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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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).<\/p>\n
Then she announces she’s going to solve a mystery. She just has to find one first.<\/p>\n
The first case is her own missing gummy sweets. Stink is wearing the evidence on his feet.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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).<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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. 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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":11024,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"lr_next_read_post_id":8737,"lr_next_read_anchor":"Stink and the Incredible Shrinking Kid","lr_seo_hook":"A girl raised on Nancy Drew finally gets a real missing puppy to solve."},"book_tag":[22],"age_group":[19],"book_type":[1044],"book_author":[706],"class_list":["post-7826","our-books","type-our-books","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","book_tag-mystery-books","age_group-books-for-7-year-olds","book_type-paid","book_author-megan-mcdonald"],"yoast_title":"Judy Moody, Girl Detective by Megan McDonald | Little Reads","yoast_metadesc":"A girl raised on Nancy Drew finally gets a real missing puppy to solve. For ages 7+. 3,000+ books in the Little Reads app. 7-day free trial.","acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n