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Murdle Jr.: Sleuths on the Loose, co-authored by G. T. Karber and Chris Grabenstein and inspired by the popular Murdle puzzle books, is a fun novel that features a kid-appropriate mystery and teaches kids how to fill in the deduction grids of logic puzzles. The school librarian is missing, and Jake is a very persistent girl detective who is determined to solve the case alongside her trusty allies.
The age target is middle grades, around 8-11. I'm reading this with my 10-year-old, and that seems apt. The writing is energetic and humorous and the characters broad without being caricatures. There are occasional charming illustrations, and the book printing itself is high quality with a pleasing cover and durable pages.
The main puzzle in the book is a logic grid. There are companion puzzle books called Ready, Set, Solve that feature some of the same characters. I don't have them, but I understand that there is only minimal overlap with this particular mystery and is mostly new puzzles. That might scratch an itch if your kids are more into puzzles than stories, though.
Because this book is mostly story. There are a few turns to take solving and deducing, but it's mostly done in the head rather than on the page. I feel like the authors missed out on some opportunities to add in more puzzles, where they just have the characters solve it for us instead. I'm not sure how that could be managed, though – maybe a kind of choose your own adventure where if you calculate the right answer, it takes you to the next part of the story, and if you don't, it helps you through solving it. But it doesn't do that, so that's just in my own imagination!
Anyway, this is a fun mystery novel to introduce kids both to the joy of mystery novels as well as the joy of logic puzzles. As the kind of nerd who loves both, I approve, and so does my nerd kid.
Logic puzzle for the main mystery
Clue cards
Book takes kids through how to solve logic puzzles
Pleasing illustrations add charm
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