Nate the Great and the Snowy Trail

Marjorie Weinman Sharmat's Nate the Great and the Snowy Trail is a detective story for 5 year olds about a boy searching for a birthday present when nobody will say what it is.

What happens

Nate the Great is a detective. He takes his cases very seriously, and he tells you so. His dog Sludge helps (mostly by shivering).

It's the middle of winter. Nate is building a snow detective when strange Rosamond comes along, pulling her four cats on a sled. She's lost the present she meant to give him. His birthday isn't until July, but Rosamond believes in giving early.

So what is it? She won't say. It would spoil the surprise! It could be big or small, square or pointy, plaid or polka-dotted…

That's the brilliant bit. How do you find something when you don't know what you're looking for? Nate works it out one clue at a time. The sled felt lighter when the present fell off, so it must be heavy. Rosamond thinks it's beautiful, and Rosamond thinks spiders and bats are beautiful, so it must be ugly. And there are footprints in the snow, but no mark where anything landed.

Young readers can follow every step of his thinking, and a sharp-eyed one might just get there before Nate does. Who doesn't love beating the detective?

The humour is very dry and it's great read aloud. Nate is serious about everything, from his pancakes to his dry mittens. His visits to Annie and her dog Fang (Sludge hides behind a pile of snow) and to Claude, who's always losing things, are funny little scenes of their own.

The sentences are very short, which makes it super manageable for a newly independent reader. After the story there are some extras too, including a recipe for ugly cat cupcakes and a page of cat jokes.

If you've got a reader who likes puzzles and silliness in equal measure, this is a perfect fit.

What to read next

And if it goes down well, go back to the first Nate the Great book, where Annie has lost her painting of Fang and Nate puts on his detective suit to find it.