What do you think?
Rate this book
The Homeschool Detectives #1
The Mystery of the Homeless Treasure
Follow the fast-paced adventure of Billy, Rebecca, Josh, Emily and the rest, as the Home School Detectives overcome false leads and follow clues to the exciting conclusion in one of John Bibee's adventures for young readers.
Paperback
First published July 1, 1994
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
August 4, 2020
I read this series as a kid but don't remember much about the stories, if anything. I think I liked them. We still have the first six books hanging around, so we started them by the kids' request as read-alouds.
They enjoyed this one. I was rather unimpressed; the writing is less than stellar. It grew tedious for me to read aloud and, for my own sanity, I had to keep changing stuff on the fly (for instance: every dialogue sentence began with the quoted material and ended with, "Josh said." or "Emily said." Never even switching it up as basically as "said Josh" or inserting these BEFORE the dialogue. Occasionally there were other words used in place of plain old "said," such as "asked," or "giggled," but rarely. Also there was too much of repeating names where it would have been smoother to use pronouns).
The content was clean, if a little preachy, and it was advocating homeschooling as a reasonable educational choice, so that's refreshing. It did get rather wordy, though, and I found the detailed descriptions of how they ran their homeschool day quite boring. I haven't asked the kids what they thought. I just found it odd and misplaced and technical when the audience is wanting to get to the mystery already. We are second-generation homeschoolers, and this was written when homeschooling wasn't as common or acknowledged, so maybe our familiarity rendered the explanations dry and tedious. 🤷
Otherwise, the mystery was good and twisty, and not too predictable. There were some creepy guys, a kidnapping, a fire, a ski mask, a buried treasure, a gun...it was a pretty good mystery. It kept us guessing. We thought we had it figured out several times, but it surprised us in the end.
They enjoyed this one. I was rather unimpressed; the writing is less than stellar. It grew tedious for me to read aloud and, for my own sanity, I had to keep changing stuff on the fly (for instance: every dialogue sentence began with the quoted material and ended with, "Josh said." or "Emily said." Never even switching it up as basically as "said Josh" or inserting these BEFORE the dialogue. Occasionally there were other words used in place of plain old "said," such as "asked," or "giggled," but rarely. Also there was too much of repeating names where it would have been smoother to use pronouns).
The content was clean, if a little preachy, and it was advocating homeschooling as a reasonable educational choice, so that's refreshing. It did get rather wordy, though, and I found the detailed descriptions of how they ran their homeschool day quite boring. I haven't asked the kids what they thought. I just found it odd and misplaced and technical when the audience is wanting to get to the mystery already. We are second-generation homeschoolers, and this was written when homeschooling wasn't as common or acknowledged, so maybe our familiarity rendered the explanations dry and tedious. 🤷
Otherwise, the mystery was good and twisty, and not too predictable. There were some creepy guys, a kidnapping, a fire, a ski mask, a buried treasure, a gun...it was a pretty good mystery. It kept us guessing. We thought we had it figured out several times, but it surprised us in the end.
June 4, 2017
My kids really enjoyed this.
My kids really enjoyed this. I was a little uncomfortable with the Evangelical side of things (I found it a bit preachy), but there was nothing wrong with it. Overall, a good mystery for kids.
My kids really enjoyed this. I was a little uncomfortable with the Evangelical side of things (I found it a bit preachy), but there was nothing wrong with it. Overall, a good mystery for kids.
Read
April 23, 2012Mystery series: Home School Detectives. Nancy Drew/Hardy Boys feel. Older context for today's modern reader; strong emphasis on homeschooling and Christian message but respectable on the whole.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews