 Ravenstone Press
Stories of Kansas and the Great Plains
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Beyond
Nancy Drew - Picture Books to YA
The best from 1994 to 2004
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This project was created for a presentation at Triconference on
April 2, 2004 in Wichita, Kansas.
Triconference is a joint conference of the Kansas Library Association,
The Kansas Association
of School Librarians, and the Kansas Association for Educational
Techology.
Criteria: Each title was recommended by other librarians
and/or reviews. These titles are still
in print as of April 3, 2004, so that you can order them if you
wish. I
have read all of the top
choices and most of the rest. In order to make it onto the list
without me
reading them, the
books had to be recommended by at least two other librarians and have
good reviews. I rea
many titles that did not make the lists.
Elements of Mystery:
Lawrence Treat, in his preface to the Mystery
Writer’s
Handbook, states what a mystery story
should contain in its structure. He calls them the “rules of the
classic mystery.” (paraphrased)
Rule 1: There must be a crime and the reader must want to see its
solution; his interest must be
aroused and then he must long to see the mystery solved.
Rule 2: The criminal must appear reasonably early in the story. The
villain must be evident for
goodly portion of the book, not just pop in at the end.
Rule 3: The author must be honest and all clues must be made available
to the reader. The
reader must know everything the protagonist knows.
Rule 4: The detective must exert effort to catch the criminal and the
criminal must exert effort
to fool the detective and escape from him. Coincidence is taboo.
I tried to stick closely with these criteria in making my
selections. There are quite a few
children’s books that are designated as mysteries, or have the word
mystery in the
title, that
don’t meet any of these requirements. Some children's "mysteries"
contain some sort of
puzzle to solve, but don't involve a crime, don't have a real
"perpetrator," or violate Rule 4.
In the world of adult literature, to be designated a mystery, a book
usually as to have a murder
committed, and someone trying to solve it, and mysteries are somehow
distinguished from
thrillers, adventure novels and spy stories. In children’s
literature,
librarians have recommended
books as mysteries that would fit into those other genres as well, and
they are
crossover books
that could fit in several niches. It seems that ghost stories
often are
mysteries as
well, with at
least part of the mystery being why the ghost is haunting a place or
person.
The recommended lists are in three sections (see the links
below): Picture Books and Easy
Readers, Juvenile Mysteries, and Young Adult Mysteries. There is
an additional page
listing many mystery series for youth. - Jerri Garretson,
April 4, 2004
Good Mystery Authors suggested by
other librarians:
John
Bellairs
Patricia E. Canterbury
Lois
Duncan
Peni R. Griffin
Peg
Kehret
Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
Joan Lowery Nixon Willo
Davis Roberts
Patricia
Rushford
Zilpha Keatley Snyder
Bill
Wallace
Nancy Werlin
Phyllis A.
Whitney Eric
Wilson
Picture Book and Easy Reader Mysteries
Juvenile Mysteries
YA mysteries
Children's mystery series
Last Updated April 5, 2004