Bruce Hale

I can't help but love this story. Chet Gecko is just plain funny, beginning to end. His gum-shoe detective work is wonderfully oddball and funny in a way that few books maintain so consistently. Natalie, his sleuthing partner, is cheesy and brilliant and he is so in love with private-eye motif that you can't help but love him. Great book, so long as you don't take yourself too seriously to get caught up in the fun.

review of
Bruce Hale's The Malted Falcon
by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE - December 25, 2012

I recently acquired 3 bks whose titles & plots are take-offs of previously existing bks: The Malted Falcon, Captains Outrageous, & Android Karenina. This called my attn to there now being, apparently, a whole genre of such bks. Yesterday, I got a copy of The Maltese Dog - thusly adding to the collection. Fully expecting these bks to be trashily derivative I've decided to read all 4 anyway & review them show more b/c I'm somewhat fascinated by the genre. Most, if not all, of them are kids bks.

The Malted Falcon is targeted to readers ages 8 to 12. The novel that it's a take-off of, Dashiell Hammett's The Maltese Falcon, is not only a personal favorite but, also, obviously, aimed at adults (although not in an x-rated way). Since I think that Hammett's both a great story-teller & a great prose stylist I was curious about how Hale wd handle his take-off & I have to admit that I think he did a fairly good job of keeping it both non-kid-traumatizing & still wackily in the spirit of the original - at least in terms of the wisecracks.

The Malted Falcon begins:

"I love a mystery - any kind of mystery. Like, if the plural of tooth is teeth, why isn't the plural of booth beeth? If ignorance is bliss, why aren't more folks happy? And, if you can pick your friends and you can pick your nose, why can't you pick your friend's nose?" (p vii)

I love that as a beginning! Not only does Hale frame it as a philosophical intro to the detective mind of his hero "Chet Gecko", but he playfully stimulates the etymological thinking. He implies that many people are ignorant & ends w/ a joking question. It sets the mood for what I think the best children's bks writers do: stimulate the minds of kids w/o necessarily threatening them, making it all playful.

Hale is full of puns that kids won't necessarily get but wch will help them appreciate them all the more as they learn their meaning. A character's name is "Dot Maytricks" (dot matrix, a type of printer - later revealed to 'really' by "Lili Pad"), another's is "Bert Umber" (burnt umber, the color: ""Sounds like a colorful character.""), "Zoomin' Mayta" (Zubin Mehta, the conductor). It goes on & on.

It was interesting for me to see how a kid's bk writer adapts adult mystery material by putting it into an Elementary School context - 'peopled' by non-human critters. Of course, the violence, slight as it is, is translated into low-level bullying & the like. Hale mimics & simplifies the mystery novel patois beautifully:

"I made to slip around him. Freddie blocked my path. I sized him up.

"He would never make the Rodent Hall of Fame. Freddie's bulging eyes flanked a nose that looked like it'd blow off with a stiff sneeze. His overbite concealed a chine so weak, the nose could've beaten it up.

"Freddie's skinny body twitched like a silkworm in a light socket. He looked familiar, but if we'd met before, I'd thankfully forgotten." (p 33)

All in all, I thought this was well-done &, no, I won't be reading more Chet Gecko stories - the "ages 8 to 12" thing is NOT for me. Still, I can safely say that this is 'kid-friendly' w/o being too stupid. show less

Private eye Chet Gecko is called on to solve a case involving theft at his elementary school’s cafeteria. For the food-loving fourth grader, this case is right up his alley. But to solve it, he’ll have to deal with playground bullies, detention, a group project presented before parents, and more. Will Chet be able to solve the case before he gets into even more trouble?

This is another delightfully funny book in the series. It is chock full of puns and written very much in the style of show more old noir detective novels. While I’m not sure that all kids will get the latter, they will certainly enjoy the former. The humor really sells the series. The mystery itself is fairly predictable but there are enough red herrings for it to be a bit of a surprise for young readers.

That being said, there are a couple of questionable moments here and there. For instance, Chet is rather dismissive of women in general, with this sort of “oh, dames” attitude. There’s also a brief mention of a character being “mental“ as well as somewhat politically incorrect representations with the Nations of the World presentation that the students do. Also, there is a character who reportedly drinks ammonia, which is a bit of a dangerous thing to throw out there for children to read.

However these moments are brief snippets and don’t detract too much from the overall pleasure of the book. I would still feel comfortable recommending it to children looking for something funny, especially if they like mysteries. show less

Review originally posted at The Children's Book and Media Review

Clark the Shark loves school, but sometimes he gets confused about some things. Sharing is one of the things that he gets confused about. He tries to share his appreciation for Benny Blowfish’s song, but Mrs. Inkydink says that he has to wait his turn when he starts dancing. He doesn’t understand why the giver has to choose to share instead of just sharing in the first place. When he wants to share his hockey skills, his show more team is upset that Clark didn’t let anyone else score. Finally Clark learns what sharing is, and it makes him and everyone else happy.

This book is meant to teach about sharing, but it doesn’t feel didactic. Instead, it shows how sharing sometimes can be complicated but still rewarding in a humorous way that children will be able to find relatable. The content may be useful for preschool aged readers, but it could be too long with too many words for some children to appreciate at that age. The references to “Sea Wars” might bring a smile to fans of Star Wars. This is a fun, colorful book to learn about sharing. show less