's agreed to go on a quiz show called I Know This. The catch is that Gran is the prize. If the Crew can't reach fifty points, she stays in the game until another team wins her instead. Oh dear!

The host is called Smart Alec, and he's gleefully mean. He squeals with delight every time they get one wrong.

The best part is that your reader can play along. How many sides does a triangle have? What can a starfish do if it loses a limb? How many wings does a dragonfly have? (Tom is SURE he knows that one.)

It's a proper team effort. Trivia Olivia is full of facts, and Maddie remembers a saying her mum uses all the time. Louie watches Gran's face on the screen, because nobody knows her better than he does.

Between the chapters there are little Olivia's Trivia boxes, with facts about how chocolate chip cookies were invented by accident and animals that can grow new body parts.

It's short and gentle, and there's nothing in it to worry about. Quiz-mad kids will be shouting out answers before the Crew do.

What to read next

There's more of Louie, Maddie, Olivia, Tom and Twitch the dog in Watery Ben, where the Crew find a strange key in the park that leads them to a giant water clock that vanished overnight.