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American Girl Mysteries
The Lady's Slipper: A Melody Mystery
Melody is impressed by her sophisticated new friend, Leah Roth, but she wishes her cousin Val would stop being so standoffish to Leah! Melody meets Leah's grandfather, Dr. Roth, a botanist who escaped the Nazis and brought a rare and valuable Lady's Slipper orchid with him to America. When Melody's own grandfather becomes a suspect in a burglary, Melody turns to Val and Leah for help. Yet Leah seems to be hiding something - something to do with her grandfather that could hurt all of them. Can Melody catch the orchid thief before it's too late?
192 pages, Paperback
Published February 9, 2017
About the author
Emma Carlson Berne
344 books151 followersEmma Carlson Berne is the author of the YA thrillers STILL WATERS and NEVER LET YOU GO (coming Fall 2012 from Simon & Schuster). She has also written the thrillers FIGMENT and CHOKER under the pen name Elizabeth Woods. She lives and writes in Cincinnati. Learn more about Emma and contact her directly at her website, www.emmacarlsonberne.com. Or check out Emma Carlson Berne Books on http://www.facebook.com/EmmaCarlsonBe... or follow her on Twitter.
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Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews
August 1, 2019
I guessed the culpits halfway through but I still liked the book.
March 2, 2022
The great AG marathon continues. Again, reading for the first time as an adult, inspired by the Dolls of Our Lives podcast.
This is easily the most predictable of the AG mysteries I've encountered so far. clearly had something shady going on, and it wasn't hard to put the basic pieces together. If anything, I expected worse from her than the author delivered: I thought it was suspicious that she was so interested in suddenly making friends with a younger girl, and was afraid that she was deliberately trying to frame Melody and/or Poppa.
The connections drawn between the Black community and the Jewish community are a great element, and as always in books set around this time, I had to remind myself how recent the events of WWII and the Holocaust still were. (1944 is to 1964 as 2002 is to 2022...)
Again assuming that music was going to be Melody's central thing, I had in my head that "the lady's slipper" was going to be something owned by Lady Day, Billie Holliday (which, I realize now, would have needed to be posthumous to work at all, as she died in 1959 and this is set in 1966). Anyway, I should have just looked more closely at the cover art, because we're actually talking about orchids, and as book 2 made clear, Melody is more plant mom than performer.
More Melody babble
No Ordinary Sound | Never Stop Singing
Melody: My Diary
The Lady’s Slipper
This is easily the most predictable of the AG mysteries I've encountered so far. clearly had something shady going on, and it wasn't hard to put the basic pieces together. If anything, I expected worse from her than the author delivered: I thought it was suspicious that she was so interested in suddenly making friends with a younger girl, and was afraid that she was deliberately trying to frame Melody and/or Poppa.
The connections drawn between the Black community and the Jewish community are a great element, and as always in books set around this time, I had to remind myself how recent the events of WWII and the Holocaust still were. (1944 is to 1964 as 2002 is to 2022...)
Again assuming that music was going to be Melody's central thing, I had in my head that "the lady's slipper" was going to be something owned by Lady Day, Billie Holliday (which, I realize now, would have needed to be posthumous to work at all, as she died in 1959 and this is set in 1966). Anyway, I should have just looked more closely at the cover art, because we're actually talking about orchids, and as book 2 made clear, Melody is more plant mom than performer.
More Melody babble
No Ordinary Sound | Never Stop Singing
Melody: My Diary
The Lady’s Slipper
August 7, 2026
This was a unique mystery and although it was predictable I did enjoy the context
February 22, 2017
American Girl has been hit or miss with publishing since Mattel bought the company. This one is definitely a miss. It is advertised as a mystery, but no problem or mystery appears until chapter 9 of a 13 chapter book. Then the problem is easily solved and has very little to do with the main character, 10 year old Melody. The first Melody books, by a different author, are extremely well written and delve into racial conflicts of the 60s while introducing a wonderfully developed extended family. This book all but ignores Melody's family while she forms a friendship with a Jewish girl and learns about the holocaust. Spoiler alert and a warning for parents: A 14 year old girl commits a serious crime and no consequences are shown. In fact, the author seems to justify the crime. This is a line of books meant for 8 year olds.
