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Smiffy Blue: Ace Crime Detective : the Case of the Missing Ruby and Other Stories
A Newbery Honor author offers middle readers a collection of four lively mysteries starring Smiffy Blue, an African-American detective with a style all his own. Reprint.
80 pages, Paperback
First published April 1, 1996
About the author
Walter Dean Myers
216 books1,212 followerspseudonyms:
Stacie Williams
Stacie Johnson
Walter Dean Myers was born on August 12, 1937 in Martinsburg, West Virginia but moved to Harlem with his foster parents at age three. He was brought up and went to public school there. He attended Stuyvesant High School until the age of seventeen when he joined the army.
After serving four years in the army, he worked at various jobs and earned a BA from Empire State College. He wrote full time after 1977.
Walter wrote from childhood, first finding success in 1969 when he won the Council on Interracial Books for Children contest, which resulted in the publication of his first book for children, Where Does the Day Go?, by Parent's Magazine Press. He published over seventy books for children and young adults. He received many awards for his work in this field including the Coretta Scott King Award, five times. Two of his books were awarded Newbery Honors. He was awarded the Margaret A. Edwards Award and the Virginia Hamilton Award. For one of his books, Monster, he received the first Michael Printz Award for Young Adult literature awarded by the American Library Association. Monster and Autobiography of My Dead Brother were selected as National Book Award Finalists.
In addition to the publication of his books, Walter contributed to educational and literary publications. He visited schools to speak to children, teachers, librarians, and parents. For three years he led a writing workshop for children in a school in Jersey City, New Jersey.
Walter Dean Myers was married, had three grown children and lived in Jersey City, New Jersey. He died on July 1, 2014, following a brief illness. He was 76 years old.
Stacie Williams
Stacie Johnson
Walter Dean Myers was born on August 12, 1937 in Martinsburg, West Virginia but moved to Harlem with his foster parents at age three. He was brought up and went to public school there. He attended Stuyvesant High School until the age of seventeen when he joined the army.
After serving four years in the army, he worked at various jobs and earned a BA from Empire State College. He wrote full time after 1977.
Walter wrote from childhood, first finding success in 1969 when he won the Council on Interracial Books for Children contest, which resulted in the publication of his first book for children, Where Does the Day Go?, by Parent's Magazine Press. He published over seventy books for children and young adults. He received many awards for his work in this field including the Coretta Scott King Award, five times. Two of his books were awarded Newbery Honors. He was awarded the Margaret A. Edwards Award and the Virginia Hamilton Award. For one of his books, Monster, he received the first Michael Printz Award for Young Adult literature awarded by the American Library Association. Monster and Autobiography of My Dead Brother were selected as National Book Award Finalists.
In addition to the publication of his books, Walter contributed to educational and literary publications. He visited schools to speak to children, teachers, librarians, and parents. For three years he led a writing workshop for children in a school in Jersey City, New Jersey.
Walter Dean Myers was married, had three grown children and lived in Jersey City, New Jersey. He died on July 1, 2014, following a brief illness. He was 76 years old.
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
September 3, 2013
I love this book so much! I used to read it all the time when I was a kid. I loved Smiffy Blue, to the younger version of me he was intriguing and extremely funny, and so were the side characters. The adult version of me also thinks the same.
This is something I can read again and enjoy it nearly as much as I did when I first read it years ago.
This is something I can read again and enjoy it nearly as much as I did when I first read it years ago.
August 25, 2013
Walter Dean Myers is perhaps better known to older readers for his poetry and works of young adult fiction. Some young readers will remember that Walter Dean Myers is the poet who inspired the young boy in Sharon Creech's phenomenal Love That Dog.
Smiffy Blue is a goofy mixture of Sam Spade, Batman and Sherlock Holmes. Along with his assistant Jeremy Joe and his trusty dog, Dog, Smiffy is often called in by Inspector Hector of Doober City for solve their current crisis. In this volume of four stories Smiffy investigates the thefts of: a secret formula, a racehorse, the Mayor's yacht and a valuable ruby.
His cases lead Smiffy all over the city following obscure clues. He and Jeremy Joe must question suspects and witnesses alike: Dr. Seymour Orless who owns the glasses store; Penny Stampp at the Post Office; Cheri Pye at the bakery; and Chubby Checkin, the hotel clerk. These silly puns will have young readers giggling even as they groan (likewise for any adults!)
Smiffy has an effective tagline for beginning readers each time he discovers a clue:
This is repeated throughout each story in a formula which emphasizes each crazy clue Smiffy discovers. Smiffy always catches the criminal. The solutions to the mysterious crimes at the hands of Smiffy's deductive skills are equally ridiculous and will have young readers snorting with laughter.
Smiffy Blue, Ace Detective is a joyous, silly romp of a book. Readers ages 6-9 will LOVE these stories as a read-aloud or an independent reading choice!
**I also highly recommend Myers' picture book Looking Like Me and his older juvenile series The Cruisers.
Smiffy Blue is a goofy mixture of Sam Spade, Batman and Sherlock Holmes. Along with his assistant Jeremy Joe and his trusty dog, Dog, Smiffy is often called in by Inspector Hector of Doober City for solve their current crisis. In this volume of four stories Smiffy investigates the thefts of: a secret formula, a racehorse, the Mayor's yacht and a valuable ruby.
His cases lead Smiffy all over the city following obscure clues. He and Jeremy Joe must question suspects and witnesses alike: Dr. Seymour Orless who owns the glasses store; Penny Stampp at the Post Office; Cheri Pye at the bakery; and Chubby Checkin, the hotel clerk. These silly puns will have young readers giggling even as they groan (likewise for any adults!)
