Detective Camp

A to Z Mysteries: Super Edition #1

by Ron Roy, John Steven Gurney (Illustrator)

Dink, Josh, And Ruth Rose are back! This time, they’re off to a camp for detectives! The camp directors have set up a week of lessons in forensics and fun mysteries for the campers to solve. The kids are following the planned clues when they stumble upon a real crime. This exciting extension to the A to Z Mysteries chapter book series features favorite characters, a longer plot, alphabet clues, and a 26-letter message hidden in the art.

“I will be so sad when I have read Z, and there will be no more Dink, Josh, and Ruth Rose.”—Jack P.

“I think if you’re not that busy, you could do every letter again.”—Abigail D.

With the publication of The Zombie Zone in April 2005, the A to Z Mysteries series was complete. But, A to Z fans, no need to fear . . . the A to Z Mysteries Super Editions are here! The fans wanted more, and they’re getting it—more adventure, more illustrations, more Dink, Josh, and Ruth Rose—all in a book nearly double the length of standard A to Z Mysteries. The alphabet may be finished, but A to Z fun keeps on coming!


From the Trade Paperback edition.

Genres: Mystery, Childrens, Fiction, Chapter Books, Middle Grade, Young Adult, Kids

144 pages, Unknown Binding

First published May 9, 2006

About the author

Ron Roy has been writing books for children since 1974. He is the author of dozens of books, including the popular A to Z Mysteries®, Calendar Mysteries, and Capital Mysteries. When not working on a new book, Ron likes to teach tricks to his dog Pal, play poker with friends, travel, and read thrilling mystery books.

Reviews

[Briar's Reviews]

Detective Camp is another great addition to the A to Z Mysteries series by Ron Roy.

I found that this book didn't live up to the previous ones I'd read, but I can easily see middle graders loving it. The mystery is set at camp this time and there's lots of drama and goofy camp stories/songs to go around.

I didn't like the mystery as much. Normally I find there's many ways the story can go and it leaves you guessing, but this one fell a little flat for me. It seemed obvious what was going on from the get go. Either way, it's still a fun ride and middle graders will love it.

Two out of five stars.

[Rachelle]

I read this book with my 10 year old son. It was a fun mystery and we liked the clues. Dink, Josh, and Ruth Rose are funny, courageous kids.
It was fun reading and seeing if my son picked up on the clues and foreshadowing of the mystery.

[Sherry]

I like this book because,it has great illustration and it is for the biggest part of the book I’d have to say it’s a pretty good book. It’s about a detective camp.

Josh-age 9-Westernport Chapter Club

[Vernon Area Public Library KIDS]

While attending a summer camp for young detectives, Dirk, Josh, and Ruth Rose have a real mystery on their hands to solve! Who stole the missing paintings? The A-to-Z Mysteries is a great series!

Reviewed by Debbie Hersh, Circulation, Vernon Area Public Library

[Heather J.]

Delightful story about kids solving an actual mystery while attending a camp to learn detective skills. Both my 10 and five year old boys loved hearing me read this out loud. We will read other books in this series.

[Jeremiah]

I read this to my 6 year old daughter—half one night before bed and the rest as soon as she could get me up the next day. She was hooked!

[Roni]

I chose this book because when I was going through my own books it seemed interesting and I had never read it before. The plot of the story is how 3 campers go on a summer camp that is a camp for detectives. They actually end up discovering a real mystery and end up solving it. My favorite quote from this book is, " thanks to you three awesome detectives", because that means so much to kids there age who are trying to become detectives by saying that this means the kids will continue on as detectives because they have been motivated. I believe the author has a unique writing style because she wrote the story is a way that once you start the book, the you want to finish it in a day. I would recommend this book to 6th graders because I believe they would enjoy this book more than I did.

[Dolly]

We are getting toward the end of the A to Z Mysteries series and so while we were waiting for our copy of The White Wolf to come in at the library, we read this book. It's another fun adventure with Dink, Josh and Ruth Rose, this time at summer camp - Mystery camp. It's a quick read and it's a good introduction to camp, since our oldest will get to go this year with her class. We've really enjoyed this series and hope that Ron Roy continues to write more of these books.

[Laura Smith]

With summer in the air, it's fun to read about camp and that some camps are all the same - crafts, silly songs, bunk rooms, swimming. But Detective Camp? That's something new. Help Ruth Rose, Josh & Dink solve the mystery while searching for secret letters, hidden in the illustrations that spell out a clue. Ron Roy's character's names always crack me up. This time Madamoiselle Musee was the funniest :D

[Chris Shumate]

Wonderful young detective story

Ron Roy does another wonderful job in this children's mystery book. The red herrings he incorporated made me want to continue turning the page to see who the culprit was. I wasn't even sure what the real crime was until later in the book. He did a great job of keeping me guessing.

He's a wonderful author that I'm learning from by reading his books.

