How fitting that exactly one year after I inherited the book The Mystery of the Square Footprints by Kal Gezi and Ann Bradford, I find myself in possession of two more books by the same authors. Apparently, Square Footprints was not an isolated book and Linda, Vern, Tom, Maria, and Barry have lots of adventures. Enough adventures at least to have garnered a name for themselves: The Maple Street Five. Which sounds more like a street gang than playful children. “Don’t go down that alley, that’s The Maple Street Five territory!” Or maybe a band with a kickin’ horn section. You know, something other than kids.
Right, I couldn’t be more pleased with having two more of these mystery books. If you missed my first encounter, you can read about it here: The Mystery of the Square Footprints: A Book Experience.
To make the additional books extra relevant, I had already reread The Mystery of the Square Footprints to the kids earlier this school year. Wednesday, I told the kids that I had gotten two more books by the same author and that we were going to have an extra story time this week to read them. Most of them were super pumped about it. Twenty-one of the thirty students that day came out to hear the story. Some of the kids that have been with me for a few years really enjoy it when it’s the first time I’m reading the book as I read it aloud to them. I get caught off guard by nonsense and then we all laugh together.
We embarked on The Mystery at Misty Falls. Before I began, I asked them what they 
thought the mystery might be. Several of them (mostly littles) felt for sure that the robot was going to figure into the plot. This book didn’t have nearly the amount of amusing moments as Square Footprints, but it was fun to read. I would pause at times to have them think about the clues presented and to allow them to come up with theories. A couple of kids held onto their robot dreams until the end.
In this book the kids are at camp and there is an older groundskeeper, Jim, that they like. They see him in the forest and he’s kind of grumpy which is unlike him. One child asks, “what’s wrong with him?” Another child replies “Who knows? People are strange sometimes. My granddad gets like that.” I had to take a moment to giggle at that. Who knows; old people be grumpy.
The mystery is that things keep being stolen from people at the camp. The book does a good job at casting suspicion at several characters. I mean, for kids, as an adult, I basically knew what was up once they mentioned that Groundskeeper Jim had a gold nugget. In the end all mischief was caused by a wily raccoon. I mused to the kids that it would be funny if this book ended like the one with the robot only the raccoon would serve the kids lunch. A few kindergarteners thought for sure that would happen. Alas, it did not.
On Thursday, I read The Mystery of the Missing Raccoon. I love that the two books are raccoon based. The kids were rooting for robot repetition, but instead we get raccoons. So how many Maple Street Five books are there and how many of them feature raccoons?
This book adventure had way more going on. There is a raccoon that lives in the zoo that keeps being let out during the night. Apparently the five friends go to the zoo EVERY DAY (must be free admission) and EVERY DAY they look for and find the raccoon. Obviously the zoo staff is lacking in job skills since the kids keep solving this problem, but then again, it might just be run by one old zookeeper. Spoiler alert: the raccoon is opening the lock himself every night. Most of the kids caught on to that pretty quickly since that was the basic plot of the last book.
The first day the raccoon is missing the kids walk around the zoo to find him. I LOVE this picture of them searching. Tom looks as if he’s rattling the elephant cage trying to instigate a confession. Barry seems to think the raccoon is most likely on a giraffe’s head, while Vern checks its knees. Meanwhile, Maria is off kissing a deer that is obviously just behind a fence and not in a cage at all. And Linda has no time for this nonsense.
But the BEST one is this one:
“I wonder where the raccoon is? Better check in this crocodile’s mouth.” We had to pause the book after this to finish laughing.
Okay so the very first thing that caught my attention was how small the raccoon enclosure is. That picture on the cover shows him in the cage in which he lives. Even the kids were aghast when I casually mentioned its size. One child observed that having to live in a small cage is probably why the poor guy keeps breaking out. Another kid looked at this illustration and remarked, “and why is it just by a bench? The other animals have there own spaces.” Yeah, why is the raccoon in a small cage randomly placed by a bench?
The awkward raccoon cage placement isn’t even the best part of this picture. The kids and one of their fathers are all hiding in that bush to catch the person who is letting out the raccoon. Look at the placement of all the eyes… a kid asked “how is there enough space for all of them right there?” Right! Like are they laying pyramid style? Did they shrink themselves somehow? And that cage is an inconsistent size; right now it’s bigger than that bench, but it also just fits a raccoon.
When the kids would locate the raccoon he was always asleep somewhere. Maria picked him up every time and returned him to his cage. I asked my group if it were a good idea for a child to pick up a raccoon, even one that’s used to people. Fortunately they all said no. A second grade boy pointed out how animal handlers usually wear thick gloves like when handling hawks. It was agreed that Maria should have alerted the zookeeper.
Now let’s take a moment to look at how uncomfortable this raccoon is with this situation. The look on Barry’s face is pretty stellar as well.
I thoroughly enjoyed reading and sharing these books with my group. Reading aloud and giggling together is so much fun! I love having older books as well. Generally the kids have never heard of them (and sometimes I haven’t either) and many of the older books contain a wealth of oddities which add to the laughter.
What are some of your favorite books to read aloud?
If you are interested in vintange children’s books, check out my ebay store The Dandelion’s Smile:
https://www.ebay.com/sch/thedandelionssmile/m.html?_nkw=&_armrs=1&_ipg=&_from=
Miranda Intentionally 
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