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Thursday, December 1, 2011

Book Review: Dead Kid Detective Agency by Evan Munday

Title: The Dead Kid Detective Agency

Author: Evan Munday

Publisher: Ecw Press

Published: September 2011

Genre: Young Reader Mystery

Series or Stand Alone: Series








Synopsis can be found here.
Netgalley review.

Review:

October Schwartz, new girl in town spends her free time in the local cemetery right outside her house. Of course, she befriends the local ghosts and they ban together to form the Dead Kid Detective Agency, ready to solve their town’s mysteries. And that’s where the fun begins.


I haven’t read a younger children’s book in a while. I stick to mostly YA and above, but the synopsis definitely caught my eye. The book is filled with beautiful illustrations done by the author, giving the reader a real feel of the book and its characters. I liked the drawings of October; she is exactly how I pictured her to be and October herself is easy to like. She’s a smart underdog who I was rooting for from the beginning. I would be friends with that “Zombie Tramp” any day!

I loved the array of diverse characters. And the narrative was very funny at times, like a casual conversation between friends.

But there were some things I couldn’t get past. Through the book, the narration changes from First Person to Third. This brought me out of the story and I felt jarred after the first couple of times.  Yes, I get that there’s a reason for this. But until you get to that reason, it was more a distraction.
Also, I felt that it took a while to get to the real hook of the story. There was a lot of wading around in the beginning chapters and the book felt like it could have been a lot tighter and sharper. 

Overall, I think kids will enjoy this story.  But the older high school crowds might find it a bit hard to get into. This looks like the first book in a new series.

Rating 5 Ok

1 comment:

  1. Ooh changing tenses is interesting. This book caught my eye, too. Didn't know it was illustrated. Thanks for the review. I'll give it a try.

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