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American Girl Mysteries
A Bundle of Trouble: A Rebecca Mystery
When Rebecca is put in charge of the new neighbors' baby, she hesitates to take on such a responsibility--especially with a kidnapper on the loose in New York! While her brother creates trouble in the neighborhood, Rebecca brings the baby to the park and meets some mysterious children. But when she returns home with the baby, she discovers there has been a terrible mistake.
173 pages, Hardcover
First published March 1, 2011
16 people are currently reading
350 people want to read
About the author
Kathryn Reiss
25 books190 followersKathryn Reiss was born in Massachusetts, grew up in Ohio, and received B.A. degrees in English and German from Duke University, and an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from the University of Michigan. After college, she lived in Bonn, Germany as a Fulbright Scholar, and during this time wrote the first draft of her first novel, Time Windows.
Ms. Reiss is an award -winning author of 20 novels for kids and teens. She has been a Writer in Residence for the Princeton Arts Council, a recipient of the New Jersey State Council on the Arts Grant for Writers, and has been a featured speaker with (among others) Sisters in Crime, Mystery Writers of America, The Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators, The Northern California Library Association, The International Reading Association, Fresno County Office of Education, California Reading Association, The American Library Association, and the National Council of Teachers of English. She lives in Northern California with her husband and the last of her seven children still in the nest. She is a Full Professor of English at Mills College at Northeastern University, and also teaches in the low -residency MFA program in Writing for Children and Young Adults at the University of Nevada, Reno.
Ms. Reiss is an award -winning author of 20 novels for kids and teens. She has been a Writer in Residence for the Princeton Arts Council, a recipient of the New Jersey State Council on the Arts Grant for Writers, and has been a featured speaker with (among others) Sisters in Crime, Mystery Writers of America, The Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators, The Northern California Library Association, The International Reading Association, Fresno County Office of Education, California Reading Association, The American Library Association, and the National Council of Teachers of English. She lives in Northern California with her husband and the last of her seven children still in the nest. She is a Full Professor of English at Mills College at Northeastern University, and also teaches in the low -residency MFA program in Writing for Children and Young Adults at the University of Nevada, Reno.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 32 reviews
October 31, 2018
3.5 stars
I enjoyed this story. Since there is a string of kidnapping going on in New York City, Rebecca is concerned when she realizes that one baby she took care of is not the same baby when she takes care of it the next time. Yes, her active imagination goes a little wild, but things all work out. There was only a little bit about the Jewish holiday of Sukkos, but since that wasn't the main part of the story, I didn't mind.
Nothing objectionable comes to mind about this book.
I enjoyed this story. Since there is a string of kidnapping going on in New York City, Rebecca is concerned when she realizes that one baby she took care of is not the same baby when she takes care of it the next time. Yes, her active imagination goes a little wild, but things all work out. There was only a little bit about the Jewish holiday of Sukkos, but since that wasn't the main part of the story, I didn't mind.
Nothing objectionable comes to mind about this book.
March 23, 2022
The great AG marathon continues. Again, reading for the first time as an adult, inspired by the American Girls podcast.
This one is a lesson in how to make a couple of kids look really suspicious. After the initial incident at the park, it's crystal clear that Something Is Up involving both Francesca and Luigi. And while I spotted the first twist right away, I didn't guess the full explanation at all, which turns out to be a tangled tale indeed, and far more innocent than what Rebecca starts to imagine. On the one hand, the wilder Rebecca's speculation became, the more sure I was that Francesca and Luigi were notkidnappers. But in Rebecca's defense, Francesca has a least one opportunity to explain everything, but passes it up in favor of acting shifty.
In light of that — coupled with feeling awful because the swap happened on her watch — it's no wonder Rebecca goes into high drama mode, even though (or perhaps especially when) the baby's parents don't seem to notice anything wrong. Her mother's reaction "Oh, Beckie, you're so dramatic," only makes her spiral more.
