Harriet Hall and the Kaiser’s Curse

Sonia Garrett's Harriet Hall and the Kaiser's Curse is a wartime mystery for 10 year olds about a girl who wants a front-page scoop more than anything.

What happens

It's June 1941 in a small logging town in British Columbia. Harriet came here from London a year ago with her mum, to get away from the bombs. Now she shares a tiny house with her aunt and three cousins, and she's not always thrilled about it.

What Harriet wants is to be a famous journalist. She already writes film reviews for the local paper. She's just waiting for a real story.

The book opens at the town spelling bee. Harriet is halfway through spelling a word when she spots something at the back of the hall. Her secret friend Susan Sasquatch is stealing a pie through the window! So Harriet runs off the stage and into the forest after her (not a great look for a finalist).

Out by the lake she overhears two men who don't want to be seen, loading a box into a boat. Is it a story? Harriet is sure it is. She's also sure that Herr Schmidt, the German shopkeeper, is a spy.

Then there are the thefts at the hospital. Medals, a wedding ring and photo frames are going missing from wounded soldiers' bedsides. Harriet is going to crack the case, whatever it takes. Even if it means listening in on the phone line.

Harriet isn't always easy to like, and that's what makes her so good to read. She's jealous when her best friend Annie would rather spend time with her cousin Robert. She hides his notes to get back at him. She breaks rules and tells herself it's fine. But she's also lonely and brave and very funny about small-town life, and you root for her anyway.

Worth knowing before you hand it over

The war is never far away. Fathers are off fighting, a telegram arrives at a friend's house and everyone fears the worst, and the town has lost soldiers already. There's also real prejudice against a German family. Children draw swastikas on a German boy's pencil case, and the grown-ups aren't much better. It's handled thoughtfully, and it gives you plenty to talk about together. Harriet's own suspicions are part of that too.

This picks up a year after her first adventure in the forest, and it mentions that summer now and then without explaining it all.

What to read next

If you'd like to start at the beginning, go back to Harriet Hall and the Miracle Cure. It's 1940, bombs are falling on London, and Harriet is flatly refusing to be evacuated.