The Great Cake Mystery

by Alexander McCall Smith

73 pages / 2012

Precious Ramotswe must ranks up there with some of the best-loved fictional detectives of all time, rubbing elbows with Hercules Poirot, Cadfael, and Father Brown. But as beloved as she is among adults, did you know that the star of Alexander McCall Smith's The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency is also popular among children? McCall Smith has written a series of mysteries for children, featuring Precious when she was just eight years old.

For those who don't already know, Precious lives in Botswana. In The Great Cake Mystery Precious doesn't think of herself as a detective yet, but her dad thinks she has it in her. So when a classmate is accused - without any proof – of eating someone else's sandwich, she is upset. Precious, you see, is a kind girl who wants to help others. In this case helping means setting a trap to catch the real snack stealer.

SPOILER ALERT: Precious bakes a cake full of glue, covers the whole thing with icing, and places the cake outside the classroom "on the shelf where the children left their bags." And not too long afterwards the whole class hears the howling cries of the little thieves - monkeys! Precious has saved her friend from the mean accusations of their classmates. And, this being a old-fashioned sort of book, those classmates are truly sorry for what they thought and said.

This is a charming book, made all the more so by the folksy illustrations throughout, at least one on every two-page spread. McCall has written four other children's mysteries starring the young Precious, with The Great Cake Mystery billed as "Precious Ramotswe's very first case." (In a confusing twist, that same billing is shared with at least one edition of another book in the series, Precious and the Monkeys. Whether The Great Cake Mystery is the first or not, it serves as wonderful introduction to the young detective-to-be.)

CAUTION

We've read two other "young Precious" mysteries so far, and our daughters have loved both The Mystery of Meerkat Hill and The Mystery of the Missing Lion. I had a slightly different take. While I loved the former, I thought the later was marred by a insertion at the end where they treat a lion as if he were a person. Precious ends up giving a brief lecture about how all lions should live free, including the missing tame lion they'd just recovered, and all the adults side with the child.

It is, on the one hand, no big deal - it is only a few pages in an otherwise enjoyable story. But it rankled me because this childish "feel-good-ism" is rampant in our culture, and I don't think we need to be feeding any of it to our undiscerning children. The fact is, a tame lion would most likely die in the wild and a well-treated tame lion is not an oppressed lion. So what Precious proposes is both completely unnecessary, and quite likely very harmful to the very lion she wants to help. We're taught that good intentions are what really matters, but God says otherwise (Prov. 27:14) – if our well-meaning efforts cause damage, then we need to stop doing this well-meant damage!

CONCLUSION

My wife and I didn't know about this brief lecture until we came across it in the audiobook with the kids listening along. It wasn't objectionable enough to stop listening to the book we were already three-quarters of the way through, but if I was buying this series for a Christian school library I would get The Great Cake Mystery and The Mystery of Meerkat Hill, but give The Mystery of the Missing Lion a pass. There are two others in the series but we have yet to read (or listen to) them.
       
I should note that the audiobook version are truly remarkable, with the reader delivering all sorts of wonderful accented voices.

Oh, and if your kids like this series, they might also enjoy a five-book series McCall Smith wrote about Akimbo, a boy who lives on a game reserve in Africa. I've reviewed those here.

All, in all, these are books that children even as young as 5 may really enjoy listening to, and 9 year-olds and up could really enjoy reading. Our whole family was thoroughly charmed.

Akimbo and the Lions

by Alexander McCall Smith

1992 / 66 pages

Alexander McCall Smith is best known as the author of the The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency but it turns out he's written a number of children's books as well. And they are good. Really good!

Akimbo is a boy who has access to all the coolest animals in Africa – his dad is chief ranger in charge of a wild game reserve, which means that from one book to the next Akimbo is having adventures with snakes and baboons and elephants and crocodiles, oh my!

In Akimbo and the Lions he accompanies his father to trap a lion harassing a small village. But things don't go as planned – instead they trap a cub and scare the momma away. That means someone needs to take care of this wee little lion, and Akimbo convinces his dad that he is just the boy for the job!

McCall does a wonderful job of balancing the tension in the book. There were moments where my 5 and 7-year-old were covering their mouths (and sometimes their eyes) but these moments didn't last too long.

This is just a good old fashioned adventure, perfect for their age group. It is short – a book that can be read in an hour – exciting, sometimes sweet, with gentle humor along the way too. And in this first story, there is absolutely nothing to object to – Akimbo doesn't talk back to his parents, or teacher. No sex, no language, no weird philosophies.

The only downside would be God's absence. In an adventure where God's creation has such a big role, it would be only natural to give God his credit for these wonderful creatures. But it seems that Akimbo and his parents are not Christians. And if I was going to add one other nitpick I'll also say this is not the sort of children's book that works equally well as an adult book (this is no Narnia, for example). The story is too simple and predictable for older folk. I only mention that because, since this is by a well known, and well-loved adult-fiction author, that might raise some expectations. But while these are very good kid's books, they are kid's books.

There are five in all, in this order:

1. Akimbo and the Lions
2. Akimbo and the Crocodile Man
3. Akimbo and the Elephants
4. Akimbo and the Snakes
5. Akimbo and the Baboons

The others

In addition to Akimbo and the Lions we've now read the other four in the series.

Akimbo and the Crocodile Man was a bit scarier as there is an actual crocodile attack. It all turns out fine in the end, but that extra bit of tension means I was glad we did read things in order, starting with Lions before Crocodile Man – that order meant even in Crocodile Man's scariest bit, my girls understood that this sort of book was going to have a happy ending.

Akimbo and the Elephants had Akimbo going behind his dad's back to stop ivory (which comes from elephant tusks) poachers. He has good intentions, but lies a number of times, and even steals some ivory to serve as bait for the poachers. We had to explain to the girls that Akimbo was doing something downright dumb here - that he should be talking his plan over with his dad. So while we enjoyed reading it together, I would have some reservations about my children reading this by themselves.

In Akimbo and the Snakes we come along as Akimbo visits his Uncle Pete's snake farm for a month and learns what it means to "milk" snakes. My nine-year-old enjoyed learning more about snakes but said this was definitely a day time and not bedtime book. The only objectionable bit would be in the notes after the story where it briefly mentions that snakes are thought to have evolved from lizards.

In Akimbo and the Baboons a "baboon lady" comes for a visit. This is a visiting scientist who has come to study that baboons, and Akimbo and his cousin Kosi get jobs as her assistants. The author believes in evolution, and while that only comes out clearly in a section in the back – "Brilliant baboon facts" where McCall notes baboons are not in the same genetic family as human beings – the scientist, Jen, notes a few times in the story, how the baboons are "a lot like us" or "just like us." True, in some ways, but when we read between the lines here, we can see this is about being similar in an evolutionary sense. I'm making much of this and will note my nine and under kids didn't even notice the evolutinoary angle.

So if I was getting these for a school library, I would get the first two – two very enthusiastic thumbs up! – but maybe give the third a miss, and the fourth and fifth with a note about evolution in the front.

What's the ideal age range? I'd think kids in Grades One to Three are sure to enjoy them.

Akimbo and the Lions is available at Amazon.com and Amazon.ca.