The Cobweb Confessions

Third-Grade Detectives #4

by George E. Stanley, Salvatore Murdocca (Illustrator)

Back cover
Poor Todd. First he has to give up his room for an old friend of his father's who's visiting. Then his valuable baseball card collection is stolen. Now Mr. Merlin says the class is going to be studying spiders. Todd hates spiders.

But then Mr. Merlin tells the Third-Grade Detectives that a spider's web may help catch the thief. Maybe spiders aren't so bad after all.

Genres: Mystery, Chapter Books, Fiction, Childrens, 2nd Grade

80 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 2001

About the author

George Edward Stanley was born in Memphis, Texas on July 15, 1942. He received a bachelor's degree in 1965 and a master's degree in 1967 from Texas Tech University. He earned his Doctor Litterarum in African Linguistics in 1974 from the University of Port Elizabeth in South Africa. He lived all over Europe and Africa, studying and teaching foreign languages, working for the U.S. government, and writing books for young people and adults. He started writing fiction while a Fulbright professor in Chad, Central Africa, where about the only diversion he found available was listening to the BBC on his short wave radio. That led to his writing radio plays for a program called World Service Short Story. Three of his plays were eventually produced. After writing and publishing over 200 short stories in American, British, Irish, and South African magazines and linguistics articles in major international journals, he started writing books. He wrote over 100 fiction and non-fiction books for young people including The Katie Lynn Cookie Company series and the Adam Sharp series. He also wrote under the pseudonyms of M. T. Coffin, Franklin W. Dixon, Laura Lee Hope, Carolyn Keene, Adam Mills, and Stuart Symons. He was a professor of African and Middle-Eastern languages and linguistics in the department of foreign languages at Cameron University. He died from a ruptured aneurysm on February 7, 2011 at the age of 68.

Reviews

[Jessica · Rating 2 out of 5]

The reason my sons and I read this series is for the science as well as the mystery. It is CSI for kids. This book uses entomology, which any CSI fan knows is the study of bugs, and can be used to solve crimes, in particular murders since the rate of decay of the body and the proliferation of maggots and which stages they are at can give important information. However this is a kids' book, so there are no murders, but in this volume a rash of thefts which are solved using spiders. Hmmmmmmmmm. A little bit artificial, and only one suspect is proferred by the author, so it was not terribly suspenseful. Plus you hear what the kids must learn about spiders to solve the crimes, but you don't actually get to learn it yourself. So basically not as compelling as others in this series.

[Darlene · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this books with my daughters.

This is another book in The Third-Grade Detectives Series. For those that are not familiar with the series, the teacher of the third grade class is a former spy, and he gives the students code clues to help them solve mysteries.

My elder daughter and I always stop and work on the clues or codes and try to figure them out before the answer is revealed.

The series is cute and fun, and we like the idea of being amateur sleuths! We enjoy the series and plan to read more!

MY RATING: 3.5 stars!

[Keagan · Rating 5 out of 5]

It was a good. Took about an hour to read it. - 7 year old

[Jamie Erin · Rating 2 out of 5]

Read for my son's 3rd-grade homeschool curriculum.

[Elizabeth · Rating 3 out of 5]

AR 3.5

[Rachel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cobwebs are like fingerprints

[Bonnie Chen]

I really enjoyed reading this book because it was really suspenseful finding out who the culprit was. The neighborhood was suffering great pain when someone decides to see all the valuable items of the characters, such as the baseball cards. The third grade class, teacher and police collaborated to find the culprit. The teacher gives them hints. The protagonist decodes them, but doesn't quite understand the correlation between the culprit and the hints. However,as the story goes on the hints get clearer and clearer.This book taught me many lessons as well. The lessons are to work together with each other effectively and efficiently, think logically and never be discouraged. These skills are essential in school and in society. However, at times, I seem to be lacking these skills. At times, I would not be a cooperative partner, a straight thinker or an optimistic person. This book taught me the essence of the skills. If I possess all three skills, I will be a better, more successful and happier student and individual.

[Dolly · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the fourth book in the Third-Grade Detectives series by George E. Stanley and Sal Murdocca. Our oldest really likes this series and she really enjoys learning about and solving the different kinds of puzzles. I thought it was very interesting how Mr. Merlin teaches the children to mount a spiderweb and uses the design of the web to learn about the spider itself. And in this case, this knowledge helps to solve a mystery of multiple thefts, as well.

Overall, I thought this was an interesting story and we will certainly look for more books in this series at our local library.

[Andrew · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a mystery book and it is hard to explain what it is about .

[Elaine Hebert · Rating 5 out of 5]

I like this book because I like spiders.

[Rebecca · Rating 3 out of 5]

Age appropriate mystery and how a class uses cobwebs to nab a thief. My daughter enjoyed it.

[Hillvan]

440L

[Haleigh · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was a very low-level chapter book for beginning readers. It was the fourth in the series, but I don't think you need to read each book to understand the plot. I'm not sure how I liked this book. The plot left me wanting something and I'm not sure the "Third-Grad edetectives" aspect of it is very good.

[Gillena Cox · Rating 4 out of 5]

Guess what? Pursuit of one's homework assignment pays big time.

Todd has to be nice to Jonathan who is his guest, even though he has to sleep on the couch and he misses his room and his things. Every one has a spider web to carry to school for their homework assignment, except Todd who hates spiders. Todd ventures into his room, to read his comic books, while Jonathan, is out.
This act, though a little bit sneaky [bearing in mind his mother's request] that he should be patient and be kind to his guest.
However this triggers the start to a great mystery solved, Todds good grade for a homework project completed, and Todd acclaimed a little bit of a class hero.

The greyscale illustrations [by Salvatore Murdocca] are delightful.