Susanna Leonard Hill has a feature on her blog called Perfect Picture Book Friday. It is a list of “perfect” picture books recommended by all sorts of people. I chose this book because I love mysteries and this is a great book for younger kids to get into mysteries and learn how to subtract.
The Deductive Detective By Brian Rock
Illustrated by: Sherry Rogers32 pages – ages 4+Published by: Sylvan Dell Publishing on March 5, 2013Theme/Topic – Math/reasoning
Opening and Synopsis– “Duck, the deductive detective, was sitting at his desk when the phone rang with an urgent message: Someone stole one of the cakes from the cake contest!
Detective Duck is on the case!”
Synopsis – Detective Duck was called upon to “quack” the case of the stolen cake! There are 13 contestants, but Fox obviously didn’t steal her own cake, so that leaves 12 suspects! Duck uses deductive reasoning to eliminate the suspects one by one, until there is only one left…
The Deductive Detective By Brian Rock – Our Review
Why I liked this book – I love mysteries. I like finding the clues myself. This is a great way to get young kids into mysteries. I also like that Duck uses math to find out how many suspects are left (ex: 12 suspects – 1 mouse = 11 suspects). The illustrations are very well done and “cartoon-y” and have some “hidden humor” in them, so older kids will like that. It’s nice to find a book that makes math and reasoning fun. The puns and cute jokes are also a favorite for me (like the mouse wouldn’t steal the cake because she only likes cheesecake ). I think kids 4+ would love this book!
Activities and Resources –
I didn’t have to search too long for activities to go along with this book because there are two pages of suggested activities right in the book! There is a compare/contrast activity and a deductive reasoning activity. There are also more activity suggestions at the publisher’s website (click HERE).