The Cayuga Island Kids Series is a 3-in-1 volume set of mystery books for kids by Judy Bradbury. Released in this volume 1st Sept 2023, it's 300 pages for all three books and is available in paperback and ebook formats. It's worth noting that the ebook format has a handy interactive table of contents as well as interactive links throughout.

This is a well written set of illustrated books aimed at early readers (~7-9 years). They have an emphasis on problem solving, critical thinking, reasoning, and cooperation. The protagonists are 5 youngsters who all have distinct personalities and strengths. The adventures are all age appropriate and well written.

This would be a superlative choice for public or school library acquisition. There's a companion guide for educators available from the author and the publisher to facilitate discussion and deeper understanding of the stories.

They are well illustrated throughout by Gabriella Vagnoli. Her simple and whimsical style complements the narrative very well and the pictures are full of small details which invite a closer look.

It's a positive feature of the books that the 5 friends who are the main characters have different strengths which complement one another as well as that they're from different ethnic and family backgrounds. Representation is so very important and it's nice that readers will find more than one main character to identify with.

Four and a half stars. Well written, appealingly illustrated, age appropriate, and with good stories.

Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.

A sweet book for elementary kids. This is also perfect for gentle readers who might like a mystery to solve but aren't ready for any suspense or scary. The mysteries are more about the process. Each one dealt with a different process in an investigation: understanding sources, finding facts, misinformation, etc. It really taught a lot but did so without taking away from the story.

I also really liked the individual characters created by the author. They each had distinct personalities and I think any child reading these books could find a character to relate to. They each played a role in the book as well and used their unique gifts to help solve the mysteries. These were just well done for children and we would read more of them if the author continues the series.

A cute book series for elementary aged readers. This series follows a group of five friends who are very different, but all bring different skills to the table as they solve mysteries (some bigger and more important than others). The Cayuga Island Kids books teach young readers about how to be fact finders, how to avoid misinformation and disinformation, and the importance of learning. I'm sure each kid is able to find a character in this series to whom they can relate.

I received an eARC of this book from the publisher via NetGalley. All opinions expressed in this review are my own.

Love love love!

I read this series to my 7 year old son and we were laughing, smiling, and trying to solve the mystery while we read these books! He really enjoyed these books, he even read some of it himself!

We really adored that the characters are diverse - which is so important! Their different personalities were so fun to read.

We love mystery/adventure books and this was the perfect mix for us - we couldn’t put these books down!

There are so many lessons for you to learn from, that were great for my son and I to discuss throughout!

We used to live 2 hours away from Niagara Falls so this was really enjoyable for us to read and picture ourselves in these stories!