Nancy Drew and the Clue Crew 25 – Buggy Breakout

Carolyn Keene's Buggy Breakout is a Nancy Drew and the Clue Crew mystery for 8 year olds about a prize-winning beetle who vanishes from her cage in the middle of Bug Week.

What happens

It's Bug Week in Mrs Ramirez's third-grade class. Everyone is learning about heads, thoraxes and abdomens. Michael D. knows absolutely every bug fact there is, and he'll tell you (then he'll tell you the next one). There's a trip to the brand-new Insectarium, where Michael L. drops a fake scorpion down Michael D.'s shirt.

Sonia runs the school Bug Club, and her pet is Princess Bess. She's a shiny black bess beetle, almost two inches long. The man in charge of the Insectarium thinks she might even be a record breaker. Bess is secretly delighted that a beetle has her name.

Then there's Bug Show-and-Tell. Michael D. brings Edgar, his hissing cockroach. Michael L. brings an assassin bug called Dragon Breath. New club member Luna brings a praying mantis she calls, well, Praying Mantis. After lunch Sonia's cage is open and Princess Bess is gone.

Sonia is certain it was Carly. Carly wears a different "Free the Bugs!" T-shirt every single day and thinks nobody should keep bugs in cages. But Nancy won't accuse anyone without proof. All she has is a crumpled beetle sticker she found on the floor.

The nice thing is how fair the Clue Crew are. They write every suspect and clue in Nancy's purple notebook. They check their guesses, even when Bess has already decided who's guilty. They're also honest when a clue turns out to point in several directions at once.

It's a funny one, too. The two Michaels bicker all week. George makes jokes about Princess Bess having vampire fangs. There's ice cream at a new parlour with Hannah, and a pet shop full of snakes that makes Nancy shiver. And children who love creepy-crawlies will pick up real bug facts without noticing (did you know a hissing cockroach hasn't got wings?).

It's a good pick for a reader who's a bit nervous of insects, because the bugs are more interesting than scary. After the story there's a simple project for making a bug habitat at home.

What to read next

Nancy mentions an old case about a prankster in this one. If your reader wants it, that's April Fool's Day, where the girls go to a party at their new friend's house and every guest has to bring a gag.