Hilariously, not only does Rebecca eventually get the full explanation out of Francesca, she also manages to crack a far bigger case. Rebecca solves a mystery — just not quite the one she was expecting to solve.
This one is a lesson in how to make a couple of kids look really suspicious. After the initial incident at the park, it's crystal clear that Something Is Up involving both Francesca and Luigi. And while I spotted the first twist right away, I didn't guess the full explanation at all, which turns out to be a tangled tale indeed, and far more innocent than what Rebecca starts to imagine. On the one hand, the wilder Rebecca's speculation became, the more sure I was that Francesca and Luigi were notkidnappers. But in Rebecca's defense, Francesca has a least one opportunity to explain everything, but passes it up in favor of acting shifty.
In light of that — coupled with feeling awful because the swap happened on her watch — it's no wonder Rebecca goes into high drama mode, even though (or perhaps especially when) the baby's parents don't seem to notice anything wrong. Her mother's reaction "Oh, Beckie, you're so dramatic," only makes her spiral more.
Hilariously, not only does Rebecca eventually get the full explanation out of Francesca, she also manages to crack a far bigger case. Rebecca solves a mystery — just not quite the one she was expecting to solve.
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June 24, 2024Rebecca is always the hero. It's kind of wild she seems to save the day in every book, in comparison to the other AGs. I still love her though.
September 19, 2025
This book was so stressful and reminded me how fun reading mysteries can be!
May 25, 2017
Wish the book gave a little more attention to Sukkos. Nora was an interesting name choice for a child of Jewish immigrants, when most of the family had names from the Old Testament.
February 5, 2012
the more of these american girl mysteries i read, the more ludicrous they seem. i guess it must be challenging to come up with a plotline that is truly mysterious but also age-appropriate for a child. & at least this book involved more of a mystery than, "there's a polio epidemic & the girl in the next bunk over at sleepaway camp seems to have some health issues. wonder if it's polio?" (ie, secrets at camp nokomis).
rebecca is concerned about a rash of kidnappings sweeping new york city. someone is stealing babies left unattended outside shops & other such places (apparently this was a pretty common practice back in ye olden days) & ransoming them for thousands of dollars. the babies are often from poor families who have to beg friends & neighbors for donations to raise the ransoms & get their babies back. rebecca becomes even more suspicious when she realizes that her older brother snuck out of the apartment on the night that one baby was returned to its family.
but she is swiftly distracted when a new family moves into her building. they moved from a nearby tenement & the mom in the family developed an eye infection that is imperiling her vision. the father works two jobs to pay for her medical care, & they have a little baby named nora, who is screaming her head off when rebecca meets the family. various cousins & aunts & whatnot are also milling around, as well as another woman who lives in the neighborhood & offers to look after the baby while the family gets settled in. mrs. rubin takes the baby instead & she & rebecca notice the baby has a bad diaper rash & needs her nails trimmed. rebecca guesses that nora's parents didn't have time for these things, or maybe even didn't notice, with the mom's eyesight failing & everything.
they get the baby all spruced up & rebecca takes her to a nearby park. she makes the acquaintance of another young girl there, named francesca. francesca is also looking after a baby, her little sister. rebecca is spooked by a slightly older boy with a thick italian accent who looks a little too closely at nora & asks rebecca some mundane questions about her. rebecca thinks it's strange that a boy that age would pay any attention to a baby. she even wonders if he might be involved with the kidnappings that have been happening. when she sees her brother running around with the boy, she gets even more concerned. then the boy's dog runs off with nora's rattle & rebecca chases after it.
the next day, rebecca stops by to visit with the new family again. she notices that nora is cheerful & happy as a clam, compared to all the screaming & fussing she was doing the day before. she remembers that the baby that was with francesca was very calm & sweet. she checks nora's dress & finds a little embroidered horn on the hem, the same as the embroidered horn on francesca's little sister's dress (an italian charm to ward off the evil eye). she realizes that the babies must have been switched while she was chasing after the dog. she rushes out to find francesca & get her help to switch the babies back.
