March Mystery Madness with Jim and the Warwick'sKids Dept.

All of us are searching for the book that will grab and keep our attention, something we just can’t put down. Mysteries often fill this need. The same is true for children and middle school readers. Who delight in finding a book that can put them in another world, living vicariously through the characters.

With this in mind, Warwick’s introduces its own March Madness with a sale of selected children’s young adults’ mystery books giving customers 20 percent off on their purchase. A kid sleuth starring in detective stories can be one of the best page-turners around.

For example, a staff favorite is Maureen Sherry’s Walls Within Walls in which the children in a New York apartment discover their new home is filled with hidden panels and a mysterious book, putting them on an adventure through the city. Solving this puzzle could lead to a great fortune.

Several publishers have series that will keep a youngster reading one book after another. Kids love series (always starting with the first one, of course) so that adventure can be relived in story after story.

For younger readers, the most popular chapter books include Geronimo Stilton, A to Z Mysteries (b for The Bald Bandit), and the Ballpark Mysteries (i.e. The Astro Outlaw) among many others. Those who enjoyed the Fancy Nancy children’s books will find her now with her own detective series, Nancy Clancy.

Middle readers can enjoy Blue Balliett’s detective series, including The Calder Game and Chasing Vermeer. Illustrations help carry the reader from chapter to chapter. A contemporary Hardy Boys series, Brixton Brothers, puts the kids in some exciting adventures. A modern Nancy Drew might be the Sleuth or Dare series, with Norah, Darcy and their business, Partners in Crime. Another favorite could be Agatha, Girl of Mystery, with her first adventure, The Curse of Pharaoh.

A step up from there would be Barrie Sumy’s I So Don’t Do Famous series. Prequels include I So Don’t Do Spooky and I So Don’t Do Makeup featuring a middle school girl who solves mysteries with the help of her mother, who happens to be a ghost. There’s also Gilda Joyce, Psychic Investigator, also assisted by the paranormal.

Not with spirits, but his own cunning, is Theodore Boone, Kid Lawyer written by John Grisham (The Last Juror, The Pelican Brief, etc.). Teddy’s parents are both private investigators, but their son’s talents are much needed to solve the firm’s challenges.

The whole family might enjoy an evening reading one or more of these mystery books, providing a valuable diversion from TV or movies.

Jim is a bookseller at Warwick's

Light My Fire

Given enough inward thought, most people can remember back to the days of youthful enthusiasm when reading on their own was a new thing to be enjoyed and savored like, well, a good book. To be able to (literally) curl up in a chair and (figuratively) disappear between the pages of a book, without worrying about the petty concerns of the adult world - most of us pine for such days. (In fact, some of us became booksellers with the hope that that was part of the job.) What was it about that first formative volume that really stuck in your craw, leaving a voracity for reading in it's wake? Why did it become a stepping stone to a life of reading rather than just another pile of glue and paper to be tossed aside for something else?

Janet, one of our prime booksellers, posed this question to her peers: What was that first book that really lit your fire and made you realize that escaping into the pages of a book was the greatest activity you could possibly do? Here are our answers:

Janet:  The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett
John:  The 21 Balloons by William Pene Du Bois
Emily:  Matilda by Roald Dahl
Susan:  The Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott O'Dell
Adriana:  The Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum
Jan:  Nancy Drew by Carolyn Keene
Adrian:  Heidi by Johanna Spyri
Seth:  The Book of Three, then The Black Cauldron by Lloyd Alexander
Vicki:  Little Women by Louisa Mae Alcott
Jim:  Mary Poppins by P.L. Travers
Barbara:  Half Magic by Edward Eager
Heather:  Little Women by Louisa Mae Alcott
Rhonda:  Little Pilgrim's Progess by Helen Taylor
James:  The Mouse & the Motorcycle by Beverly Cleary
Rob:  Charlotte's Web by E.B. White and/or James & the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl
Scott:  E.T. the Extraterrestrial (film novelization)
Steven:  cannot read

What about you, reader? What was that book that first got you interested in reading - enough so that it became a lifelong pursuit, if that is indeed what it has become?