The Missing Mongoose

The Cryptic Casebook of Coco Carlomagno and Alberta #3

by Ursula Dubosarsky, Terry Denton (Illustrator)

The third delightfully funny detective story and puzzle book for 6 to 8 year olds from a bestselling duo. It's a national emergency! A rare and extremely valuable mongoose is missing and the legendary Buenos Aires zoo is in chaos. But with rabbits in the Tigers' Taj Mahal and hippos in Panda's Palace, the zoo is a very confusing place. Coco may be the Chief of Police, but solving crimes can be very stressful. Only the calming presence of his brainy cousin Alberta can help. Can Alberta and Coco follow the clues and deduce the whereabouts of the missing mongoose?

78 pages, Paperback

First published July 1, 2013

About the author

Ursula Dubosarsky is an award-winning author of numerous books for children and young adults. About The Golden Day, her first book with Candlewick Press, she says, "The little girls watch, wonder, respond, change, and grow — and then their childhood is gone, forever. This element of the story, I suppose, is at least partly autobiographical. But, as I say — all of our teachers come home safe and sound in the end." Ursula Dubosarsky lives in Australia.

Reviews

[Sean Harding · Rating 3 out of 5]

Book three of the series sees more puzzles and activities for children disguised into a short tale to read as well. Some great fun to be had here for the younger reader, Dubosarsky scores again.

[Göktuğ Demiralp · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book is targeting a particular age or perhaps a particular cognitive development stage. It's more of a novel that suits a child that is beginning to read story books. The book has a mixture of images and texts that work together to convey meaning. However the book puts more emphasis in the literary content, the images are printed in black and white which is a shame because children at that age love reading images, therefore I would say it would put off some children from picking the book up. However the content of the book is extraordinary. Ursula Dubosarsky has well thought it through when she created the book. This would definitely be a book that I would buy for my child due to these reasons;

1./ The book engages the children to think critically about real life scenarios. It teaches social engineering.

2./ It teaches children about cultural awareness, which I haven't seen much children books addressing this issue.

3./It combines a picture book with a chapter book, thus the child's transition from picture books to novels becomes easier in the future.

4./ The plot and characters are quite entertaining

5./ The book does more than tell a narrative, the book requires the young audience to become actively engaged in the book.

Overall I highly recommend this book to parents and primary school teachers so they can read or provide to their childrens /students.

[Rita · Rating 4 out of 5]

Simply put I liked it. It made me want to work out those puzzles. (And it has been years since I have wanted to work my brain). Not too hard so even the little ones can do it.

The story line is engrossing and had me wanting to know how it was going to end. Still smiling at the end.

It is a great middle year story book. Loved the pictures. It has been a long time since I read something quite easy and I believe the younger kids would love it.

The copy I had was a free copy via Goodreads.

[Rena · Rating 4 out of 5]

Copy received from Giveaway.

I enjoyed the puzzles more than the story itself probably because I didn't read the previous 2 books before it. Nevertheless, this is a book aimed at children of a certain age and I think they will enjoy solving the puzzles very much!

[Chloe · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was lucky enough to win this off a giveaway. This book is the 3rd in a series, I have the first book but not the second. But don't worry as you don't need to read these books in order. This book was quite entertaining and the puzzles were very fun

[Sri Gopalan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well written, easy reading