Have you ever been asked to review something and you knew from the description it would be perfect for your family?
That’s what happened with this book, so I’ll admit my review is slightly biased. You see, I’ve been searching ever since I named my son for a book with his name in it. My other two children have lots of books with their names in them, and they always happily exclaim when it happens. Well, my other son this has never happened before.
Until this book. So, when I found out the names I was super excited. Doyle and Fossey Science Detectives (incidentally, that’s not his name, those are the characters last names) fit that bill.
Now on to the book. We’ve been using it as our first chapter book read aloud. I shouldn’t say that. We’ve tried a couple of other books, but none of them have worked so far. This was quite popular, and I got requests to finish it faster than I’d planned, but I stuck to my guns.
The set-up is similar to Encyclopedia Brown, which if you read my 5 Books post over at Silly Eagle books, you’ll know I love. In this book there are 3 cases and it takes a couple of chapters per case to set it up, give you the clues, and then in the third chapter (generally speaking) you get the solution and what happened after.
At the back of the book for each case is an experiment listed with it. We’ve only done an experiment so far for the first case, and we did a different one than in the book, because I don’t use dry cleaning (that would require dressing up), and because their example made me think of a tea pot. So, we boiled water and listened to the pot whistling just like the ground was whistling in the first case.
So, all in all I like this series, and plan to get the other ones in it. Do you have any early reader series your kids really like? I keep meaning to try Magic Treehouse because I know those are really popular. Any other ones?
And here’s some cool news, the author is hosting a giveaway, and all you have to do is email them. I’m fairly use I entered it at one point before I was asked to do a review…….
Here’s the information if you’re interested:
Author Michele Torrey is hosting a giveaway of her fun Doyle and Fossey, Science Detective books! Four lucky winners will receive copies of the two newest books in the series, THE CASE OF THE TERRIBLE T.rex and THE CASE OF THE CROOKED CARNIVAL, plus a cool test tube kit!
To enter, send an e-mail to DoyleandFossey@gmail.com. In the body of the e-mail, include your name and e-mail address (if you’re under 13, submit a parent’s name and e-mail address). One entry per person and prizes will only be shipped to US or Canadian addresses. Entries must be received by midnight (PDT) on 11/18/10. Winners will be selected in a random drawing on 11/19/10 and notified via email. Check Michele’s website after Nov 22for the list of winners!
I’m linking this up to Homeschool Creations because I love the idea of this book as a first read aloud for pre-schoolers/kindergarteners, and I’d love to hear what you guys are using for chapter book read-alouds.
Disclaimer: I received a copy of this for review, I was not paid for it, but from the loud clamoring of the kids I will be buying other copies.
It's great that your kids took so well to this book. Anna also liked it but not nearly as much. Did you modify the text a bit at times? I had to do it for the second case that was talking about acids and bases.
Great idea with the teapot. We have an electric tea kettle, that doesn't whistle – so I guess I'll just have to drag the kids to Yellowstone.
I have thought about getting this book or one from the series after reading other reviews and then I always forget.
How cool that his name is in the book! My kids' names are never in books.
We like the Magic Treehouse books. Charlotte's Web was our first read aloud chapter book (both for T and C); I haven't read it to R yet. She doesn't have the patience for chapters yet. We (meaning C and I) are currently reading The Borrowers and I think we will read Stuart Little next.
I love Encyclopedia Brown books! This one sounds cool, too.
My kids' names are in books all the time, and when they aren't they expect me to change the names!
That sounds awesome! I used to love reading Encyclopedia Brown books when I was a kid, and I love that there is a real experiment for the kiddos to try. Very cool!
Sounds like a fun book!
Besides Magic Treehouse, my son Josiah loved the Animal Ark books by Baglio…also The Littles (and the following books in that series)…can't think who wrote those at the moment.
I LoVED Encyclopedia books as a kid so I would love to try out these series!
As for the math u see, which book did you get I purchased the alpha level but haven't used it yet. I love the blocks more than the text/video.