Judy Moody, Girl Detective

Megan McDonald's Judy Moody, Girl Detective is a mystery for 7 year olds about a girl who wants a real case so badly she goes looking for one.

What happens

Judy has read a LOT of Nancy Drew. She's working her way through all fifty-six of the originals and she keeps a torch under her pillow, because a good detective always does.

So she puts together a kit. Notebook, magnifying glass, tweezers, a bobby pin for picking locks, and her little brother Stink's collection of president dollars (for bribing kidnappers, obviously).

Then she announces she's going to solve a mystery. She just has to find one first.

The first case is her own missing gummy sweets. Stink is wearing the evidence on his feet.

Then a police puppy called Mr Chips comes to school. He does a super sniffing test, finds Judy's backpack buried in a cupboard full of gym balls, and the whole hall goes wild. A few days later the principal announces over the loudspeaker that Mr Chips has gone missing.

Judy Drewdy is on the case. This time she has an agency, three sworn-in assistants and a clump of dog hair in a plastic bag.

Reading it is all Judy. You get every thought she has, and she has a LOT of them. Things are "rare" when they're brilliant and "fudge-a-roni" when they're not. She has a mood for every occasion (the why-do-I-always-get-in-trouble mood is a very good one).

Stink is the other half of the fun. He wants to be Agent 714. He gets handed a millipede badge instead of the stinkbug he asked for. He won't finish the detective oath because part of it sounds a bit like BM.

One heads up if your reader is very literal about rules. Judy's detecting gets her into trouble. She goes through a classmate's lunch box looking for a stolen pair of glasses, gets caught with them behind her back, and has to apologise in front of the whole class.

And the puppy stays missing for a long stretch. For a child who gets genuinely upset about a lost animal, that worry sits there a good while.

It's a very American book too. Third grade, sneakers, flashlights, dollars in a piggy bank. Nothing your reader can't follow, but expect a few questions.

What to read next

If Stink is the one they keep quoting, he's got a book of his own. Stink and the Incredible Shrinking Kid has him stuck at three feet eight inches, eating all his peas and demanding a second head.