she discovers that francesca is the little sister of the boy who seemed so interested in nora the day before. when she finally finds francesca & tells her that the babies have been switched, francesca insists that it's not true & won't listen to rebecca. rebecca becomes concerned that francesca switched the babies on purpose--that maybe she is mixed up in the kidnappings as well (although switching babies is not really the same as kidnapping them & holding them for ransom). she also unearths other odd or unsettling information: her brother is running around in a "gang" of "bad boys". rebecca sees them steal lollipops from a local ice cream vender. she also sees the local woman who has offered to look after nora. she sees the woman drop a package of brand-new baby clothes in the trash, & she realizes that a stern-looking man in a hat saw rebecca remove them from the trash.
rebecca tells her mother about the babies being switched, hoping that she can lean on francesca to switch them back. mrs. rubin dismisses this, insisting that a mother always knows her own child, even if her eyesight isn't the best. but rebecca knows the sweet, quiet baby the neighbors have now is not the same fussy, screaming baby she took to the park. the new baby's nails need to be clipped again already & her diaper rash is completely gone. (i guess they needed this kind of actual physical evidence to forestall arguments that sometimes babies cry & sometimes they're cheerful & it doesn't mean they are different babies.)
finally rebecca tracks down francesca's mother, who is sitting outside bouncing a fretful, crying baby. she confirms that the baby is her own daughter. rebecca starts hooting & hollering about how the babies have been switched. by this point, she thinks francesca's entire family is running some kind of very confusing baby-switching/kidnapping ring & she bolts over to a cop & requests his assistance in switching the babies back. francesca appears & seems very determined in her insistence that the babies have not been switched & that rebecca should drop it. then nora's father turns up & he knows francesca's family. apparently they live in the tenement building that he & his family just moved out of. rebecca is even more confused but she drops her kidnapping assumptions when she sees nora's father greeting the italian baby with no recognition that it may be his own child.
finally francesca explains: her brother likes to play pranks. while nora's family was moving out of the tenement, they asked francesca to look after nora for a little while. she was also looking after her little sister. something happened to nora's dress, so francesca dressed nora in one of her sister's spare dresses. then she was called away & asked her brother to keep an eye on the babies for a minute. he did, & thought it would be a funny prank on francesca to place their sister in nora's pram & nora in their sister's bed. unfortunately for him, nora's aunt & uncle came to pick her up & take her to the new apartment before francesca realized the babies had been switched. they weren't familiar with nora & didn't realize they were taking the wrong baby, & francesca didn't realize it until it was too late. she machinated a meeting with rebecca & nora in the park (using her older brother as a look-out, hence his strange interest in the baby) & switched them when rebecca's back was turned. but because rebecca was introduced to the impostor baby as nora, she didn't realize that francesca was switching the babies BACK. they decide not to tell anyone what happened because the babies are back with the right families & that's what counts. i think francesca & her brother are pretty lucky that nora's family wasn't moving to, like, des moines. switching babies is no joke!
rebecca is walking through the park when she suddenly realizes that the woman who had offered to look after nora & the stern man in the hat are the real kidnappers. she happens to run into them almost immediately & they grab her & try to hustle her out of the park. at first she goes meekly, rememering what her mother says about how "ladies don't draw attention to themselves". then she remembers what her grandmother says about how ladies are loud if they need to be & she starts hollering. francesca's brother helps catch the kidnappers, earning the goodwill of the police for once, & rebecca breaks the kidnapping case (via that old chestnut, deux ex machina, basically). her brother admits that he's been sneaking out at night to build the family a sukkah on the roof of their building.
rebecca came across as a bit of a meddlesome drama queen in this book. she could have saved herself a lot of trouble if she just stayed out of other people's business. there was also a weird scene in which francesca's mother is holding a baby, nora is in her pram, & rebecca "looks at the baby in her arms". i was super confused by that because i couldn't figure out how a third baby came on to the scene. i read it like ten times before i concluded that it was just an especially egregious editing/continuity error.