[Mila]

Dink, Josh, and Ruth Rose are in Vermont at detective camp. At the camp, they are trying to solve a mystery: the counselors say that they need to find puzzle pieces. As they are finding Josh’s puzzle piece, they go to Mademoiselle Mussie’s workshop. She cleans the paintings of the Darby’s, the people who run the detective camp. While they’re in Mademoiselle Mussie’s workshop, they find something very suspicious...

[PeytonB]

This book has 134 pages. The main character is Josh. I can connect with the character because he likes to try and solve mysteries, and so do I.I gave it the number of starts because it was a good book. I like it because they solve mysteries. This book reminds me of when I play around and try to solve mysteries. I like how the book ended because it had a happy ending.

[TheBookWorm🐛 🐛]

I love mystery books, so I ended up really liking this book. It is really cool, and awesome. Even though the gang is at a mystery camp, were there are mysteries set up for them, they still have to stop a crook. The crook was very sneaky and almost got away with what she was going to do, but Dink, Josh, and Ruth Rose stopped her!

[Kari]

Read this with my son, he seemed to enjoy this book.He really liked finding the hidden letters in te pictures throughout the book that spelled out a message. He checked out another one from this series. I thought the book was ok, but hopefully this next one will better. Important thing though is that he is enjoying a chapter book.

[Sheila]

Dink, Josh, and Ruth Rose go to detective camp where they find a real life mystery and take the steps to solve it.

I liked these kids. They use their brains. There are red herrings to throw us off but the kids are never thrown off. They get their person. I never did figure out the puzzle. I would read more of this series.

[Sarah - All The Book Blog Names Are Taken]

Eleanor has decided she doesn’t want to do longer reviews anymore but her favorite thing about this book was when they discovered the bad guy. I love all the A-Z mystery books and do you know where I get them, I get them at my school library. The book was called detective camp and they didn’t expect a real mystery. I bet the mystery was fun.

[Roxanne]

It felt like they were arriving at camp for a really long time? And then the mystery got solved in the afternoon of their first full day? I don't know, I guess I was expecting the mystery part to stretch over a whole week at camp. It was fine, though. Q

[Wes Bunton]

This is the first of this series that me and my kids have read that has a secret message embedded throughout the imagery. My kids really enjoyed finding the letters to the message! The story is good, my kids really enjoyed it.

[Matthew Kearney]

Camp

Did murn steel the painting's? Find out in this book before she shuts down the camp and blows it! Get the TNT's!before my skin misfires

[Tara]

I like this mystery. It’s simple but interesting. My only complaint is that, in the ebook version, some of the pictures are too small and you can’t find the hidden letter.

[Aanshi Patel]

I liked that they never quit, they are not scared and they are brave. I liked everything about the book.

[Mr.Zhou]

Clever guys~

[Sarah Hyser]

My son loves looking for the secret message. I had fun reading it to him and helping him look for it.

[Bryn]

Cute mini mystery for middle reading level. Has hidden clues in the illustrations, and three likable characters of Josh, Dink and Ruth Rose.

[Sierra]

This is a great book that I enjoyed since 7 years of age. And it all started off when my brother read it and then my sister and finally me!!!

[Brent Ecenbarger]

Wow, this one took us a long time to get through. I blame two things. First, both of our boys are old enough that they bring home their own library books from their schools now and those take up our reading for a few nights each week. Second, this wasn't as great of a mystery as some of the other books in the series, and the longer book length did nothing to help our kids enjoyment of the story.

The basic premise of this book is that the three kid detectives go to a summer detective camp. There they learn detective skills like spotting forgeries and finger printing, but also they stumble onto a real mystery involving potential criminal activity at the camp. Neither the pretend camp mystery or the actual crime mystery (which centered around stolen artwork... the last time that was the hook an orangutan was at fault) pulled in our boys.

The thing that did pull them in however was how each picture in this book features a hidden letter in it. When you string all the letters together, it gives tells you a hidden message at the end. We all had fun looking for the letters. The hidden message is goofy, though not really related to the actual mystery in this book.

[Kathryn]

My seven-year-old enjoyed this. It is similar to the Boxcar Children type mysteries. I felt the characterization wasn't very strong, I struggled to keep the characters straight and felt that the protagonists didn't have a lot of personality, but then again I have not read any of the previous books in the series. The mystery was decent for this level but overall I wasn't wowed and my son hasn't asked for any more in the series.

[Mary T]

I read this one aloud to my seven year old because we had already listened to all 26 A-Z mysteries and wanted some more Josh, Dink, and Ruth Rose in our life. It was good, not our favorite. We’re going to a camp next week so it was fun to make connections. And we found the hidden message (it was actually quite hard to find the letters!)

[Kim]

Dink, Josh and Ruth Rose are at a detective camp in Bear Walk, Vermont. While there they learn about detective work, learn to work as a team and discover a real mystery on their hands.

We really love reading these Super Edition books as a family. We love figuring out the "Mystery" message in the book.

[Thia Smith]

A fun easy read mystery book. Three friends go to Detective Camp for the summer and unexpectedly end up solving a real crime. The storyline moved quickly which will keep young readers engaged in the story.