July 2, 2021
The oppression Jews have faced in the time period of 2,000 years and still today is not one meant to be left ignored nor swept under the rug. Jews have faced the most discrimination not any group of people of all human history. Thank you American Girl for writing this mystery and to teach young girls that Jews wanted and had to fights for their rights as well. ❤️❤️
September 3, 2020
It was a sweet book, but I knew who did it from the beginning.
September 6, 2026
This book started off okay (I enjoyed getting to see more of the Fair Housing Committee and the Covenant Cards and Melody and Val pitching in to help), but then it fell off a cliff really quickly. The Holocaust story Dr. Roth describes is so wildly implausible and poorly researched that I almost put down the book entirely. The escape Dr. Roth supposedly made reads like a Hollywood story, and I think it's especially dangerous in a children's book to portray escaping the Holocaust (especially the Krakow ghetto) as so easy as to be accomplished by simply bribing an official, especially in 1943.
As someone who recently took a six-week trip to Poland and spent a lot of time in the Krakow ghetto area and learning about Krakow's Jewish history, and my own family having been killed in the Holocaust, I find it extremely offensive as well as inaccurate to depict the Holocaust as "bad, but escapable" the way a lot of children's literature does. If it was so easy to escape from the Krakow ghetto and get to America, more people would have done it.
The actual reality of most inhabitants of the Krakow ghetto (or any other ghetto in Poland) was that people were trapped with no way out. It does a disservice to actual Holocaust victims and survivors to give children the misleading idea that the Holocaust was easy to survive. It wasn't. Every single person in my family who was still in Poland by 1939 died in the Holocaust. Most Jews have a story like mine. Survival was a rare anomaly, as was escape. Two thirds of Europe's Jews were murdered in a period of six years. That reality is not present in this book.
As someone who has deeply studied the Holocaust, there are so many inaccuracies in this book that could have been corrected by a simple google search. Unlike Warsaw, Krakow was never "under siege" as Dr. Roth claims; Polish forces withdrew from Krakow on September 6, 1939 and gave the city up to the Nazis without a battle for the city. This is why most architecture from Krakow survived World War II, including many synagogues, unlike in Warsaw where the majority of the city was destroyed. And while the Jagiellonian University in Krakow was attacked by the Nazis and many of the professors were arrested and sent to concentration camps, the botanical garden at the university was not "ransacked" and plants weren't burned or destroyed. The garden remained operational during the Nazi occupation of the city, with Germans operating it. And the attack on the university happened in November 1939, so not at the time of the Nazis initially invading the city.
Dr. Roth's story also makes it sound like Jews were forced into the ghetto right after the occupation began, which is not true; the ghetto wasn't established until March 1941. Jews were not "taken from their homes with guns at their backs" as Dr. Roth says. The Germans issued an order in early March 1941 ordering the Jews living in Krakow to move into the ghetto by March 20, 1941. Jews were permitted to bring their personal possessions to the ghetto; very few people arrived with just the clothes on their backs. The way Dr. Roth describes his experience is a very Hollywood version of what happened, which if the author had done even a small amount of preliminary research, she would have determined this is not how it happened, but I guess she wanted to tell the story in the most dramatic way possible.
Leah later says that Dr. Roth "starved for years" in the ghetto, which suggests that he was in the ghetto from March 1941 to at least late 1942, or possibly into 1943. The ghetto was liquidated in March 1943 and its inhabitants were sent mostly to Plaszow concentration camp or to Auschwitz, so if we're taking Leah's words literally, that would mean Dr. Roth was in the ghetto until its liquidation, but that doesn't make sense because then he would have been escaping from Plaszow or Auschwitz rather from the ghetto. So let's assume Leah is exaggerating and she really means "almost two years" and Dr. Roth escaped in either late 1942 or early 1943.
