Nate the Great and the Monster Mess

Nate the Great #22

by Marjorie Weinman Sharmat, Martha Weston (Illustrator)

Beginning readers are introduced to the detective mystery genre in these chapter books. Perfect for the Common Core, kids can problem-solve with Nate, using logical thinking to solve mysteries! 

Nate the Great loves his mother’s Monster Cookies. But now her Monster Cookie recipe is missing! Nate and his dog, Sludge, get to work. They find lots of clues. But which ones count? Will Nate ever eat those wonderful cookies again?

Check out the Fun Activities section in the back of the book!  

Visit Nate the Great and Sludge!
NatetheGreatBooks.com "The short chapters and quick resolution of the mystery will be appreciated by beginning readers. Nate's many fans will eagerly sink their teeth into this treat."-- School Library Journal 

Genres: Mystery, Childrens, Fiction, Chapter Books, Picture Books, 1st Grade, Detective

80 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1999

About the author

Marjorie Weinman Sharmat was an American children's writer. She wrote more than 130 books for children and teens and her books have been translated into several languages. They have won awards including Book of the Year by the Library of Congress or have become selections by the Literary Guild.
Perhaps Sharmat's most popular work features the child detective Nate the Great. He was inspired by and named after her father, who lived to see the first Nate book published. One story, Nate the Great Goes Undercover, was adapted as a made-for-TV movie that won the Los Angeles International Children's Film Festival Award. Sharmat's husband Mitchell Sharmat expanded Nate's storyline by creating Olivia Sharp, his cousin and fellow detective. Husband and wife wrote four Olivia Sharp books published 1989 to 1991. During the 1990s, their son Craig Sharmat (then in his thirties) wrote three Nate books with his mother. In the late 2010s, their other son Andrew Sharmat co-wrote the last two Nate books written while Marjorie Weinman Sharmat was alive. With Marjorie Weinman Sharmat's passing in 2019 Andrew has continued writing the series with Nate the Great and the Earth Day Robot (2021).
In the mid-1980s Sharmat wrote three books published in 1984 and 1985 under the pseudonym Wendy Andrews.
Sharmat also wrote the Sorority Sisters series, eight short novels published in 1986 and 1987. They are romantic fiction with a sense of humor. They are set in a California public high school (day school for ages 14 to 18, approximately).

Reviews

[nathan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Clickbait title in which there are very few monsters and Nate ends up just cleaning up this mess of a book. Thought we would get the big mom reveal, but all we get is her hand and the story ends abruptly as if Marjorie had no idea how this story should’ve concluded.

[Luisa Knight · Rating 2 out of 5]

Cleanliness: there are dracula, frankenstein and werewolf cookies. The activities section in the back discusses legendary monsters.

Reading Level: 2nd - 3rd grades

**Like my reviews? I also have hundreds of detailed reports that I offer too. These reports give a complete break-down of everything in the book, so you'll know just how clean it is or isn't. I also have Clean Guides (downloadable PDFs) which enable you to clean up your book before reading it!

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[Alex · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book because I liked the part when Nate the Great found the recipe for monster cookies. I did not like the part when Nate the Great's mom lost her recipies for monster cookies. Nate the Great found it on the back of the recipe for lemon fan.

[Maria · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nate love's his mother monster cookies recipe but monster cookie recipe was missing . Nate the great detective has never solved a case for his mother before. Its very fun book to read . Loved it!

[Alyson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nate's mom has lost a favorite recipe and Nate and his dog, Sludge, have to figure out where it went.

I may have to figure out a better way to rate children's book rather then from my adult point of view. I am assuming young readers will enjoy the story but it was a little too simplistic for my taste. The highlight for me was the supplemental information at the end of the book, though a more advanced reader (a parent perhaps) would have to read it with the child. I really like that approach which can create a meaningful learning experience beyond the story with a parent sitting down with their child to read. I'll add one star for that! (it was going to be 2 star)

[Rosa Cline · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nate the Great is a little boy that loves solving mysteries of his friends..missing things he helps find them. In this one his mother looses her recipe for monster cookies and can't find it. So Nate is on the job. This wasn't one of the better Nate the Great books and my special needs teenage son kind of started loosing interest before we were done. (when generally he stays with these chapter books) but this one did seem to just drag out.

[Marie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm going to let this one squeak by at a barely three. It's not bad (and I am an adult and not really the intended audience), but it's not the best Nate the Great. My seven-year-old enjoyed it and didn't even mind taking turns reading out loud. It's excellent for young readers - good repetition and vocabulary building without sounding overly simple.

Nate the Great's mom has lost the recipe for Nate's favorite cookies. Can he help her find it? Probably not, without making a huge mess!

[10kbenhart · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nate the Great’s mom loses her recipe for monster cookies. When Nate finds this out, he goes on a search to solve the mystery. Nate and his dog, Sludge, use their detective skills to follow clues that lead them to the missing recipe. Along the way, a “monster mess” is made leaving his mother with not one, but two, surprises when she gets home.

This was a cute book. The illustrations were simple yet entertaining. It was an easy read with a fun story line.

[Chelsea · Rating 2 out of 5]

I feel like these books are slowly going downhill. The first ones were fun, and now these ones are just kind of thrown together it feels like.

[Jane Maple · Rating 4 out of 5]

It starts, cutely enough, with the Mother writing a note to Nate (usually Nate writes to his mother to tell her he is on a case). Her note says she is looking for a Monster Cookie recipe. Nate loves the monster cookies which are strawberry Draculas, chocolate Frankensteins, and cinnamon werewolves. Nate looks through all the papers that are his mother's recipes. They are disorganized, some have a name but no recipe yet (Lemfan and Fig Fizzle), but Nate can't find the recipe. Sludge and Nate look through the house with no luck, but they do create a big mess. The leave to try to find Nate's mom. They find Annie and Fang. She tells Nate that she saw Nate's mom three days ago and she looked at Fang and said Fang would be good in lemon and wrote on a piece of paper. Oliver said he followed Nate's mom and has a card on where she went. According to Oliver she went to the grocery store and bought items for the cookies but put the cinnamon away and bought lemons and she bought fish. He finds Rosamond who is buying fish, she is recycling the paper that they wrap the fish in. She is tired of Nate's questions and tells him she will charge him for each answer. He says he will charge her for each answer and so she says no charge to avoid either of them having to pay. She doesn't know where the recipe is. Nate reviews the clues and then realizes that it the paper he found earlier that said LemFan which was short for Lemon Fang and that it was the back of the recipe and when he flips it over he finds the real recipe. His mom comes home and is shocked by the mess that Nate and Sludge then have to clean up.

Extras: Notes on Monsters; Notes about Eels (since Oliver mentioned he had some); how to make a lemon fang cookie; how to make lemonade; monster jokes; the right way to recycle

[melhara · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5/5

I felt like the story and the sentences didn't flow very well, but I did like how Nate solved the mystery of his mom's missing Monster Cookie recipe.

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Part of a personal challenge to read all of my boyfriend's and his sister's childhood books before we donate and give them away

[Benedict Randhawa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nate loves his mother monster cookies recipes but monster cookies recipes was missing. Nate have to find the recipe.

[Mr.Zhou · Rating 4 out of 5]

A lot of interesting stuffs about monsters. good job, Nate.

[Karen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Clever plot.

[MonsterM · Rating 3 out of 5]

I like that this book was about monster cookies. Monsters are some of my favorite characters.

[Christine · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another good book in a great series.

[WinterBat · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kind of a lame solution, especially in that the adult didn’t notice it

[Kayla Plutzer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very cute! I love this series!

[Michael Guillot · Rating 2 out of 5]

Sometimes I read these and I'm just like...

yeah nah. Impossible. Implausible.

[Erin · Rating 4 out of 5]

First sighting of Nate's mother. It was best part of the story according to my five-year-old.

[Holly Mclaughlin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cute

[Chris Hays · Rating 4 out of 5]

This one has a nice twist of solving a mystery for his mom.

[Villain E · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nate helps his mother with a mysteriously missing recipe, but makes a mess doing it. We still don't see the mother on the page.

[Kiana Gerard · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nate the Great and the Monster Mess is about a detective who solves the case of the missing recipe for monster cookies. When I first picked up this book, I thought it was going to be an easy read just by the look of how thin the book looked. I was surprised that the book was longer than I expected. Marjorie Weinman Sharmat writes such wonderful mysteries that help children with problem solving and thinking outside the box. This book is more targeted toward older children ages 8 to 11 years old. Shermat does an awesome job with mixing in his text, plot, and illustrations to make one great recipe for disaster!

The book is very thin, but has about 50 or so pages! You would think this would be such a big read for children, but the text is fairly large and is very simplistic. Every other page holds at least a couple of easy sentences like, "I went for a walk." or "I dropped the can.". The text takes up most of the page with a small illustration on the side. There are no borders on the page and the whole book is covered with white space. The illustrations are very realistic and looks like someone drew them in color pencil straight from the page. Instead of showing the whole scenery of illustrations with the text, Sharmat fades the illustrations on the ends of the drawings. I think Sharmat does this to let kids focus more of what's on the text instead of what drawings are on the page.

Marjorie Weinman Sharmat is very witty when it comes to his mysterious plots. Nate the Great tries to figure out where this monster cookie recipe might have gone to. When he looks all over town to find evidence, the author leads the readers into so many red herrings. The readers think the solution is right in front of their noses, but in the end, the solution is not always what the reader thinks. This book was so great in that readers get to be engaged in trying to help solve a mystery. This creates effective problem solving and critical thinking in elementary school children. It was such a fun book to read and I would only recommend this book to children who are above their reading average and who love mysteries!

[Mango · Rating 1 out of 5]

Nate the Great books aren't that great. I hated them when I was a kid, yet I would always read them.The endings of the books were always the same, they figured out what or who did it. And where are Nate's parents? They just let their son walk around everywhere and question people. That is very irresponsible of them. Nate the Great books always made me fall asleep and always wasted my time. I would not recommend this book to anyone, especially little kids. If kids want real mystery, they should read Sherlock Homes.

[midnightfaerie · Rating 3 out of 5]

A book my 6 yr old loved, a little old for my preschoolers. A solid reading level 3 book, this reader has a good amount of advanced vocabulary words, but not so long that it discourages a new reader. Used it for his read out loud book, which was perfect. It took about 15 mins for him to read and had just enough new vocabulary words to make it challenging. Also, it was a fun and interesting story he could get into. He liked it so much, he asked for more by this author. Great reading book!

[Shannon Bradbury · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love Nate The Great! I have really enjoyed reading this series with my boys. It’s interesting to watch Nate solve Mysteries with his friends, and his dog whilr eating large amounts of pancakes. Such a fun series that both of my younger boys have enjoyed reading. And for reading with my boys, it has been a challenge to find books to help them to enjoy reading. Nate The Great kept their attention. Highly recommend these books!

[Dolly · Rating 3 out of 5]

A fun mystery to read aloud to children. Nate the Great is an interesting series with odd characters and very blunt, simple narrative.

The mysteries are often simple to figure out and the situations are fairly commmon - like Nate's Mom losing a recipe in this story. Our girls really like this series, but the verdict's still out for me.

[Melissa Sommer · Rating 5 out of 5]

This story is about Nate's mom's cookie recipes. Nate's mom Monster Cookie recipe disappears and Nate has to find it with help from his dog, Sludge. I think this is a great book for beginning readers because the chapters are short. I also think the mystery in the book will want young readers to continue reading.

[Christy · Rating 4 out of 5]

It is Halloween night and all the kids are dressed in scary and funny costumes.Their Trick or Treat bags are getting heavier.

Nate's good friend Rosamond needs his help.Her cat, Little Hex, is missing.Little Hex hates Halloween, so maybe he's hiding.Or is he lost?Nate and his trusty dog Sludge take the case and hunt in the night for Little Hex.They pass robots, pirates, and