The Case of the Messy Message and the Missing Facts, Cayuga Island Kids

by Judy Bradbury

illustrations by Gabriella Vagnoli

City of Light Publishing, 2022

Thanks to Kathy Temean and her Writing and Illustrating blog, I received a copy of this fun chapter book mystery! Thank you, Kathy, Judy Bradbury, and City of Lights Publishing!

I thoroughly enjoyed this chapter book. In part, I liked learning about a new area to me. Just check out this map at the front of the book! The writing was clean and understandable, characters engaging, the mystery lots of fun, illustrations just right, and current topics were spot on.

Why I Liked This Book:

~believable characters

~great premise

~mystery

~key words: misinformation, research, fact detectives, disinformation

~kindness rocks and Little Libraries

~fun setting, normal school adventures for elementary students (homework, projects)

~just right illustrations and back matter

This book is definitely a keeper.

Amazon Blurb:

It’s Fall now and the Cayuga Island Kids are busy with homework, projects, and after school activities. But there’s still plenty of time for mystery and adventure! In the third book in the Cayuga Island Kids chapter book series, Julian is exploring food science as he experiments with recipes on his quest for the perfect chocolate chip cookie. Being a cookie sampler takes Mac’s mind off his troubles with fractions. Yoko is practicing gestures and facial expressions in anticipation of the school play tryouts. Maya is Ms. Choi’s helper in the after-school Make-and-Take-Club for younger crafters. Lacey is taking care of the little community library that Gram built—and searching for the next mystery to solve. When two of Ms. Choi’s glitter pens go missing, Maya turns to Lacey for help. The clues and evidence point to a suspect, but are they jumping to conclusions? When a classmate jumps to conclusions and shares false information about Julian’s cookies, the Cayuga Island Kids join forces to set the facts straight. When the kids research explorers for a school project, they uncover misinformation that blurs the truth, and makes the reasons for being a fact detective crystal clear. As the fall leaves turn color, the Cayuga Island Kids come to realize that sorting through clues and evidence—just like research—means making sure information is factual, and not just a fraction of the truth. Young readers will cheer for the Cayuga Island Kids as they embark on this latest adventure involving faulty assumptions, missing facts, flour bugs, and chocolate chip cookies.