So, tell me how this sounds…
There is a mystery in Pleasantville! Jason Morgan, the milkman, has disappeared and left all the milk on the side of the road. Why would Jason leave in such a hurry? Ten-year-olds Matthew Baker and Crystal Hill are on the case, but more people are going missing, and Matthew and Crystal both have their own strange secrets. Can they work together to find Jason and the others in time, or are their friends gone for good?
That’s right, I’m polishing up a short children’s mystery my grandmother and I wrote when I was ten. (More accurately, Gran wrote it, and I contributed several of the characters and some of the plot’s bones. To be perfectly honest, it may or may not be based on a play-pretend game I forced her into as a very small child. I was Crystal. Gran was Crystal’s bluestocking Aunt Amanda. The chair in the corner was Matthew.)
The book is called The Milk Wagon Mystery, and I hope it will end up being Volume 1 of a Pleasantville Detectives series. I’m meaning to have it out quite soon, since it was written years ago and all I really had to do was retype it.
Anyway, I’d like some feedback on the blurb above. Does it sound children’s-mystery-ish?
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It's good, but (in my opinion) the "gone for good" line is a bit harsh for a light children's tale. Ending it right after "in time" would still work and be less ominous.
Thanks, Daryn. I'll consider that. It is a considerably 'squishier' story than my usual fare, and I'm not really in the swing of writing whimsy. Cutting back on the harshness would be good.
I would second Daryn's comment, but I guess the first question is what age group are you targeting? My "four-and-a-half" year-old son is still afraid of "Diesel 10" in the Thomas series, to the point that he segregates the toy when he plays with the trains (he recieved the toy before seeing the movie). If you are targeting the 10-13 age group, then I don't think it would be as much of an issue. I've recently purchased a few of the Gertrude Chandler Warner children's mysteries. I'm not sure if they're still "in" with the current 5-10 year-old set today, but they are well written and I haven't found anything in them objectionable. While my son is still too young for them, my sister's seven year-old enjoys them.
It's a 6 on Flesch-Kincaid, so I wouldn't recommend it for a reader younger than perhaps a precocious seven-year-old (though it would probably be appropriate for supported reading with a child as young as five, if there was a lot of discussion going on), and the story is a bit on the silly side to interest anyone older than ten or eleven. I was a huge Boxcar Children fanatic when I was younger. I had loads of the books, and I'm sad to realize that I'm not sure where they went!