By late 1942, bribing an official to get safe passage to America would have been nearly impossible, presenting so many logistical hurdles that it makes no sense as a backstory for a children's book, at least not without more explanation of how Dr. Roth would have overcome these hurdles. First, Dr. Roth would have to get out of the ghetto, which by that point would have been closed. That part could possibly be accomplished by bribing an official. But then he would have to get out of Poland to a neutral third country from which he could take a boat to America. In 1940, Jews were banned from leaving the General Government (the part of Poland Krakow is in), so getting an exit permit would have been extremely unlikely. He would either have to get false Aryan papers (which also wouldn't solve the problem, since Polish people were also not permitted to travel) or some extremely high ranking official to make an exception and allow a Polish Jew from the General Government to leave Poland even though it was banned.
If he was using his real identity, he would have run into problems transiting into other parts of occupied Europe, where he would again have to show his papers that identify him as Jewish and could be arrested there. If he got the false Aryan papers, this would also cause problems because he would need his actual identity in order to get a visa to travel to the United States, especially since his wife and son are there; travelling under a false identity would be less likely to work. And even with false Aryan papers, the nearest neutral country where refugees could take voyages to America was Portugal. So he would have to get from Krakow to Germany to France to Spain and then to Lisbon, which again even under a false identity, he would need permission to travel there, which he was unlikely to get. And by 1942, getting an exit visa from France and transit visas to Spain and Portugal would be especially difficult.
And that's not to mention getting a new immigration visa to the US, because under the Immigration Act of 1924, immigration visas to the US were only valid for four months. So if he had one, say, in 1940, by 1942 it's expired and he will need a new one. After July 1941, American consulates in Nazi controlled territory were closed, so he would need to get to Portugal or another neutral country FIRST before he would be able to even apply for a new visa. And even if he did make it to Portugal, the US tightened its refugee visa procedures in 1941, so it's not clear whether he would even qualify to come over to the US.
So given all of that, Dr. Roth simply bribing an official is not a sufficient explanation for how he got out of the Krakow ghetto and to America in 1942/1943. And telling his story so inaccurately has real consequences. The idea that the Holocaust was easily escapable and easily survivable is not an accurate one to give to young readers. It gives children a false impression of what actually happened and how bad it really was. How it REALLY was is that entire families, entire towns, were completely wiped out, with no warning, no opportunity for escape, no way of saving themselves. Telling fantastical stories about people pulling themselves out of extremely dire situations like the Krakow ghetto and magically making their way to the US in 1943 does a disservice to their memories. If it was so easy to bribe someone to escape, all the Jews in the Krakow ghetto would have done it. Many Americans WANT to believe about the Holocaust that there was some way people could have survived if they had really tried to. For nearly everyone, there wasn't.
Even aside from all the Holocaust stuff, there was so much in the book to dislike. One of the things I loved most about Melody's books was getting to see her strong community and delightful family, who are much less present in this book than in her other books. And Melody being obsessed with a white girl is not a good look or in keeping with Melody's series. And Melody was not in character either; it's not like her to be so dismissive of Val or to think she's being "oversensitive." And her investigating in the orchid room is extremely stupid after her grandfather (and possibly her as well) are already suspected of the theft of the orchids.
And it was clear that Leah was going to steal the orchids literally before the theft even happened, which is not a good thing for a mystery. And Mr. Muntz making notes for Leah in Hebrew is stupid; I highly doubt Leah reads fluent conversational Hebrew, and I'd be shocked if Mr. Muntz did either, since his dad would have spoken Yiddish, unless he was a religious Jew who went to yeshiva, but even then, he would have learned Biblical Hebrew more than conversational Hebrew. All in all, a really disappointing book for so many reasons.
