3 out of 4 stars
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“The Adventures of Crab Missoulah: The Mighty Ware Tree”, by M. Turner, is a children’s mystery/detective adventure. This is book one in a series of adventures the author has planned for Daniel Thompson, aka Crab Missoulah, the detective. Dan has a penchant for adventure and has a well-worn collection of books relating to his great love of detective work. “All of his life he had dreamed of danger and of solving great mysteries . . .”, so when his parents decided to move from the city to a tomato farm, Dan packed up his books and collection of disguises, ready to explore and put his detective skills to work.
Dan was a little reluctant to give up his familiar school and his friends, but he wasn’t about to let that keep him from looking for the next mystery to be solved. The very first night on the farm he spotted some mysterious lights across a field. The next day Dan met his new neighbors, Violet and Herman, who were both around his age. He immediately recruited them into his detective club to help him investigate the curious lights. Together, they stumbled into some very scary adventures involving a mystical old tree and some disappearing baby pigs.
In this very well-written and fast-paced story, the reader is immediately taken along with Dan, his parents and his little brother, Elliot, to the tomato farm where his father is pursuing his dream of reinventing himself from being a boring accountant to being a health conscious tomato farmer. The story is written so the reader sees things from Dan’s perspective, which is somewhat influenced by his very active imagination, and isn’t always the way things actually are.
The author’s very capable use of descriptive words sets the scenes so vividly that the reader feels like he/she is involved in the story right along with the characters from the very start. Budge, the neighbor kids’ father is described as a, “. . . large puffy man who strangely reminded Dan of a freckled water balloon that had been overfilled.” There is a good balance between the narrative and the dialogue which keeps the story moving at a nice pace, and the plot creates an interesting story which has a good resolution.
In addition to being a very interesting, action-filled story, there are a lot of positive ideas presented such as how supportive Dan’s parents are of each other in their quest to make their lives better for themselves and their children. The author mentions a number of times how much research Dan’s father has put into his tomato farming. It shows that he isn’t just taking off on an irresponsible whim. He sets a good example for his children in his work ethics. Dan’s mom and the children show how resourceful they are in finding ways to make things work in their new life. There are also lessons to be learned from this story such as when Dan finds out what happens when a person jumps to conclusions before knowing all of the facts.
This book could use some editing. There are a few mistakes like missing words and double words. In some cases the wrong tenses of words are used, and there are also some words that are hyphenated incorrectly. These errors didn’t affect the flow of the story for me, but a child should be exposed to proper sentence structure and grammar in any book that they read.
I would rate this book 4 out of 4 stars, but because of the editing that needs to be done I can only rate it 3 out of 4 stars. I would recommend this book to children who are the age of the main characters, Dan, Violet, and Herman, who seem to be around eight to ten years old; the content, vocabulary and length of the story is spot on for children of that age. The author tells the story in such a way that it brings the reader right into the action, so a child will feel like he/she is on an adventure with some new friends. I think that both boys and girls will find this story interesting and exciting to read, and will learn some positive life lessons in the process. At the end of the story the author has included an excerpt of the next book in this series. I’m excited to read more of Crab Missoulah’s adventurous mystery/detective stories.
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The Mighty Ware Tree
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