Smiffy has an effective tagline for beginning readers each time he discovers a clue:
Smiffy Blue smiled. It was a shy smile. It was a sly smile. It was the kind of a smile that Smiffy Blue smiled when he had found a clue.
This is repeated throughout each story in a formula which emphasizes each crazy clue Smiffy discovers. Smiffy always catches the criminal. The solutions to the mysterious crimes at the hands of Smiffy's deductive skills are equally ridiculous and will have young readers snorting with laughter.
Smiffy Blue, Ace Detective is a joyous, silly romp of a book. Readers ages 6-9 will LOVE these stories as a read-aloud or an independent reading choice!
**I also highly recommend Myers' picture book Looking Like Me and his older juvenile series The Cruisers.
January 12, 2012
Love the other novel I've read by this author. Raymend just completed a science research project on corundum (um, with maybe too much help from me because it was so interesting that I took over). Since it makes rubies and sapphires, I was excited to be a home-schooling mom with literary thematic connections.
The deductions of the detective are hilariously illogical. The style of the writing is rhythmical like jazz. I like the dog character named, uh, Dog. :) The book is separated into four different cases so they are easy on the attention span. I especially appreciate a book that is urban and yet, relevant to my country kids.
The deductions of the detective are hilariously illogical. The style of the writing is rhythmical like jazz. I like the dog character named, uh, Dog. :) The book is separated into four different cases so they are easy on the attention span. I especially appreciate a book that is urban and yet, relevant to my country kids.
May 25, 2023
I used this for interventions with my kids. The rhyming names and alliteration were good for reading aloud. The cases were silly, but fun. Enjoyed by all.
NOTE: It doesn't take months to read this book, we read a chapter at a time once a month.
NOTE: It doesn't take months to read this book, we read a chapter at a time once a month.
October 22, 2020
love it
August 31, 2023
Silly, but not exactly interesting. I read this to see if my kids would like it since they enjoy The Hardy Boys, but I doubt they would. It's pretty repetitive.
May 16, 2024
I read this aloud to a class of 3rd graders and they loved it. Smiffy Blue is quite the detective! The illustrations are great.
June 11, 2017
I loved this book when I was a kid. I was mystery-crazy and think I must have gotten this expecting it to be a real mystery, and because I recognized Myers' name as the author of a couple of the My Name Is America books. The stories aren't real detective stories at all - the mysteries are merely vehicles for the absurdist humor - but it's so wonderfully off-the-wall that I loved it just as much anyway. The best bit in each story is the opening scene, in which Smiffy Blue has an explanation (totally incorrect and against science, of course) for a question from Jeremy Joe. For example: "What makes a person left- or right-handed?" "A pencil. If you hold it in your right hand, you will be right-handed." As each story goes on, Smiffy Blue's conclusions from the "clues" become increasingly ridiculous - I actually wonder if it was deliberate parody of the tendency of detectives in children's mysteries to jump to conclusions, and of course always be proven right.
I only knocked a star off because of the tiresome repetition of the "It was a shy smile" quote every single time Smiffy Blue finds a "clue." A simple one- or two-sentence hook, like the closing line of each story ("'True, true, Smiffy Blue,' said Jeremy Joe. 'True, true.'"), would have been effective, but since it's an entire paragraph appearing multiple times in each story it gets old very fast.
I'd compare it to Bruce Hale's Chet Gecko Mysteries, which were very popular when I was in grade school, but with even less actual detective work (and without the film noir shtick). It should be good for any children (maybe first to second grade? It's even shorter than, say, the A-Z Mysteries or Cam Jansen series) who are looking for a funny book and understand the structure of mysteries enough to recognize it.
I only knocked a star off because of the tiresome repetition of the "It was a shy smile" quote every single time Smiffy Blue finds a "clue." A simple one- or two-sentence hook, like the closing line of each story ("'True, true, Smiffy Blue,' said Jeremy Joe. 'True, true.'"), would have been effective, but since it's an entire paragraph appearing multiple times in each story it gets old very fast.
I'd compare it to Bruce Hale's Chet Gecko Mysteries, which were very popular when I was in grade school, but with even less actual detective work (and without the film noir shtick). It should be good for any children (maybe first to second grade? It's even shorter than, say, the A-Z Mysteries or Cam Jansen series) who are looking for a funny book and understand the structure of mysteries enough to recognize it.
February 18, 2015
This is a silly collection of short mysteries solved by an Ace Crime Detective named Smiffy Blue. The stories are humorous and, of course, Smiffy Blue always solves them in the end, but his process of getting to the solution is quite bizarre. We enjoyed the stories, and the illustrations (that give away the solutions) are very funny.
We discovered this book when searching for books by Walter Dean Myers at our local library. He was mentioned very prominently in Love That Dog by Sharon Creech, and we wanted to read some of his books. This was a very unusual book, but entertaining nonetheless (in a slapstick kind of way).
The stories reminded us somewhat of the Nate the Great books, although I think Nate's tales are a bit more straightforward.
We discovered this book when searching for books by Walter Dean Myers at our local library. He was mentioned very prominently in Love That Dog by Sharon Creech, and we wanted to read some of his books. This was a very unusual book, but entertaining nonetheless (in a slapstick kind of way).
The stories reminded us somewhat of the Nate the Great books, although I think Nate's tales are a bit more straightforward.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews