The Mystery of the White Elephant

Three Cousins Detective Club #1

by Elspeth Campbell Murphy, Joe Nordstrom (Illustrator)

When Timothy and his cousins go to the church swap meet, they discover a thief has stolen the white elephant they plan to buy, and it's up to them to find the culprit.

Genres: Mystery, Childrens, Christian, Fiction, Realistic Fiction, Chapter Books, Childrens Mystery

64 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1994

About the author

Elspeth Campbell Murphy is often asked about her first name. It is a Scottish form of Elizabeth, and is pronounced just like it's spelled, with the accent on the El.

Elspeth was born in Hamilton, Scotland, near Glasgow. She moved with her parents to Canada were she spent her early years. But most of Elspeth's life has been spent near Lake Michigan.

Reviews

[Luisa Knight · Rating 2 out of 5]

I read four books in this series to get an idea of what they’re like.

They’re fine, but in my opinion, not worth the shelf space. The titles are full of Christianese (some of which I disagree with), and the “mystery” can hardly be called such. Charlotte Mason followers would call this twaddle.

Ages: 6 - 9

Content Considerations: nothing to note.

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[Samantha Osborne · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book it kinds of reminds me of the boxcar children series

[Stephanie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this to my daughter and she said this was fabulous!! Thankfully there are many in the series!!

[Mary Graham · Rating 5 out of 5]

My children enjoyed all the books in the series.

[Ellen · Rating 5 out of 5]

My favorite books in elementary school

Fun, clean, easy mystery books for kids

[Nicolas · Rating 3 out of 5]

This brought back a lot of childhood memories. My son enjoyed it and it still holds up pretty well.

[Robert Drake · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book 📙.

[Wintermote · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read out loud to my 5-year-old. She absolutely loved it and the mystery was just her speed. The message that to God there are no White Elephants!

[Becky · Rating 3 out of 5]

Wasn’t going to count these, but they did take me at least half an hour to read out loud and have ~15 short chapters. 😆

As far as a rating, they’re fine enough. Nothing I would really want to read on repeat, but books I think my children would/do enjoy, as I did when I was younger. Wouldn’t call it peak literature though, ahaha.

[TransparentFilter · Rating 3 out of 5]

Seth and I are rereading the TCDC books. It's been a long time since I read these!

[Katt Hansen · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Three Cousins have to find a missing elephant from a sale at their church. It's amazing how many people want the same ugly cookie jar!

I loved the characters and thought the mystery itself was pretty good. I didn't like how I felt preached at from time to time. And thought the ending was a bit weak and not as satisfying as other mysteries out there. There's better mystery books for kids but we'll see. I'm going to keep reading the series to see if this gets better as it goes.

[Alexandra]

This series looks like it may be a winner for early readers - the trio includes a girl and two boys, they're mysteries, and they're Christian fiction which apparently each has a different Christian theme presented in the storyline. I'm really interested to check these out for my student.

[Ratforce]

The Mystery of the White Elephant by Elspeth Campbell Murphy is written for children in grades 2-5 and is in the Christian fiction series Three Cousins Detective Club. When Timothy and his cousins go to the church swap meet, they discover a thief has stolen the white elephant they plan to buy.

["aww look at the wittle puppie! She's SOOO CUTE!!" · Rating 3 out of 5]

this book was so cool!

[Ash · Rating 3 out of 5]

enjoyed the tales of this childhood book

[Debbie Sally · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow this book reminds me of my childhood. I used to brought it everywhere. I had completed my collection. Unfortunately I lose two of those.