As someone who recently took a six-week trip to Poland and spent a lot of time in the Krakow ghetto area and learning about Krakow's Jewish history, and my own family having been killed in the Holocaust, I find it extremely offensive as well as inaccurate to depict the Holocaust as "bad, but escapable" the way a lot of children's literature does. If it was so easy to escape from the Krakow ghetto and get to America, more people would have done it.
The actual reality of most inhabitants of the Krakow ghetto (or any other ghetto in Poland) was that people were trapped with no way out. It does a disservice to actual Holocaust victims and survivors to give children the misleading idea that the Holocaust was easy to survive. It wasn't. Every single person in my family who was still in Poland by 1939 died in the Holocaust. Most Jews have a story like mine. Survival was a rare anomaly, as was escape. Two thirds of Europe's Jews were murdered in a period of six years. That reality is not present in this book.
As someone who has deeply studied the Holocaust, there are so many inaccuracies in this book that could have been corrected by a simple google search. Unlike Warsaw, Krakow was never "under siege" as Dr. Roth claims; Polish forces withdrew from Krakow on September 6, 1939 and gave the city up to the Nazis without a battle for the city. This is why most architecture from Krakow survived World War II, including many synagogues, unlike in Warsaw where the majority of the city was destroyed. And while the Jagiellonian University in Krakow was attacked by the Nazis and many of the professors were arrested and sent to concentration camps, the botanical garden at the university was not "ransacked" and plants weren't burned or destroyed. The garden remained operational during the Nazi occupation of the city, with Germans operating it. And the attack on the university happened in November 1939, so not at the time of the Nazis initially invading the city.
Dr. Roth's story also makes it sound like Jews were forced into the ghetto right after the occupation began, which is not true; the ghetto wasn't established until March 1941. Jews were not "taken from their homes with guns at their backs" as Dr. Roth says. The Germans issued an order in early March 1941 ordering the Jews living in Krakow to move into the ghetto by March 20, 1941. Jews were permitted to bring their personal possessions to the ghetto; very few people arrived with just the clothes on their backs. The way Dr. Roth describes his experience is a very Hollywood version of what happened, which if the author had done even a small amount of preliminary research, she would have determined this is not how it happened, but I guess she wanted to tell the story in the most dramatic way possible.
Leah later says that Dr. Roth "starved for years" in the ghetto, which suggests that he was in the ghetto from March 1941 to at least late 1942, or possibly into 1943. The ghetto was liquidated in March 1943 and its inhabitants were sent mostly to Plaszow concentration camp or to Auschwitz, so if we're taking Leah's words literally, that would mean Dr. Roth was in the ghetto until its liquidation, but that doesn't make sense because then he would have been escaping from Plaszow or Auschwitz rather from the ghetto. So let's assume Leah is exaggerating and she really means "almost two years" and Dr. Roth escaped in either late 1942 or early 1943.
By late 1942, bribing an official to get safe passage to America would have been nearly impossible, presenting so many logistical hurdles that it makes no sense as a backstory for a children's book, at least not without more explanation of how Dr. Roth would have overcome these hurdles. First, Dr. Roth would have to get out of the ghetto, which by that point would have been closed. That part could possibly be accomplished by bribing an official. But then he would have to get out of Poland to a neutral third country from which he could take a boat to America. In 1940, Jews were banned from leaving the General Government (the part of Poland Krakow is in), so getting an exit permit would have been extremely unlikely. He would either have to get false Aryan papers (which also wouldn't solve the problem, since Polish people were also not permitted to travel) or some extremely high ranking official to make an exception and allow a Polish Jew from the General Government to leave Poland even though it was banned.
If he was using his real identity, he would have run into problems transiting into other parts of occupied Europe, where he would again have to show his papers that identify him as Jewish and could be arrested there. If he got the false Aryan papers, this would also cause problems because he would need his actual identity in order to get a visa to travel to the United States, especially since his wife and son are there; travelling under a false identity would be less likely to work. And even with false Aryan papers, the nearest neutral country where refugees could take voyages to America was Portugal. So he would have to get from Krakow to Germany to France to Spain and then to Lisbon, which again even under a false identity, he would need permission to travel there, which he was unlikely to get. And by 1942, getting an exit visa from France and transit visas to Spain and Portugal would be especially difficult.