rebecca is concerned about a rash of kidnappings sweeping new york city. someone is stealing babies left unattended outside shops & other such places (apparently this was a pretty common practice back in ye olden days) & ransoming them for thousands of dollars. the babies are often from poor families who have to beg friends & neighbors for donations to raise the ransoms & get their babies back. rebecca becomes even more suspicious when she realizes that her older brother snuck out of the apartment on the night that one baby was returned to its family.
but she is swiftly distracted when a new family moves into her building. they moved from a nearby tenement & the mom in the family developed an eye infection that is imperiling her vision. the father works two jobs to pay for her medical care, & they have a little baby named nora, who is screaming her head off when rebecca meets the family. various cousins & aunts & whatnot are also milling around, as well as another woman who lives in the neighborhood & offers to look after the baby while the family gets settled in. mrs. rubin takes the baby instead & she & rebecca notice the baby has a bad diaper rash & needs her nails trimmed. rebecca guesses that nora's parents didn't have time for these things, or maybe even didn't notice, with the mom's eyesight failing & everything.
they get the baby all spruced up & rebecca takes her to a nearby park. she makes the acquaintance of another young girl there, named francesca. francesca is also looking after a baby, her little sister. rebecca is spooked by a slightly older boy with a thick italian accent who looks a little too closely at nora & asks rebecca some mundane questions about her. rebecca thinks it's strange that a boy that age would pay any attention to a baby. she even wonders if he might be involved with the kidnappings that have been happening. when she sees her brother running around with the boy, she gets even more concerned. then the boy's dog runs off with nora's rattle & rebecca chases after it.
the next day, rebecca stops by to visit with the new family again. she notices that nora is cheerful & happy as a clam, compared to all the screaming & fussing she was doing the day before. she remembers that the baby that was with francesca was very calm & sweet. she checks nora's dress & finds a little embroidered horn on the hem, the same as the embroidered horn on francesca's little sister's dress (an italian charm to ward off the evil eye). she realizes that the babies must have been switched while she was chasing after the dog. she rushes out to find francesca & get her help to switch the babies back.
she discovers that francesca is the little sister of the boy who seemed so interested in nora the day before. when she finally finds francesca & tells her that the babies have been switched, francesca insists that it's not true & won't listen to rebecca. rebecca becomes concerned that francesca switched the babies on purpose--that maybe she is mixed up in the kidnappings as well (although switching babies is not really the same as kidnapping them & holding them for ransom). she also unearths other odd or unsettling information: her brother is running around in a "gang" of "bad boys". rebecca sees them steal lollipops from a local ice cream vender. she also sees the local woman who has offered to look after nora. she sees the woman drop a package of brand-new baby clothes in the trash, & she realizes that a stern-looking man in a hat saw rebecca remove them from the trash.
rebecca tells her mother about the babies being switched, hoping that she can lean on francesca to switch them back. mrs. rubin dismisses this, insisting that a mother always knows her own child, even if her eyesight isn't the best. but rebecca knows the sweet, quiet baby the neighbors have now is not the same fussy, screaming baby she took to the park. the new baby's nails need to be clipped again already & her diaper rash is completely gone. (i guess they needed this kind of actual physical evidence to forestall arguments that sometimes babies cry & sometimes they're cheerful & it doesn't mean they are different babies.)
finally rebecca tracks down francesca's mother, who is sitting outside bouncing a fretful, crying baby. she confirms that the baby is her own daughter. rebecca starts hooting & hollering about how the babies have been switched. by this point, she thinks francesca's entire family is running some kind of very confusing baby-switching/kidnapping ring & she bolts over to a cop & requests his assistance in switching the babies back. francesca appears & seems very determined in her insistence that the babies have not been switched & that rebecca should drop it. then nora's father turns up & he knows francesca's family. apparently they live in the tenement building that he & his family just moved out of. rebecca is even more confused but she drops her kidnapping assumptions when she sees nora's father greeting the italian baby with no recognition that it may be his own child.
finally francesca explains: her brother likes to play pranks. while nora's family was moving out of the tenement, they asked francesca to look after nora for a little while. she was also looking after her little sister. something happened to nora's dress, so francesca dressed nora in one of her sister's spare dresses. then she was called away & asked her brother to keep an eye on the babies for a minute. he did, & thought it would be a funny prank on francesca to place their sister in nora's pram & nora in their sister's bed. unfortunately for him, nora's aunt & uncle came to pick her up & take her to the new apartment before francesca realized the babies had been switched. they weren't familiar with nora & didn't realize they were taking the wrong baby, & francesca didn't realize it until it was too late. she machinated a meeting with rebecca & nora in the park (using her older brother as a look-out, hence his strange interest in the baby) & switched them when rebecca's back was turned. but because rebecca was introduced to the impostor baby as nora, she didn't realize that francesca was switching the babies BACK. they decide not to tell anyone what happened because the babies are back with the right families & that's what counts. i think francesca & her brother are pretty lucky that nora's family wasn't moving to, like, des moines. switching babies is no joke!
rebecca is walking through the park when she suddenly realizes that the woman who had offered to look after nora & the stern man in the hat are the real kidnappers. she happens to run into them almost immediately & they grab her & try to hustle her out of the park. at first she goes meekly, rememering what her mother says about how "ladies don't draw attention to themselves". then she remembers what her grandmother says about how ladies are loud if they need to be & she starts hollering. francesca's brother helps catch the kidnappers, earning the goodwill of the police for once, & rebecca breaks the kidnapping case (via that old chestnut, deux ex machina, basically). her brother admits that he's been sneaking out at night to build the family a sukkah on the roof of their building.
rebecca came across as a bit of a meddlesome drama queen in this book. she could have saved herself a lot of trouble if she just stayed out of other people's business. there was also a weird scene in which francesca's mother is holding a baby, nora is in her pram, & rebecca "looks at the baby in her arms". i was super confused by that because i couldn't figure out how a third baby came on to the scene. i read it like ten times before i concluded that it was just an especially egregious editing/continuity error.
September 12, 2020
When this book came out, I thought that it looked boring, and since I hadn't cared for the Rebecca series, I didn't bother with it. However, since I am rereading all of the American Girl books this year, I decided to give this a try. I enjoyed it much more than I had expected, and have now read every single one of the American Girl mysteries.
This book conveys the setting and cultural flavor of immigrant New York very well, and even though the mystery isn't spectacular, it has some clever twists and historical insight. The book also incorporates some details about the Jewish holiday of Sukkos, and continues to develop Rebecca's character and her relationships with her family members. I enjoyed this, and thought that it was satisfying as a whole.
This book conveys the setting and cultural flavor of immigrant New York very well, and even though the mystery isn't spectacular, it has some clever twists and historical insight. The book also incorporates some details about the Jewish holiday of Sukkos, and continues to develop Rebecca's character and her relationships with her family members. I enjoyed this, and thought that it was satisfying as a whole.
November 18, 2018
A bundle of trouble is a story about a girl in the 1930's looking after a baby when one day the baby gets swapped with another one after a strange encounter with a girl. Rebecca becomes worried as many babies around this time are being kidnapped and then being held for ransom by citizens in New York. Rebecca has to go on a hunt to find out what has happened to this child.
This book shows the times back in 1930 and how it was like for many children, that is why I found this book so interesting to read.
This book shows the times back in 1930 and how it was like for many children, that is why I found this book so interesting to read.
July 4, 2019
Honestly, this was not my favorite book, but it was okay. Rebecca lives with her family in an apartment. When her new neighbor moves in, their baby daughter, Nora was gone! Rebecca panics and she doesn’t know what to do. Read the book to find out more! I rate this book 3 stars because there is no main idea and it doesn’t explain much about what happened to Nora.
December 13, 2021
I always enjoy reading mysteries so this was a fun read for me. However, I did find the mystery to be very obvious and just know that if I read this at a young age, I still would have figured this one out pretty quickly. That being said, it was still fun and I enjoyed reading the cultural and historical aspects of the story as well.
May 16, 2024
I don’t even like babies, but I TORE through this one because I just had to know what happened. One of the better AG mysteries - the right amount of suspense while still being ultimately believable. Bonus points for there being actual crime and not just a big misunderstanding.
August 15, 2018
3 1/2 stars
February 21, 2022
These are such fun, light and quick reads. I'm glad there's so many books in the American Girl series!
December 2, 2022
I thought this was kind of “creative,” in terms of having a crime that a young girl in a tenement might actually come across and be able to solve.
October 28, 2025
I love rebecca
June 17, 2022
Re-read 2022: I guess I read this before, but I have literally zero memory of any of it. At any rate, the mystery is a bit more mysterious than in the previous Rebecca mystery, in that there's some actual twists and turns and the full solution is much more complicated and innocent than expected. Rebecca is extremely dramatic in this book. On one hand, her suppositions about Francesca and her family are reasonable enough leaps of logic, but when she takes a detour into accusing her older brother of being part of a kidnapping ring it feels like a huge stretch. The historical details are a little light on the ground here. It's sort of based kidnapping and ransoming children being a thing that happened, but it doesn't feel thoroughly grounded in Rebecca's time. All the more so because the historical notes at the end use the Lindberg kidnapping as a famous example, but that was almost two decades later. It's slightly more effective at showcasing the differing expectations parents would have had of their sons and daughters at the time: girls would have been expected to help with younger, even infant siblings, and boys would have had more freedom to play. Again, this is kind of undercut by Rebecca not actually having those responsibilities herself. She's volunteering to watch the neighbor's baby, and nobody expects her to. All this historical stuff is me being super picky, mostly because much of this book doesn't feel specific to Rebecca or her time period.
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September 21, 2016I am reading a book called a bundle of trouble. It's about a girl named Rebecca and it was like 3am and she heard noises so she went downstairs and saw her brother laying on the couch with his shoes on. So in the morning they were eating breakfast before they were planning on going for a run. The grandpa pulls her brother aside and starts talking to him. I am wondering what happens when the grandpa talks to Rebecca's brother.
March 8, 2024
I loved It, I am a big friend of mystery books and this is for sure one of my favorite. I won't make sure to spoil anything but This book is about Rebecca babysitting her neighbors baby and learns that the baby she is babysitting isn't her neighbor's baby. With a kidnapper on the loss she has to put all her effort into figuring out this mystery. Loved it, please make more.
April 25, 2014
I read this book when I was about ten years old, and I really loved it. Rebecca was one of my favorite American girls. Great story that I recommend to all girls. I think every little girl should read the American Girl series. Enjoyable
November 15, 2013
its about Rebecca loves to babysit their neighbor's baby but when she hears there is a thief in town she is worried about the baby.
March 8, 2011
A good mystery but sort of scary.
October 2, 2011
this seemed to build up into a good mystery, and Rebecca did catch the kidnappers, but the mystery was really the result of a joke.
December 12, 2011
One of the better American Girl mysteries I have read. I was actually in suspense! 3 1/2 stars.
March 8, 2012
a fun read
April 7, 2012
I LOVED THIS BOOK!!!
August 3, 2015
Not predictable, but not very interesting either. A huge step down from the last AG mystery I read, though that one was unusually good.
December 1, 2013
I enjoy these American Girl mysteries. It was a quick read and well written. I don't know much about that time period (New York turn of the 20th century) so I found it educational.
July 20, 2015
Good mystery, but kinda weird at the same time.
April 3, 2016
Amelia says: my favorite part is when she looks out for the baby and tells who the real criminals are.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 32 reviews