Davey the Detective by Emlyn Chand {Review & Book Tour}
Davey the Detective
by Emlyn Chand
Review:
Birds, birds, birds! We have been reading so much about Emlyn Chand’s birds lately that we are turning into Bird Brains ourselves! We are having so much fun with these great stories and they are all in ebook form so we can look at them on my laptop or even my Android if we are waiting in the car for Daddy. First, we read about my boy’s favorite bird, the penguin with Courtney Saves Christmas, then we read about a peppy peacock named Poppy in Poppy the Proud. Most recently, we introduced you to a funny superhero parakeet with Honey the Hero, and now we are catching Daddy’s attention with a Sherlock Holmes loving crow named Davey!
Davey is a curious crow (are crows naturally curious?) and he likes to explore and find new human things in his world. He is super stoked when he finds this silver twisted thing (a paperclip to us humans) and he claims it to be his instantly. He takes his new treasure home and overnight, it is gone. This young crow has an active imagination (sounds like another boy I know) and he decides to become like his favorite character in books, Sherlock Holmes, and solve this mystery. (This is where we grabbed Hubby’s attention because he grew up watching Sherlock Holmes and loves it!) Davey enlists his sparrow friend, a talkative girl named Sarah, and they head out to find the paperclip thief. Well, you probably know where the paperclip actually is, but I won’t spoil the end. Let’s just say that Davey, with Sarah’s help, calls a couple of animals thieves and neither of them stole anything.
I’ll tell you that this story hits home with my boy right now because he is learning about keeping up with his own toys and not blaming his mommy and daddy when he loses something. We have two dogs who, despite having dog toys, love to chew on our boy’s toys that are left laying around. We have had to rescue my boy’s best friend more than once from a disaster with a dog. Everytime a toy is missing or found chewed up, we are reinforcing him putting his toys away and keeping them out of reach from the dogs. On the other hand, when something is missing, he can be sure that mommy and daddy didn’t take it. Instead of jumping to conclusions, he can learn to be a real detective and really take in ALL the facts, and maybe he will find what he is looking for.
I think this story would be wonderful for a family with multiple children or to read in a classroom of preschoolers where the children are sharing a space with other children and accusations can fly around fast. This is a great lesson in paying attention to clues, but also knowing that “suspicions” don’t always lead to the absolute truth.
Davey dubs himself the luckiest crow in the entire world when he finds a wonderful, shiny object. It even has a fantastic name: “paperclip.” Wow!
One dark and dreary day, Davey’s treasure goes missing, and he is beside himself with grief. Luckily, he knows just how he can find out which of the forest animals is to blame for the theft. Inspired by the torn pages of a Sherlock Holmes story that were used to fashion his nest, Davey calls on the help of Sarah the sparrow to investigate the mystery and, hopefully, retrieve his prize.
Together the two birds begin to collect clues. Their trail leads them straight to Mr. Bushtail, a greedy squirrel who keeps a giant store of objects in a hollowed-out tree trunk. When Mr. Bushtail refuses to cooperate, the two birds have no choice but to break into his tree house in search of the truth.
Justice will prevail and treasure will be found in this intriguing tale of mystery.
Emlyn Chand emerged from the womb with a fountain pen clutched in her left hand (true story). When she’s not writing, she runs a large book club in Ann Arbor and is the president of author PR firm Novel Publicity. Best known for her Young Adult novels, she is also developing a small, but devoted, following to her children’s book series and is beginning to dapple in other genres as well. Emlyn enjoys connecting with readers and is available via almost every social media site in existence. Visit EmlynChand.com for more info.
More from Emlyn Chand
Available on Evolved Publishing:
The Bird Brain Books:
Honey the Hero ♦ Davey the Detective ♦ Poppy the Proud ♦ Tommy goes Trick-or-Treating ♦ Vicky Finds a Valentine
Torn Together
The Farsighted Series
Farsighted ♦ Open Heart ♦ Pitch (coming March 19, 2013) ♦ Vertigo (coming May 21, 2013) ♦ Refrain (coming December 2, 2013)
{Emlyn Chand – Children’s books on Amazon}
I love this review and how Davey’s lesson was able to help you teach an important one to your son. So glad Davey got Daddy’s attention, too <3
Em
Emlyn Chand recently posted..Sun Conure says, “I love my new daddy, even though I bite him!”
Thanks Emlyn! I can’t wait to share the Valentine book with my boy later today.