The Puzzle of Doom (The Lunch Club, Book 8)

Written and illustrated by Dom Pelletier

Scholastic Canada

978-1-0397-1102-0

136 pp.

Ages 7–10

July 2025 

 

You know there will be laughs to be had if the secret club called the Lunch Club is meeting again. This time Leo and Tia, along with their club advisor Mr. Peabody, are pulled into a ghostly puzzle that comes from England.

From The Puzzle of Doom, written and illustrated by Dom Pelletier

In the prologue to Dom Pelletier's latest volume in his The Lunch Club series, readers are witness to Lord Puzzlegood who, while working outdoors on a puzzle at his club in 1890 London, is killed by lightning. His fellow puzzlers, threatened by his ghostly demands to find the final puzzle piece, lock him away with the puzzle while his earthly possessions are exiled to Canada.

 

In the present day, Leo and Tia, along with Mr. Peabody, are enjoying a local street fair where Madame Celeste (from an earlier adventure) gifts them with a protection amulet and crystal ball respectively. Tia also ends up with a piggy bank left behind by another vendor, Fred, a neighbour of Madame Celeste's.

From The Puzzle of Doom, written and illustrated by Dom Pelletier

At school, they meet new student Dale Picklesworth III who is on exchange from the Puzzle Collector's Club of England, another secret club. Leo is not especially friendly to Dale who is bright and athletic, talented and partnering with Tia. 

Everything becomes a little wackier when Leo and Mr. Peabody open a box hidden in the gym's storage area and Tia gets a message about the piggy bank being haunted. With that, Lord Puzzlegood rears his ghostly head in an effort to complete his final puzzle.

From The Puzzle of Doom, written and illustrated by Dom Pelletier

Dom Pelletier always brings the wacky and the fun with The Lunch Club, and, with The Puzzle of Doom, he introduces a new character and an ongoing story. (The puzzle is going to lead into a new adventure in Book 9 of The Lunch Club.) He gives us the supernatural, school- and friend-based tensions that all children will recognize–except for the ghosts, of course–and laughter through the puns, the clever repartee, and zany panic. I love everything about The Lunch Club, from the characters as they act and as they are drawn (by Dom Pelletier) to the humour of their situations and of their interactions, and to the silliness of the

extraordinary plots. In The Puzzle of Doom, Dom Pelletier makes readers laugh but still think about how we get along with others, about how to work together to find solutions to problems, albeit supernatural ones here, and about what the next adventure might be for the "Philately" Club. And by giving us eye-catching art and nutty cartoon characters, Dom Pelletier continues to hook young readers and keep them returning to the Lunch Club.

 

 • • • • • • •

The Lunch Club series

#1 It Came From the Basement
#2 The Curse of the Scarewolf
#3 The Mutant Mouse from Outer Space
#4 Revenge of the Bigfoot
#5 The Return of the Mummy

#6 The Swamp Thingy

#7 Night of the Living Rocks

#8 The Puzzle of Doom

Beastly Puzzles: A Brain-Boggling Animal Guessing Game

Written by Rachel Poliquin

Illustrated by Byron Eggenschwiler

Kids Can Press

978-1-77138-913-6

32 pp.

Ages 7-10

May 2019

Every book can be considered interactive, being an interplay of communication between reader and text and illustrations, but some, like Beastly Puzzles, demand more of the reader. In fact, there's no skimming over words or art in Beastly Puzzles because every little bit of each double-spread with fold-out requires attention to detail and problem-solving skills extraordinaire to answer the question What animal could you make with...?

From Beastly Puzzles: A Brain-Boggling Animal Guessing Game, text by Rachel Poliquin, art by Byron Eggenschwiler

The first animal puzzle provides seven clues in a billiard room of purple shades and tints. The clues are: dinosaur feet, black toenails, three billiard balls, a hose, the speed of a greyhound, several feather dusters and a lion-killing kick. They are a perplexing assortment of clues so Rachel Poliquin provides more details in a "Here's a hint" that is actually more than just one. I won't reveal what feathered animal is showcased beneath the foldout but information about it's morphology, behaviour and more are explained in terms of those seven clues. Thirteen animals which include mammals, birds, crustaceans, fish, amphibians, reptiles and insects are featured throughout the book, extending around the world. 

From Beastly Puzzles: A Brain-Boggling Animal Guessing Game, text by Rachel Poliquin, art by Byron Eggenschwiler

The clues are tough and Rachel Poliquin is accurate in calling them "brain-boggling." I could not guess a single animal but, rather than being frustrated, I was fascinated by learning interesting facts about over a dozen animals and seeing the connections between the clues provided and the characteristics depicted. Kids who love learning about animals will appreciate this unique presentation but puzzle-lovers will similarly be entranced by the marvelous riddles embedded in Byron Eggenschwiler's monochromatic illustrations of rooms, inside and out, of a large house.  Only the clues and the hidden animals are enriched with colour to highlight their importance so little ones won't have to search for the clues, only interpret them, and that is hard enough.

Whether you're travelling for the summer and want to occupy a little one, or have an animal lover who would revel in the unique learning that Beastly Puzzles presents, this picture book will be a hit of information–there is a lesson in natural history and a glossary–and entertainment.

A Box of Bones

Written by Marina Cohen

Roaring Brook Press

978-1-250-17221-1

288 pp.

