I love a good mystery. Always have.
Growing up I remember reading the Encyclopedia Brown series and (you guessed it) I’ve passed them along to my own boys. In each Encyclopedia book, readers will find a handful of short mysteries starring the smart, teenage detective. All the clues are in the story with the answers revealed in the back pages of the book - so folks can make their own guess before the solution is unveiled.
Other ideas for mystery lovers…
Other ideas for mystery lovers…
HBO had a TV series based on these books in the late 80’s. Those shows can now be found on VHS tape at the local library and are fun to watch after completing the book series. These videos are hokey, cheesy, and all around painful to watch if you are a lover of quality acting. My boys failed to notice my groans however, and instead paid close attention to the clues hidden within each mystery. Bug Meany’s gang does resort to name calling (and Sally lands a few well-aimed punches in defense of her friend), so I wouldn’t call these videos squeaky clean, but as a follow-up activity to reading the books I’d give the videos a B- for entertainment purposes.
This 30 Second Mysteries board game is for children ages 8 and up. Each game card features one case, a question to be answered and four clues that will lead players to the answer. Two readers can play or two teams of readers can compete.
For older readers (high school +), Ken Weber has a series of Five Minute Mysteries that follow much of the same format of short-story with final question and answers in the back of the book. Fun for road trips, campfire chats, and short reads that make you use your noggin to discover “Whodunit?”
And for online reading: Mystery.net provides short online stories for children, teen and adults. Read the mystery, click on the answer you believe to be true and then read the revealed answer (as well as the stats for how many other people got it right).