Cayuga Island Kids – Book 3
The Case of the Messy Message and the Missing Facts
The Cayuga Island Kids chapter book series written by Judy Bradbury and illustrated by Gabriella Vagnoli highlights the adventures of five contemporary kids who live on a residential island near Niagara Falls.
In Book 3, The Case of the Messy Message and the Missing Facts, the kids are busy with homework, projects, and after-school activities, but there’s still plenty of time for mystery and adventure!
Julian explores food science as he experiments with recipes for the perfect chocolate chip cookie. Being a cookie sampler takes Mac’s mind off his troubles with fractions. Yoko practices for the school play tryouts, and Maya helps Ms. Choi with the Make-and-Take-Club. Lacey, of course, is searching for the next mystery to solve.
And then two of Ms. Choi’s glitter pens go missing. The clues and evidence point to a suspect, but are the Cayuga Island Kids jumping to conclusions? When a classmate jumps to conclusions and shares false information about Julian’s cookies, the kids join forces to set the facts straight. And while researching explorers for a school project, the kids uncover misinformation that blurs the truth, and makes the reasons for being a fact detective crystal clear.
Sorting through clues and evidence—just like research—means making sure you have all the facts, 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 misinformation, faulty assumptions, flour bugs, and chocolate chip cookies.
Join the Cayuga Island Kids on this latest adventure!
From the back cover:
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!
The five friends set off on a quest for the perfect chocolate chip cookie, the truth about explorers, and the culprit in the Make-and-Take-Club mystery. From flour bugs and glitter pens to wonky websites and kindness rocks, these fact detectives search for all the information instead of settling for a fraction of the truth, stand up for each other, and sample a few cookies along the way.
A messy mystery, a lot of laughs, and a real cookie recipe!
View the book trailer!
Excerpt from the book:
At the park, Pesky was being pesky, so Lacey placed a treat for him on the ground.
While Pesky focused on the biscuit, Lacey turned her attention back to Maya.
“…So while Ms. Choi explained to the little kids how to make a greeting card, I passed out the supplies. I collected them at the end of the meeting. Ms. Choi and I were putting everything away when we noticed two glitter pens were missing.”
“Missing?” Lacey leaned forward. This sounded mysterious. “Did you check under the tables?” she asked. “How about the trash can? Could someone have thrown them out because they were used up?”
Maya picked up a maple leaf that had fallen to the ground. “We checked the floor, the trash can, and even the chairs.” She followed the outline of the maple leaf with her finger. “We didn’t find them.” Maya sighed. “We looked everywhere. Ms. Choi even checked her apron pockets!”
Lacey pulled her notebook from her pocket. At the top of the page in red ink, she wrote
Make-and-Take Club Mystery
She looked up at Maya. “Begin at the beginning. Tell me everything.”
Praise for The Case of the Messy Message and the Missing Facts and The Cayuga Island Kids series
“The Cayuga Island Kids deliver again! I love the newest title in this smart series for its cozy mystery, convivial characters, and warm sense of community. Bonus: It is chock full of fun facts (and even a recipe!) woven into a story centered on the importance of gathering all the facts before drawing conclusions, an insight young readers will naturally tuck into their own life kits. Outstanding!”
“To solve a mystery surrounding missing gel pens, young readers engage with the concepts of misinformation, disinformation and jumping to conclusions. This is a delightful read for 7-10 year-olds, with age-appropriate word choice and just the right amount of description. The Cayuga Island Kids—and readers—learn that once information is out, it’s very difficult, if not impossible, to rein in. I recommend The Case of the Messy Message and the Missing Facts to young mystery enthusiasts who will learn about news literacy through the cast of diverse, well-developed characters.”
“Once again, Judy Bradbury takes readers on a multifaceted adventure in The Case of the Messy Message and the Missing Facts… research, fact-finding, thinking, problem-solving, fractions, community service, random acts of kindness, local history/geography, and using multiple modes of gathering information are all contained within one fantastic mystery! I love how Bradbury infused social-emotional elements … All of these threads are interspersed with extremely important digital and media literacy. Checking facts across sources, being skeptical of what one reads, and vetting sources are imperative skills for young learners today. ..Finally, Gabriella Vagnoli’s illustrations help the reader conceptualize the characters, setting, and plot, and make the story come to life! If I were in any elementary or intermediate classroom, I would run to this series for great read-aloud experiences.“