West Meadows Detectives: The Case of Maker Mischief

A Remarkable and Engaging Book

This book was so good and so impressive that I want to pause a bit to make sure I do it justice.

It does three things especially well: it sets out an excellent third grade detective mystery; it portrays a neurodiverse group of kids with insight and dignity; it emphasizes science tech without a hint of preachiness. I don't see how you beat that combo.

While it is never made especially explicit, our hero Myron is on the autism spectrum, and from the description of his love of logic, facts and mystery and his eye for detail, as well as some of his behaviors, we can see that. The presentation is matter of fact and understated. Since Myron is both well adjusted and an appealing kid, and the hero of the book, this is a sympathetic and even handed presentation of his challenges and strengths. His "assistant", Hajrah, has some hyper-active challenges, and is equally well presented. The two of them are in a special resource class with some other kids with various issues, and the whole gang participates in solving the mystery in the book. I just don't think I've ever before seen such an engaging treatment of an autistic kid hero. The fact that Myron also narrates adds even more immediacy and insight to the matter.

Putting all of that aside, the mystery is quite good. There are real clues and real deductions. Suspects are added and dropped for rational and defensible reasons. There are red herrings. There is a bit of action and some lurking and poking around. Third grade mysteries rarely follow the rules and often rely on coincidence and hunches. This does that a little bit, (some lucky clue finds), but for the most part this mystery plays fair, which puts it well ahead of other early reader offerings.

Finally, the whole mystery turns around a science project and the "maker movement", which is sort of a science craft offshoot of that. In addition to the most tech savvy student being a girl, we have a lot of discussion of robots, circuits, programming and the like, which I would expect to interest science-y and non-science-y kids.

Even the illustrations are to the point, and help to clarify and emphasize what's going on.

So, the upshot is that we have unique, appealing and non-traditional characters, a breezy and upbeat vibe, an authentic third grade sort of feel, science and mystery. I'm a fan.

(Please note that I received a free advance will-self-destruct-in-x-days Adobe Digital copy of this book in exchange for a candid review. Apart from that I have no connection at all to either the author or the publisher of this book.)