And that's not to mention getting a new immigration visa to the US, because under the Immigration Act of 1924, immigration visas to the US were only valid for four months. So if he had one, say, in 1940, by 1942 it's expired and he will need a new one. After July 1941, American consulates in Nazi controlled territory were closed, so he would need to get to Portugal or another neutral country FIRST before he would be able to even apply for a new visa. And even if he did make it to Portugal, the US tightened its refugee visa procedures in 1941, so it's not clear whether he would even qualify to come over to the US.
So given all of that, Dr. Roth simply bribing an official is not a sufficient explanation for how he got out of the Krakow ghetto and to America in 1942/1943. And telling his story so inaccurately has real consequences. The idea that the Holocaust was easily escapable and easily survivable is not an accurate one to give to young readers. It gives children a false impression of what actually happened and how bad it really was. How it REALLY was is that entire families, entire towns, were completely wiped out, with no warning, no opportunity for escape, no way of saving themselves. Telling fantastical stories about people pulling themselves out of extremely dire situations like the Krakow ghetto and magically making their way to the US in 1943 does a disservice to their memories. If it was so easy to bribe someone to escape, all the Jews in the Krakow ghetto would have done it. Many Americans WANT to believe about the Holocaust that there was some way people could have survived if they had really tried to. For nearly everyone, there wasn't.
Even aside from all the Holocaust stuff, there was so much in the book to dislike. One of the things I loved most about Melody's books was getting to see her strong community and delightful family, who are much less present in this book than in her other books. And Melody being obsessed with a white girl is not a good look or in keeping with Melody's series. And Melody was not in character either; it's not like her to be so dismissive of Val or to think she's being "oversensitive." And her investigating in the orchid room is extremely stupid after her grandfather (and possibly her as well) are already suspected of the theft of the orchids.
And it was clear that Leah was going to steal the orchids literally before the theft even happened, which is not a good thing for a mystery. And Mr. Muntz making notes for Leah in Hebrew is stupid; I highly doubt Leah reads fluent conversational Hebrew, and I'd be shocked if Mr. Muntz did either, since his dad would have spoken Yiddish, unless he was a religious Jew who went to yeshiva, but even then, he would have learned Biblical Hebrew more than conversational Hebrew. All in all, a really disappointing book for so many reasons.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
May 14, 2017
Melody's first mystery book is really good! In this book, Melody meets a girl named Leah. Melody is fascinated with Leah's style and wants to be her friend. However, Melody's cousin Val doesn't trust Leah and feels cast aside when Melody spends most of her day with her.
Meanwhile Melody's grandfather is blamed for a crime he did not commit, Someone has been stealing orchids from the conservatory. Also Leah is acting strange especially when she talks about her own grandfather and how he was treated by the Nazis in Poland
I figured out who the culprit was very fast. This book shows just how far someone might be willing to go for family or money. The Inside Melody's World(formally known as the Looking Back section in the older books)discusses orchids, orchid theft, Belle Isle, the holocaust and racial stereotyping
Meanwhile Melody's grandfather is blamed for a crime he did not commit, Someone has been stealing orchids from the conservatory. Also Leah is acting strange especially when she talks about her own grandfather and how he was treated by the Nazis in Poland
I figured out who the culprit was very fast. This book shows just how far someone might be willing to go for family or money. The Inside Melody's World(formally known as the Looking Back section in the older books)discusses orchids, orchid theft, Belle Isle, the holocaust and racial stereotyping
January 21, 2023
I like this melody mystery . The subjects of racial profiling and the Holocaust appear in this book. It was interesting to see the correlations between the similar struggles between black people and Jewish people. Both suffered hate crimes ,discrimination, segregation( Europe), and were treated badly by the dominant groups where they lived. It makes sense both marginalized groups would work together . I love Melody and think 2 or 3 more mysteries should be written about her. Because after all , the historical character mysteries are very unbalanced with characters like Kit( 7 mysteries),julie(5) and Samantha (5) having plenty of mysteries. While on the other hand, characters like Kirsten( one mystery) ,Kaya(2)and Addy(1). It not fair to these characters being denied a bigger story
July 20, 2020
The Mystery books are written by different authors than the mainline books, so I'm really curious about how this differs from those (which are #ownvoices, vs this one by a prolific middle grade/juvenile lit white author).
