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Jigsaw Jones Mystery #Super Special #1
The Case of the Buried Treasure
A new series of Jigsaw Jones mysteries kicks-off as Jigsaw and his class search for buried treasure. This first edition includes pages of puzzling codes and activities that readers can use to piece together clues. Illustrations.
112 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2002
17 people are currently reading
87 people want to read
About the author
James Preller
201 books142 followersJames Preller (born 1961) is the children's book author of the Jigsaw Jones Mysteries, which are published by Scholastic Corporation. He grew up in Wantagh, New York and went to college in Oneonta, New York. After graduating from college in 1983, James Preller was employed as a waiter for one year before being hired as a copywriter by Scholastic Corporation, where he was introduced (through their books) to many noatable children's authors. This inspired James Preller to try writing his own books. James Preller published his first book, entitled MAXX TRAX: Avalanche Rescue, in 1986. Since that time, James Preller has written a variety of books, and has written under a number of pen names, including Mitzy Kafka, James Patrick, and Izzy Bonkers. James Preller lives in Delmar, New York with his wife Lisa and their three children.
http://us.macmillan.com/author/jamesp...
http://us.macmillan.com/author/jamesp...
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
February 19, 2019
Jigsaw was at school when Bigs, who was sitting in front of him, fell out of his chair. When Jigsaw went to put the little piece back on he spied something stuck up the leg of the chair. They got it out and all looked at it and it was a riddle alluding to a treasure.
It was so cool that Ms. Gleason mentioned Ye Shen: A Cinderella Story from China because I just found that this year and it's on my to-read list.
The riddle went:
"If treasure you seek
You must first find the map.
Make your mind as sharp
As a diamond
And carry a shovel
Instead of a bat.
Begin by answering this riddle.
A man left home.
He ran as fast as he could.
Then he turned to the left.
He ran and turned left again.
He ran and turned left again.
He headed back for homes
He saw two masked men
Waiting for him,
Yet he was not afraid."
So all of the kids started thinking pirate treasure. I thought it was so clever to use that wording to allude to baseball.
I didn't care for the lunch scene when Joey was stuffing his face with as much as he could and being timed for how fast it took him. He send up getting sick in the bathroom and even though there were no details, it was enough and I wish it hadn't been in there. The poor janitor.
Bigs wanted all of the treasure for himself, but he agreed to share the treasure with the rest of the kids because they were all going to split Jigsaw and Mila's fee.
The bat gave away that it had something to do with baseball, but I'm embarrassed that I didn't catch on to the clues about leaving home, running and making left turns, and returning to home and seeing masked men. It was Gram's tip about the Pirates baseball team that had Jigsaw thinking of baseball, and then he put together the diamond clue and everything else.
It bothered me when Jigsaw told Mila to warn the janitor and tell the lunch monitor that Joey was about to throw up. She didn't have anything to do with it. Jigsaw and Ralphie were the ones watching, Mila thought it was gross. So I didn't think it was fair to order her to do anything. Then when Mila came over to help solve the riddle, she named a field behind the school, and Jigsaw told her to call Ralphie and Bigs. Why don't you do it, Jigsaw? Why tell Mila what to do all the time? Having the guy order the girl around...not a good move.
I didn't understand why Jigsaw only told Bigs and Ralphie to be there at the baseball field to dig up the map. All the other kids deserved to be there because they were a part of it. Bigs was selfish over a clue he didn't even find, so he didn't deserve to be there.
At least Jigsaw gave Mila and Grams credit when Ralphie told him he had done it, after they found the box under the home plate.
The map had a big Y on it and Stringbean asked if it was the YMCA. Jigsaw got irritated and snapped at him that it's in left field and I really didn't like that.
It took me a while to figure out the riddle. It's the hardest one that I've read in this series before. I'm always in awe of how clever his riddles are. Mila wrote down a sequence of numbers in different groups, and they all had a +, 0, or - above them to indicate whether they were the left, middle or right number on the phone button, because the buttons on a phone have multiple numbers on them.
Bigs had told them Mr. Copabianco was at the baseball field and didn't look happy about the mess they'd made. Mila said she'd known they shouldn't mess with school property. Jigsaw said they hadn't had a choice, and Mila pointed out that the janitor was the one who had to clean it up and that wasn't good. He did feel low about it, which was something. But Mila suggested that they tell that they'd done it and he wasn't going to. It made him come off as a troublemaker.
Later that day he was still bothered about Mr. Copabianco always having to clean their mess up. He realized it wasn't fair and that was a point in his favor.
Mila realized that the part of the clue that mentions 3 men falling out of a boat but only 2 getting their hair wet meant that 1 of them was bald.
During lunch Jigsaw went to confess to Mr. Copabianco and Mila chose to come with him. She said if he went, then she went too because they're partners. Personally I thought Bigs and Ralphie should have been there too because they were all a part of it. Mila hadn't wanted them to dig in the first place. And Bigs was the one threatening Jigsaw to find the treasure.
Jigsaw told Mr. Copabianco all about the riddles and map and he knew what they big Y was. He showed them newspapers of a big tree that used to be on the hill decades ago that was shaped as a Y.
Mr. C wasn't too mad about it, and admired the courage it took for Jigsaw to admit the truth. He said Jigsaw could make it up to him, maybe sweep the floors sometimes. Even though Jigsaw didn't like the sound of that, he recognized that he deserved it and felt better for telling the truth, so there was a good lesson there.
It made me so mad that on Saturday it was just the 4 of them again. Bigs, Ralphie and Jigsaw and Mila. What is up with that?! It's like he didn't know what to do with any more characters and had to cut the group down.
The clue was to walk ten strides in the direction that the sun sets, to the west. Then head in the direction of the center of earth, which meant dig.
The summary said the whole class finds a riddle that leads them on a treasure hunt, and they want to be rich. "They" as in the whole class. By only 2 other students beside Jigsaw and Mila were there. What a lie. Bigs didn't even understand any of the riddle that they explained to him. All he did was dig and provide the muscle.
I had known all along it wasn't going to be treasure at all, but mementos for a time capsule, and that's exactly what it was. Room 201, the same classroom as theirs, had left items for future students to find. It seems really disastrous to leave a riddle inside a chair leg that no one would ever think to look in, in a place that would only be found if there was an accident with the chair.
There were baseball cards, comics, dolls, drawings, magazines, and a class picture. Mila noticed that one of the boys in the class looked familiar and it was Jigsaw's dad. I didn't really care for that and it was too much of a coincidence that his son would be the one to find it decades later. I thought it was going to be Mr. Copabianco.
The decoder ring in the box belonged to his dad, and I waited to hear what he did with the ring, how you used it, but he didn't explain it! Later Jigsaw said his dad told him he liked playing detective as a kid. I guess it was enough to know his dad was into mysteries and that's there Jigsaw had gotten it from.
Jigsaw's class made their own time capsule, and he said with a measure of pride and regret they placed their things in. I hate that idea! That's why I could never participate in a time capsule because I wouldn't want to get rid of my stuff.
Jigsaw chose to put a jigsaw puzzle in. Idk what Mila put in. I guess it wasn't important! He listed what a few other kids put in but not Jigsaw's partner!
Jigsaw's dad came and told them about the time capsule and his class, and they had a pizza party. It's funny that he tried to use a simile to compare the party to something else, because similes had been a part of their lesson. He compared it to sliding down a rainbow into a pot of gold. Mila said he was funny and Jigsaw questioned whether that was funny weird or funny haha and she said both and told him to never change.
It was a sweet, cute little ending. His dad told Jigsaw about a guy in class who made monkey noises, and so his dad was there scratching his head and armpits, making monkey calls in an imitation. Mila commented that you always remember your best friends and Jigsaw said right, and put his finger beside his nose in their gesture to show he'd gotten her message. What a nice theme of friendship. It left me with such a good feeling.
The illustrations are adorable. All of the kids are so cute and I enjoyed looking at all of them.
At the end there was fun games and puzzles. There was a maze which was easy to do. I did it with my eyes and got it on the second try...Then there was a word search which was extremely easy.
Some of them were really involved. We were supposed to write down all the letters of the alphabet to do the substitution code like Mila had done, and then write numbers 1-26 under the letters. The next had puzzle pieces which we were supposed to put together. No way would I ever cut up a book, even if the book was mine, but it's a library book so I couldn't anyway. We were supposed to draw out phone number buttons with corresponding letters and mark Q and Z out. There was a sequence of numbers with one of 3 symbols above it directing us to the appropriate letter on the button.
There was a crossword puzzle. There was a word bank to help. Jigsaw's favorite juice and what he put in the time capsule were easy. But one asked for the name of his dog, who wasn't in here and I didn't remember from other books. Luckily it was easy to pick it out from the word list. Another asked for the color of his hat and there's no way I wouldn't have known without looking at the word bank or the cover because that info wasn't in the book.
He instructed us on how to write our own mirror messages, because partners need to be able to send secret messages to each other. I would have loved to have done this as a kid because I loved mysteries.
It was a really nice way of sharing the fun and mystery from the stories and letting readers solve clues. They would be really easy and doable for young kids, but the ones where you have to get a piece of paper and write them out yourself would be involved and maybe over their heads.
The riddle what's the longest word in the dictionary? <>spoiler<> smiles, because there's a mile between each s, wasn't very good.
It was easy to see what the puzzle was of, Mila and Jigsaw so that was no mystery. The code though had a problem. Everything worked out except for 1 word so I know it wasn't me.
It was supposed to say who are the best detectives in the second grade. Except it had 3-0, 7-0, 8-+, and a - sign with no # under it so clearly something went wrong there. I was left with "who are the erv detectives in the second grade."
It was so cool that Ms. Gleason mentioned Ye Shen: A Cinderella Story from China because I just found that this year and it's on my to-read list.
The riddle went:
"If treasure you seek
You must first find the map.
Make your mind as sharp
As a diamond
And carry a shovel
Instead of a bat.
Begin by answering this riddle.
A man left home.
He ran as fast as he could.
Then he turned to the left.
He ran and turned left again.
He ran and turned left again.
He headed back for homes
He saw two masked men
Waiting for him,
Yet he was not afraid."
So all of the kids started thinking pirate treasure. I thought it was so clever to use that wording to allude to baseball.
I didn't care for the lunch scene when Joey was stuffing his face with as much as he could and being timed for how fast it took him. He send up getting sick in the bathroom and even though there were no details, it was enough and I wish it hadn't been in there. The poor janitor.
Bigs wanted all of the treasure for himself, but he agreed to share the treasure with the rest of the kids because they were all going to split Jigsaw and Mila's fee.
The bat gave away that it had something to do with baseball, but I'm embarrassed that I didn't catch on to the clues about leaving home, running and making left turns, and returning to home and seeing masked men. It was Gram's tip about the Pirates baseball team that had Jigsaw thinking of baseball, and then he put together the diamond clue and everything else.
It bothered me when Jigsaw told Mila to warn the janitor and tell the lunch monitor that Joey was about to throw up. She didn't have anything to do with it. Jigsaw and Ralphie were the ones watching, Mila thought it was gross. So I didn't think it was fair to order her to do anything. Then when Mila came over to help solve the riddle, she named a field behind the school, and Jigsaw told her to call Ralphie and Bigs. Why don't you do it, Jigsaw? Why tell Mila what to do all the time? Having the guy order the girl around...not a good move.
I didn't understand why Jigsaw only told Bigs and Ralphie to be there at the baseball field to dig up the map. All the other kids deserved to be there because they were a part of it. Bigs was selfish over a clue he didn't even find, so he didn't deserve to be there.
At least Jigsaw gave Mila and Grams credit when Ralphie told him he had done it, after they found the box under the home plate.
The map had a big Y on it and Stringbean asked if it was the YMCA. Jigsaw got irritated and snapped at him that it's in left field and I really didn't like that.
It took me a while to figure out the riddle. It's the hardest one that I've read in this series before. I'm always in awe of how clever his riddles are. Mila wrote down a sequence of numbers in different groups, and they all had a +, 0, or - above them to indicate whether they were the left, middle or right number on the phone button, because the buttons on a phone have multiple numbers on them.
Bigs had told them Mr. Copabianco was at the baseball field and didn't look happy about the mess they'd made. Mila said she'd known they shouldn't mess with school property. Jigsaw said they hadn't had a choice, and Mila pointed out that the janitor was the one who had to clean it up and that wasn't good. He did feel low about it, which was something. But Mila suggested that they tell that they'd done it and he wasn't going to. It made him come off as a troublemaker.
Later that day he was still bothered about Mr. Copabianco always having to clean their mess up. He realized it wasn't fair and that was a point in his favor.
Mila realized that the part of the clue that mentions 3 men falling out of a boat but only 2 getting their hair wet meant that 1 of them was bald.
During lunch Jigsaw went to confess to Mr. Copabianco and Mila chose to come with him. She said if he went, then she went too because they're partners. Personally I thought Bigs and Ralphie should have been there too because they were all a part of it. Mila hadn't wanted them to dig in the first place. And Bigs was the one threatening Jigsaw to find the treasure.
Jigsaw told Mr. Copabianco all about the riddles and map and he knew what they big Y was. He showed them newspapers of a big tree that used to be on the hill decades ago that was shaped as a Y.
Mr. C wasn't too mad about it, and admired the courage it took for Jigsaw to admit the truth. He said Jigsaw could make it up to him, maybe sweep the floors sometimes. Even though Jigsaw didn't like the sound of that, he recognized that he deserved it and felt better for telling the truth, so there was a good lesson there.
It made me so mad that on Saturday it was just the 4 of them again. Bigs, Ralphie and Jigsaw and Mila. What is up with that?! It's like he didn't know what to do with any more characters and had to cut the group down.
The clue was to walk ten strides in the direction that the sun sets, to the west. Then head in the direction of the center of earth, which meant dig.
The summary said the whole class finds a riddle that leads them on a treasure hunt, and they want to be rich. "They" as in the whole class. By only 2 other students beside Jigsaw and Mila were there. What a lie. Bigs didn't even understand any of the riddle that they explained to him. All he did was dig and provide the muscle.
I had known all along it wasn't going to be treasure at all, but mementos for a time capsule, and that's exactly what it was. Room 201, the same classroom as theirs, had left items for future students to find. It seems really disastrous to leave a riddle inside a chair leg that no one would ever think to look in, in a place that would only be found if there was an accident with the chair.
There were baseball cards, comics, dolls, drawings, magazines, and a class picture. Mila noticed that one of the boys in the class looked familiar and it was Jigsaw's dad. I didn't really care for that and it was too much of a coincidence that his son would be the one to find it decades later. I thought it was going to be Mr. Copabianco.
The decoder ring in the box belonged to his dad, and I waited to hear what he did with the ring, how you used it, but he didn't explain it! Later Jigsaw said his dad told him he liked playing detective as a kid. I guess it was enough to know his dad was into mysteries and that's there Jigsaw had gotten it from.
Jigsaw's class made their own time capsule, and he said with a measure of pride and regret they placed their things in. I hate that idea! That's why I could never participate in a time capsule because I wouldn't want to get rid of my stuff.
Jigsaw chose to put a jigsaw puzzle in. Idk what Mila put in. I guess it wasn't important! He listed what a few other kids put in but not Jigsaw's partner!
Jigsaw's dad came and told them about the time capsule and his class, and they had a pizza party. It's funny that he tried to use a simile to compare the party to something else, because similes had been a part of their lesson. He compared it to sliding down a rainbow into a pot of gold. Mila said he was funny and Jigsaw questioned whether that was funny weird or funny haha and she said both and told him to never change.
It was a sweet, cute little ending. His dad told Jigsaw about a guy in class who made monkey noises, and so his dad was there scratching his head and armpits, making monkey calls in an imitation. Mila commented that you always remember your best friends and Jigsaw said right, and put his finger beside his nose in their gesture to show he'd gotten her message. What a nice theme of friendship. It left me with such a good feeling.
The illustrations are adorable. All of the kids are so cute and I enjoyed looking at all of them.
At the end there was fun games and puzzles. There was a maze which was easy to do. I did it with my eyes and got it on the second try...Then there was a word search which was extremely easy.
Some of them were really involved. We were supposed to write down all the letters of the alphabet to do the substitution code like Mila had done, and then write numbers 1-26 under the letters. The next had puzzle pieces which we were supposed to put together. No way would I ever cut up a book, even if the book was mine, but it's a library book so I couldn't anyway. We were supposed to draw out phone number buttons with corresponding letters and mark Q and Z out. There was a sequence of numbers with one of 3 symbols above it directing us to the appropriate letter on the button.
There was a crossword puzzle. There was a word bank to help. Jigsaw's favorite juice and what he put in the time capsule were easy. But one asked for the name of his dog, who wasn't in here and I didn't remember from other books. Luckily it was easy to pick it out from the word list. Another asked for the color of his hat and there's no way I wouldn't have known without looking at the word bank or the cover because that info wasn't in the book.
He instructed us on how to write our own mirror messages, because partners need to be able to send secret messages to each other. I would have loved to have done this as a kid because I loved mysteries.
It was a really nice way of sharing the fun and mystery from the stories and letting readers solve clues. They would be really easy and doable for young kids, but the ones where you have to get a piece of paper and write them out yourself would be involved and maybe over their heads.
The riddle what's the longest word in the dictionary? <>spoiler<> smiles, because there's a mile between each s, wasn't very good.
It was easy to see what the puzzle was of, Mila and Jigsaw so that was no mystery. The code though had a problem. Everything worked out except for 1 word so I know it wasn't me.
It was supposed to say who are the best detectives in the second grade. Except it had 3-0, 7-0, 8-+, and a - sign with no # under it so clearly something went wrong there. I was left with "who are the erv detectives in the second grade."
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
June 9, 2018
When Jigsaw Jones and his classmates discover a piece of paper with a riddle on it hidden inside one of the desk chairs, he is determined to solve the riddle. They are all sure that they will find treasure if they can follow the clues in this secret message. With a little common sense, some observation of others, and a helpful nudge from Jigsaw's grandmother, Jigsaw and his best friend Mila Yeh, figure out just where the treasure is hidden. They are surely surprised, though, when they see what they have unearthed. Something tells me that other students will be inspired by their finding to put together something similar. I enjoyed reading the mystery as well as seeing the intergenerational links between Jigsaw, his father, and his grandmother as the mystery starts to unfold. Elementary grade readers will gobble this stuff up.
October 6, 2009
I can't say enough good things about Jigsaw Jones books. We love them. Super specials are particularly great, because they are long, have slightly more involved plots and have puzzles and games at the end. The author tries to incorporate second-grade level curriculum concepts in to the books, and the one in this book was learning about similes. I won't give away the ending, but it's a two part mystery with a satisfying and nostalgic resolution. Loved it!
May 15, 2018
Preller, James The Case of the Buried Treasure, 92 pages. Feiwel and Friends, 2013 (2017 reprints). $5. Language: G (o swears); Mature Content: G; Violence: G.
When a boy in Jigsaw’s class finds a clue to a treasure inside the leg of his chair, everyone in the class wants to help find it! But Jigsaw is the one who is used to solving puzzles and he gets right on the case. But everything in the puzzle isn’t quite as it seems and Jigsaw is determined to solve it –with an ending that surprises him the most.
This book felt like I was jumping in mid-series; just a boatload of characters, which would be off-putting for younger readers. Since the books aren’t numbered, I felt like I needed at least one intro book to really set the stage. I thought the language was fairly dated for how students talk today. But the killer for me was the dated looking cover and illustrations –you should see the amazing chapter book covers and art this book has to compete with. Even though its wholesome and sweet, I wouldn’t add this book or series to my library –no matter how popular it once was because it just wouldn’t see circulation.
EL (K-3) – OPTIONAL Stephanie, Elementary School Librarian & Author
https://kissthebook.blogspot.com/2018...
When a boy in Jigsaw’s class finds a clue to a treasure inside the leg of his chair, everyone in the class wants to help find it! But Jigsaw is the one who is used to solving puzzles and he gets right on the case. But everything in the puzzle isn’t quite as it seems and Jigsaw is determined to solve it –with an ending that surprises him the most.
This book felt like I was jumping in mid-series; just a boatload of characters, which would be off-putting for younger readers. Since the books aren’t numbered, I felt like I needed at least one intro book to really set the stage. I thought the language was fairly dated for how students talk today. But the killer for me was the dated looking cover and illustrations –you should see the amazing chapter book covers and art this book has to compete with. Even though its wholesome and sweet, I wouldn’t add this book or series to my library –no matter how popular it once was because it just wouldn’t see circulation.
EL (K-3) – OPTIONAL Stephanie, Elementary School Librarian & Author
https://kissthebook.blogspot.com/2018...
February 16, 2018
Miss 3 has recently started taking an interest in listening to chapter books. Her first was 'Toy Academy' and her second was 'The Case of the Buried Treasure'. There are some pictures in this book but much fewer than the first chapter book; she hasn't been as ardently in love with it (like the bunny-cat in the first book) but she's definitely interested in listening. We would have read the entire book in a day if she'd had her way; as it was, we read it over two days.
I thought it was okay (2 stars from me, 3 from her). I found it annoying (and weird) that everyone kept being referred to by their full name but I did respect the educational advantages of the story repeatedly teaching what a simile was! (As dark as the inside of a cow...ha!)
I thought it was okay (2 stars from me, 3 from her). I found it annoying (and weird) that everyone kept being referred to by their full name but I did respect the educational advantages of the story repeatedly teaching what a simile was! (As dark as the inside of a cow...ha!)
December 24, 2017
Of course it was another mystery to be solved but was very engaging story. You continue to learn more about Jigsaw and his friends, and family. Nice ending!
November 25, 2023
I love how jigsaw mila bigs and Ralphie were trying too find the treasure
April 25, 2009
I thought some of the expressions in this book would be too difficult for my bilingual kids, but I read it to them anyway. Too a long time because we had to discuss so many idioms (and this book has a classroom discussion of similes so we threw that in too) but my kids enjoyed it and learned quite a bit.
October 8, 2008
I loved this book
June 26, 2009
Great mystery series for early elementary! Got two more from the library!
February 28, 2012
There was a kid in there class that was finding treasure things.they found treasure and made there own.Auryn yo
February 11, 2015
This was a cute story. I might read the others some day.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews