Kidnap at the Catfish Cafe

Author Study Selection

Author:  Patricia Reilly Giff, 1998, Viking

Illustrator:  Lynne Cravath

This is the third and final choice for my author study, and I found it quite different from the previous Giff books.  Kidnap at the Catfish Cafe is a juvenile detective book, and it takes the reader on a hunt to find a purse snatcher.  The detective is a teenage girl who lives in Florida, I believe.  She takes a cat, who is thought to be a stray but turns out as someone's missing pet, as her co-detective.  This cat takes on human qualities and is described as nodding and making other gestures that would make one believe it is speaking to Minnie, the main character.  Minnie ends up solving the case, as I would have expected, and she becomes friends with another amateur detective named Cash. 

The entire plot is exactly what I expected from the beginning.  It is one installment in a series called The Adventures of Minnie and Max.  The characters follow the typical route to solving a mystery.  By that, I am referring to some classic mysteries such as Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys.  Each book was a carbon copy of the other, just with different twists, turns, and characters.  This makes it easy for readers to fall in love with the books, but it also makes it easy for them to predict what will happen.  While I have not read other Minnie and Max books, I would suspect that they do the same.  I liked this book, but as I said earlier, it was unlike the other books I have read by Patricia Reilly Giff.  Her recent juvenile chapter books are more historical in nature, and they are more believable.  This book was dull, uninteresting, and very predictable.     



The Buddy Files: The Case of the Lost Boy

Author:       Dori Hillestad Butler, 2010, Albert Whitman & Co.
Illustrator:  Jeremy Tugeau
Monarch Award - Illinois (2012)

Imagine the loss you would feel if you were sent away from the people you love without means to contact them.  This is what happens to King.  King, a dog, is part of a modern American family.  Kayla, his owner, has gone away with her father to visit relatives.  Kayla's mother is a member of the National Guard.  King thought he would be visiting a kennel for the duration of their trip, but now he has ended up in the P-O-U-N-D.  King is adopted by a new family, and must adapt to his change of name and home.  King is now called Buddy, and he belongs to a school principal and her young son.  When the son goes missing, Buddy helps solve the case of the lost boy.

This is a nice read for advanced readers.  The chapters are relatively short, and the words fill up the small pages.  The story includes questions a detective might ask during an investigation.  This helps children understand the importance of thinking through problems.  I enjoyed the repetition of the word "pound."  The story is told in first person from King's (Buddy's) point of view, so he must not want to say the word aloud.  I thought it was an interesting story line, one that includes a broken family and a family with one member serving in the U.S. military.  These two families are reflective of the world in which we live today.  Families cannot always be assumed to include a mother, father, and children.  Sometimes, the family structures are non-traditional.

Overall, I admit it was not my favorite chapter book, but some children would find it very intriguing.  Children who especially love dog stories would "lap up" this book (pun intended).