Ages 8-12

May 2019

Sometimes people need lies. Little lies to help them deal with truths that are too huge and too difficult to face. (pg. 273)

Twelve-year-old Kallie is only interested in facts and the organized and logical world that she and her father, who works in risk management for an insurance company, live in. She has no appreciation for the arts, turning her nose up at music and seeing stories as "ugly little lies wrapped in pretty packages" (pg. 59), going so far as to refer to her dead mother only with disdain as "The Writer." Unfortunately, the world seems to want something different for her than she expects.

While at the buskers' Festival of Fools with her Grandpa Jess, Kallie is handed a small puzzle box seemingly made of bone. After much work to open it, nine smaller cubes fall out of the box, each with its own unique image. Strangely, no matter how she drops these cubes, they always land in the same order: an animal, a goblet, an oval with holes, a castle, a cylinder with flames, a coffin, a skull, a long pointed object, and a blank. Soon, Kallie's life, thrown off kilter by a new imaginative student named Anna and by secrets she is learning regarding her mother's death, is following a path based on those bone images, starting with a strange animal with amethyst eyes that appears to her.

Interspersed with Kallie's story is one of Liah, a bone carver's apprentice. In her story, distinguished to the reader by its italics font, Liah and the bone carver are heading to the evil Empress's palace to sell his carvings, travelling through an ancient forest haunted by those whose bones were buried without ancestral care. Heedless of the bone carver's warnings, Liah removes a skull, hopeful of carving something special from it. But their foray into the palace becomes something dangerous for the bone carver and Liah after a Lie-peddler they meet confronts the Empress with his stories.

There is such a thing as too much truth. (pg. 272)

How Kallie's and Liah's journeys are related is only revealed at the end of Marina Cohen's latest middle grade novel but they are entwined, both learning that

...a good story never really ends. It lives on inside you forever (pg. 222)

and that truths and lies are not very different, both necessary and still tenuous.

While Marina Cohen does creepy middle-grade really, really well–do check out several of her earlier novels such as The Inn Between (2016) and The Doll's Eye (2017)–A Box of Bones tells a great mystery without worries of keeping young readers up at night. There are eerie bits, both in Kallie's and Liah's stories, but they add to the mysteriousness, demonstrating that not everything is straightforward, logical or expected, just like life, and that stories give life as well as honour it.

The Case of the Missing Moonstone: The Wollstonecraft Detective Agency, No. 1

Written by Jordan Stratford

Art by Kelly Murphy

Alfred A. Knopf

978-0-385-75440-8

216 pp.

Ages 9-13

January, 2015

Devastated with the loss, to marriage, of the only governess she has ever known, eleven-year-old Ada Byron finds comfort in numbers and the wicker basket of her hot air balloon tethered to the house in Marylebone Road, London.  Except for the silent butler, Mr. Franklin, and two house maids, Ada is virtually alone.  Her father, Lord Byron, was killed years earlier and her mother, Baroness Wentworth, bitter with her husband's infidelity and life choices, is often absent.  But all changes for Ada when her new tutor, Mr. Percy Snagsby, and fellow student, Mary Godwin, 14, arrive.

While Ada is disinclined to accept her new educational situation, calling Mr. Snagsby "Peebs" and imaging a cannon from which to shoot him, Mary is very appreciative of it, thrilled with being tutored alongside the titled and wealthier Ada at her much grander home.  With time and the benefit of Mary's compassion and social competencies, the two girls become friends, complementing each other beautifully.  In fact, reading about criminals in the newspaper, the two decide to become a secret constabulary, the Wollstonecraft Detective Agency.  Still trying to work within the social confines experienced by women at the time, the girls take on the case of Miss Rebecca Verdigris, whose maid falsely confesses to stealing her Acorn of Ankara pendant, a birthday gift from Rebecca's late uncle. With Ada's quirky brain and logic and Mary's benevolence and civility, the partners attempt to exonerate the maid, Rosie Sparrow.

Although based on historical figures, Ada and Mary are truly unique young ladies, befitting those of different social standings and family situations.  Ada has learned to be self-reliant, appreciative of her books and numbers i.e., that upon which she can depend. Mary, more mature and attentive to those around her, is fully aware of society's expectations and allowances, and acts as the voice of reason in their friendship and the Wollstonecraft Detective Agency.  Take this sample dialogue between the two girls.

"Because," Mary said guiltily, "sometimes you need to be careful about what you say and when you say it."
"That's silly.  There are just things to know, and people should know them and that's that." (pg. 127)

Luckily, Jordan Stratford plays up their differences, similarly depicted in Kelly Murphy's quaint drawings, and demonstrates the innate humour of their attitudes.

"How are we to find Rosie in here?"
Ada pointed to the right. "This way."
"How do you know?" asked Mary.
"I don't.  I'm just guessing. But if I'm wrong, the other way will still be there." (pg. 111)

Though Jordan Stratford takes some liberties with historical timelines–making Ada eleven and Mary fourteen years of age–he stays true to the essence of the two girls and their interests and personalities.  Ada who will become better known as Ada Lovelace (1815-1852), mathematician, writer and essentially the world's first computer programmer, is the beautiful mind of The Case of the Missing Moonstone.  Mary Godwin, daughter of writer Mary Wollstonecraft, will marry poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, and become Mary Shelley, author of Frankenstein (1818).  Similarly, Jordan Stratford uses the known friendship between Percy Shelley and Lord Byron, as well as Ada Lovelace's relationship with Charles Babbage, for additional historically-accurate subplotting.

The Wollstonecraft Detective Agency is a welcome series for middle-grade readers, providing an offbeat historical perspective to solving mystery.  I look forward to further cases, including The Case of the Girl in Gray, No. 2 in the series, scheduled for release August, 2015.