New AG Minute Mysteries

[Katie from IL]

I was at Borders today and they had the new mysteries and the Minute Mysteries. I have the 3 new mysteries on order from amazon so I didn't buy them(even though I'm dying to read them) but I did get the Minute Mysteries book.

They take past AG character stories and make up new ones based on the older ones. The illustrations are of course recycled as they have been for many other AG related products. Then at the end there is some kind of puzzle or mystery to solve. A couple of them I thought were easy but many of them were quite challenging, and the answers were nothing I ever thought of. Some of them require you do map out a chart(like the Sam's Ice Skating story and Molly's Knitting story). They have charts you can fill in the book but I did them on seperate paper so I wouldn't mark up the book.

You can get through the book fairly quickly but I like how they put new spins on stories we all know and have read.

<font color="#051E50" size="1">[ February 21, 2006 10:17 PM: Message edited by: Katie from IL ]</font>

[Jeanette M.]

Thanks for the review, Katie! [img]graemlins/rose.gif[/img] I was wondering about those....

[trvnbrn]

Sounds really fun! My dd just read Kit's Danger at the Zoo & loved it. She started Kaya's Silent Stranger today. I think she would really like the minute mysteries. She's recently become more interested in that genre. Thanks for the review and let us know what you think of the new mysteries once you read them. [img]biggrin.gif[/img] DD is really interested in the Felicity one.

Bren [img]graemlins/rose.gif[/img]

P.S. I read Kit's Danger at the Zoo and was very impressed. The only thing dd & I thought was "off" was mother's character. We couldn't put our finger on it, but she seemed different. Kit was older & more mature. The writer (her name???...sorry, it was a library book) did an excellent job when you stop & realize that she did not write the Kit set of books. She really kept the characters quality's & traits true to the first 6 books. It was good seeing Will again too.

[JAdder]

I was at AGP recently and bought Samantha's new Mystery The Stolen Sapphire I plan on buying the others later. I saw the minute mysteries read the Kaya one I really liked it. I didn't see any for Kirsten though but maybe I just missed it I only took a small glance. I though they were really speeking to more then very young girls which I enjoy. I kinda wished they made the puzzles like they did last year. I think I just enjoyed them more since they lasted longer and you can do them more with the child and after you solve the mystery the puzzles are still fun to do while the minute mysteries while fun to do don't have the staying power of the puzzles. Although I do plan on taking a closer look and maybe buy it after all since AG really got me back to enjoying mysteries again which I think is cool they are comming back.

[cami713]

Thanks for the review. I might not pick this one up, I was expecting a bit more, I guess.

I'm glad, however, to hear that the 3 Historical Mysteries ARE in stores. I was going to go get them today, but all the online bookstores (b&n, borders, and amazon) still list the books as on preorder (but that today WAS the day they were supposed to come out. So, I decided not to even bother going to look.

I will definitely go tomorrow. Thanks, again, for mentioning it. Was the Minute Mysteries book located with the other AG historical books?

[annkirstin]

Originally posted by Katie from IL:
They take past AG character stories and make up new ones based on the older ones.

I like how they put new spins on stories we all know and have read.

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Can you explain this a little more? Do they change the stories from other books? Can you give an example? I'm not quite sure what you mean. Thanks!

[cami713]

I bought the book today. Am still not very impressed. The book's cute, but is very, very thin, about 1/3 the size of the Historical Mysteries books. There are no new illustrations, and most of what's inside is based on other concepts/ideas used in the actual AG books. I don't think most people would find it worth $6, and I now wish I hadn't bought it.

Can you explain this a little more? Do they change the stories from other books? Can you give an example? I'm not quite sure what you mean. Thanks!

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">I believe what Katie meant is that they take a passage, or idea from one of the girls' stories and mix it up a bit to give you something to solve.

For example, one of the One Minute Mysteries is about Addy and her brother Sam. There's a little page-ish long "story" that has the two of them reciting a number of riddles to each other, and they don't give you the answers to the riddles, you're supposed to come up with them yourself. Of course, all the answers are in the back of the book.

[annkirstin]

Thanks, Cami! Anyone else have any thoughts? So far I'm leaning towards not getting it, at least not right now.

[Skittl1321]

Correct me if I am wrong, the minute mysteries are for the reader to solve?

That was the one thing I didn't like about the historical mysteries- they really don't lay out clues for you to solve them before the character- you just read along as the character solves them.

[Katie from IL]

They take parts of stories we've already read and rewrites them slightly so you have to answer a question or solve a mystery.

i.e. Molly Saves the Day-they take the part where Dorinda is explaining her plan for the blue team to capture the flag, the same plan that is explained in the original story, but adds some different dialogue and some different text, leaving other text the same(like Dorinda's comment to Molly about swimming underwater). When all the girls head out in the canoes, Dorinda brags that she deserves to be the captain and talks about spending hours outside all summer practicing in the canoes. While Dorinda is talking Molly notices how tall, skinny and pale she is. Then Molly tells Susan while they're in their canoe that Dorinda is a liar and Susan asks why? They then leave you to answer that question. I won't answer it although this one is pretty obvious.

There are some others where the answer isn't so obvoius and I would have never guessed if I didn't look at the answer in the back. As I mentioned there are a couple where you have to draw out a chart(or fill in the one in the book) so those are a little more complex, like trying to figure out who knitted which square in the blanket Molly's class sends to her father.

<font color="#051E50" size="1">[ February 24, 2006 11:36 AM: Message edited by: Katie from IL ]</font>