Goofballs 04 – Mysterious Talent Show Mystery

Tony Abbott's Mysterious Talent Show Mystery is a daft, joke-packed detective story for 6 year olds about four friends whose school show keeps going wrong.

What happens

Jeff Bunter tells the story. He carries a cluebook everywhere, because clues are everywhere. His fellow Goofballs are Brian, who invents things that don't always work, Kelly, who's as smart as a computer, and Mara, who's brilliant at disguises.

This time they're rehearsing for the Badger Point talent show. Everybody's act is secret. Some of the acts are... well, you'll see. There's a tap dance done with one foot. There's a boy "taming a wild snake" that's actually a rope. And there's Violet, who can make her giant pink tuba sound like a kitten, a march or a lullaby (it always sounds like BWAAAP).

Then things start disappearing. The tuba vanishes. Someone ties up the curtain rope. A whole speech goes missing from the scripts, the costumes come back fitting all the wrong people, and the director sinks through the stage in a puff of smoke. Who would want to wreck a school show?

What makes these books so much fun is the silliness. Brian says he sometimes spells his own name Brain (and that it's not really a mistake). Kelly makes her song up as she sings it. The four of them sneak across the lobby disguised as a table. Your reader will be groaning and giggling at the same time!

It's also a proper little mystery. Jeff writes every clue down and your reader can play along with him. By the end they'll probably want their own cluebook.

It's lovely for early readers too. The chapters move quickly and the jokes come thick and fast, so there's always a reason to keep going. Sparky the corgi is a scene-stealer with just one word ("Goof!").

What to read next

If this one goes down well, go back to the Crazy Case of Missing Thunder, where Jeff tells how the four of them first became Goofballs (squirty cheese was involved).