Mercy Watson Is Missing!

Kate DiCamillo's Mercy Watson Is Missing is a very silly detective story for 6 year olds about a pig who adores buttered toast.

What happens

Mercy Watson is a pig. Not just any pig. She's the Watsons' "porcine wonder", and she loves toast with a great deal of butter on it.

One autumn morning, she's gone. Mrs Watson searches the whole street. Mr Watson rings the fire station, then Animal Control, then the police. None of them deal in missing pigs!

So the neighbours step in. Baby Lincoln suggests hiring a private detective. Frank brings a notebook and a pencil. Stella and her friend Horace go searching on a horse called Maybelline, with a very small cowboy leading the way.

The detective is Percival Smidgely, and he's hopeless. He's been sitting in his dingy office waiting for a mystery to walk through the door. When one finally does, he's a bit disappointed that it's only a pig. His moustache is fake, he spells truffles wrong and the cleverest one in the office is a pigeon called Polly.

Meanwhile, Mercy is having a wonderful day. She's following the most glorious smell across town, and it's butter. LOTS of butter.

This is proper laugh-out-loud stuff. The chapters flip between everyone hunting for Mercy and Mercy herself, trotting happily along with her snout in the air. So your reader always knows a little more than the searchers do (which is half the fun).

It's lovely to read aloud too. The Watsons are heartbroken in a way that's funny and sweet at the same time. Mrs Watson makes toast every time she gets upset, just in case. And Eugenia next door is so delighted the pig has gone that she writes a jig about it on her accordion.

This is the last of the Mercy Watson books, and just about everyone from Deckawoo Drive turns up. If Mercy is new to your family, you won't be lost, because each character is easy to get to know as they appear.

What to read next

If they'd like another animal who fancies himself a detective, Pugly Solves a Crime is great fun. Pugly the pug puts on his special detective hat when Big Sal the guinea pig goes missing, and his friend Clem the cat rolls her eyes at nearly all of it.