Children's Review: The Great Shelby Holmes

{on Goodreads}

I am a huge fan of Sherlock Holmes, so when I saw this new middle grade series pop up, I couldn't resist taking a sneak peek. My college roommate and I both love the iconic detective in all his forms and I liked the idea of a female/male team. The Great Shelby Holmes is written from the perspective of John Watson, an eleven year-old boy who has just moved to NYC with his military mom after his parents' recent divorce. 

On the first day in his new city, John meets his neighbor, a verbose and sassy girl named Shelby Holmes. Shelby's not used to making friends, but soon enough John proves himself to be a valuable sidekick and she decides to bring him along on her latest case: the kidnapping of a prize-winning show dog belonging to a schoolmate. The plot itself isn't anything new in this book -- in fact, the dognapping was really the least interesting part of it, as I felt that the level of the plot could have really been raised had the crime been something more serious than a kidnapped pet. However, I really liked the friendship themes that went on through the book. Even though Shelby may be the incredible detective, Watson was a good model for a caring friend, which is poignant for kids at this time of year when a new school year means forming new friendships. I wouldn't hesitate to recommend this to my students, and I'll definitely follow the series in the future to see how that friendship grows. For those who want to help get this into the hands of young readers, there's still time to purchase a pre-order copy on Amazon before The Great Shelby Holmes hits shelves on September 6th!

Bottom Line Rating: 4/5

Title: The Great Shelby Holmes

Author: Elizabeth Eulberg

Publisher: Bloomsbury USA Children's

Price: $9.65 to pre=order on Amazon

ISBN: 1681190516

Format: E-book

Source: Net Galley

Note: Top Shelf Text was provided with a copy of this text by the publishers in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

The Mapmakers Trilogy

Last summer, I stumbled across in the first book in the Mapmakers Trilogy at my local bookstore. It was the cover that caught my eye, but as soon as I started reading I knew this would be one of those series that would become a lifelong favorite.

I read the first book (The Glass Sentence) last summer and loved it. The world building was fantastic, the characters unique and dynamic, and the premise so captivating. I waited eagerly for, The Golden Specific, the second in the series, and read it in the fall. Then of course, I pre-ordered the final installment, The Crimson Skew, and had to wait for what felt like forever for it to come out in July of this year. When it arrived on my doorstep, I realized that I really didn't remember a lot of the details from the first two in the series, so I put it aside and decided to re-read them before I dove into the final chapter.

I'm not usually the type to re-read a series just to continue reading the next book, but this turned out to be such a good idea. Because the world building is so complex, it really helped me to remember those details that I needed to know when reading the third book. 

I don't want to reveal anything specific from the third book because so much of it only exists because of events in the first and second book, but I do highly recommend this series. It's young adult, but I did recommend it to one of my fourth graders this year and he loved the series as well, so it could definitely appeal to more mature readers in the middle grade age range. I also think that it appeals to readers my age and older who love Harry Potter and similar types of series. I would definitely put it up there with some of my other favorite fantasy series, such as The All Souls Trilogy (a great October read) and The Paper Magician Trilogy.