Sherlock Bones and the Missing Cheese
Written by Susan Stevens Crummel
Ilustrated by Dorothy Donohue
A smelly, scrumptious cheese is missing! This is no ordinary cheese. It is made from the milk of a cantankerous cow, a Cowabunga. It is delicious, delectable, but really smelly. So when it disappears from its rock, Sherlock Bones is called to find that missing cheese. He uses all five senses to gather clues. Some witnesses saw strange things, others heard strange things. He notes them all which lead him to the beanstalk. He concludes that they have a giant problem. Sure enough, a giant got hungry for pizza and thought the smelly cheese would be perfect for his concoction. When Sherlock demands that the giant return the cheese, he puts all the cheese in his mouth. Poor giant. Now he has a giant stomach ache. When he grabs Sherlock, they both fall out of beanstalk land. The people of the dell are now able to trade the giant’s services for the cure to the Cowabunga Cheese Disease.
For all those amateur detectives out there, Sherlock’s clues are shown in detail and can be adapted into a literacy activity. Sherlock’s problem solving method is a good model for young readers. There is also the music for “The Farmer in the Dell” which the author claims was the inspiration for this story. It is a very loose connection, but the song could be part of the story time that uses this book as a read aloud. The intricate cut-paper illustrations are unique, giving a sense of depth as well as adding a humorous element of their own. The illustrator shows her method on her website: (http://dorothydonohue.com/).
TITLE: Sherlock Bones and the Missing Cheese- AUTHOR: Susan Stevens Crummel
- ILLUSTRATOR: Dorothy Donohue
- PUBLISHER: Amazon Children’s Publishing
- REVIEWER: Risa Brown
- EDITION: Hardcover, 32 p.
- ISBN: 978-0-7614-6186-9
- GENRE: Rhyming stories, Picture books