The Secret of the Wooden Witness (8)

Third-Grade Detectives #8

by George E. Stanley, Salvatore Murdocca (Illustrator)

ATTACKED!

Someone knocked out Todd and Noelle's friend Pops Verner, the night watchman at the department store, and stole his treasured pocket watch. He's pretty sure the robber is one of three men who work in the storeroom. But how can he figure out which one, when the only clue is a carved wooden figure the thief left behind?

It's a new case for Mr. Merlin's Third-Grade Detectives. But can the Detectives solve the mystery when Mr. Merlin himself is missing?

Genres: Mystery, Chapter Books, Childrens

80 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2004

About the author

George Edward Stanley was born in Memphis, Texas on July 15, 1942. He received a bachelor's degree in 1965 and a master's degree in 1967 from Texas Tech University. He earned his Doctor Litterarum in African Linguistics in 1974 from the University of Port Elizabeth in South Africa. He lived all over Europe and Africa, studying and teaching foreign languages, working for the U.S. government, and writing books for young people and adults. He started writing fiction while a Fulbright professor in Chad, Central Africa, where about the only diversion he found available was listening to the BBC on his short wave radio. That led to his writing radio plays for a program called World Service Short Story. Three of his plays were eventually produced. After writing and publishing over 200 short stories in American, British, Irish, and South African magazines and linguistics articles in major international journals, he started writing books. He wrote over 100 fiction and non-fiction books for young people including The Katie Lynn Cookie Company series and the Adam Sharp series. He also wrote under the pseudonyms of M. T. Coffin, Franklin W. Dixon, Laura Lee Hope, Carolyn Keene, Adam Mills, and Stuart Symons. He was a professor of African and Middle-Eastern languages and linguistics in the department of foreign languages at Cameron University. He died from a ruptured aneurysm on February 7, 2011 at the age of 68.

Reviews

[Dolly · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the eighth book in the Third-Grade Detectives series by George E. Stanley and Sal Murdocca. We've been reading steadily through the series, but we got distracted by some other books and suddenly this book was due at the library, so we read it before reading books #6 and #7.

Our oldest really likes this series and she really enjoys learning about and solving the different kinds of puzzles. I love that we learn about a new kind of puzzle in each book, and as in this case, we often see different ways to use the code.

We read this book together and had fun solving the clues, but I thought the way the evidence was tied to the suspects was a bit weak and circumstantial. Also, the dramatic way in which the children in the classroom blew things out of proportion (at least twice) was a bit over the top. I must say that this book was not my favorite of the series so far, but we still like them and plan to read all ten books in the series.

[Kara Moreland · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book told about a third grade class that helped solve crimes and mysteries. In this book they had a scare of Dr. Smiles leaving and their teacher Mr. Merlin leaving. They work hard to solve the case of the stolen watch. They are finally able to solve this by counting the rings on the wood the man was hit with to find who hit him and took his watch.
This book was cute. I really enjoyed the story and the mystery with it. It was fun.
This would be good in a classroom when wanting to do a lesson on detectives. Could be a fun activity to do. It would also be good for early readers.

[Aden]

Uses quite some science to explain the mysteries. Studying tree rings.

[Hillvan]

570L