A-Z Mysteries The Empty Envelope
Written by Ron Roy
Reviewed by Shilo D. (age 9)
Do you like mysteries and solving suspenseful crime? If so then The Empty Envelope by Ron Roy is definitely for you! It is about three friends who live in a town in Connecticut called Green Lawn. Their names are Dink, Josh, and Ruth Rose. 5 days in a row, Dink gets 5 blue envelopes, but they all have CO on them for Colorado, not CT for Connecticut. So the kids get on the phone with the person they were really for, Doris Duncan. She sounded angry and she really wanted the blue envelopes back and then she comes for them, but then they were gone. Eventually,the kids find out that under the three regular stamps on the fifth envelope, there was an upside down stamp worth $50,000 belonging to senior citizen, Clementine Painter. She found it in the vacuum cleaner belonging to her mother. You will just have to read the book to see who is responsible for the suspicious theft.
The Empty Envelope is a great book because it is full of mysteries and suspense and they are always changing their minds about the mysteries. In the middle of these A - Z Mystery books, I always feel like I want to read on because I want to see what happens next. I like how the author uses exclamation a lot so I know how exactly what they would sound like in real life. For example, when Ruth Rose screams when she finds out about the stamp her words are bolded with a lot of exclamation points at the end. Also, I really like the pencil illustrations. They always look exactly like it says it looks in the text.
I rate this book 7 out of 10 because the kids are always changing their minds and trying new things to solve mysteries. I recommend this book to first to fifth graders who love mysteries and very suspenseful writing. If you are someone like this, you should definitely check out this book and others in the series.