The core of the mystery is over stolen orchids, and Melody makes a new friend. The book draws parallels between treatment of Jews in Nazi-occupied Poland to Black people in the Jim Crow South, and while they are comparable, I felt like the way Poppa reacts to his treatment could've been done with more nuance (a minor nitpick). Overall, a quick read.
The core of the mystery is over stolen orchids, and Melody makes a new friend. The book draws parallels between treatment of Jews in Nazi-occupied Poland to Black people in the Jim Crow South, and while they are comparable, I felt like the way Poppa reacts to his treatment could've been done with more nuance (a minor nitpick). Overall, a quick read.
November 11, 2024
As just another Melody book, I really enjoyed this! The actual mystery aspect is pretty much nonexistent though. It’s so odd to me how some of the AG mysteries do really well on the mystery part and others- like this one- are SO predictable that I don’t feel it should even be marketed as a “mystery” lol. Especially when the actual “mystery” in this one didn’t even show up until 2/3 into the book, unless we count “what’s going on with Leah” as The Mystery, I guess.
So final verdict: pick up The Lady’s Slipper as an extra novel about Melody, not a mystery book:)
So final verdict: pick up The Lady’s Slipper as an extra novel about Melody, not a mystery book:)
January 29, 2021
Pretty good for one of the mysteries. This book introduces Leah, a new, slightly older friend for Melody. Leah is Jewish, and her grandfather is a Holocaust survivor. Introducing them as characters lets the author explore, however briefly, Jewish allies during the Civil Rights movement and the long-term effects on Holocaust survivors. The actual mystery itself was hardly mysterious to me as an adult reader, though there are a few red herrings that may throw off younger readers.
July 23, 2022
I liked the story but not the mystery. It wasn't really that big of a mystery at all. I liked that Leah got introduced, it was neat to learn about a different culture from Melody's point of view. I really like Melody but this book was weak and didn't reflect as much of the warmth I got from her other books. Her culture was lacking/almost non-existent. I mean, it's not the original author, or even a black author, so that probably has something to do with it.
August 16, 2020
This is a very good book and it dosen't just show the injustice that African Americans had to suffer in bit also the injustice that Jewish people had to suffer in during World War 2. This book was a little easy for me but, overall it is a good book and American girl sould write more mystery Melody books.
October 10, 2022
This was so good! I enjoy the American Girl historical mysteries so much. It was interesting to read about a post-war Jewish family in the 1960s and how they adapted to life in America after unfair treatment in Europe. I also didn’t really know about how valuable certain kinds of orchids are, so I learned a lot! I wish Melody had more mystery books - she definitely got left out.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
January 22, 2020
Readable, with relevant friendship issues. It seemed like the core mystery arrived in the plot a little late, and the setup made for a more obvious culprit.
Different author than the original stories.
Different author than the original stories.
February 15, 2022
Way too predictable. And the friendship issues were a bit annoying although I can see how it could be relatable to 9 year olds. The flower was a very interesting take, and it brings up important issues that need more written on.
August 19, 2024
As a mystery, it’s terrible. I sniped who the thief was before the theft had EVEN HAPPENED. Which was easy to do, since the plot of the book didn’t get started till more than halfway through.
However. As an addition to the Melody canon. It’s lovely.
However. As an addition to the Melody canon. It’s lovely.
April 19, 2024
Good mystery for youth. Not too scary but enough to make you keep reading. I loved learning about the different types of orchids.
Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews