Mystery of Crocodile Island

I read Nancy Drew as a girl, and still read them to my kids. We have read straight from #1 through to Crocodile Island. Many of them have been wonderfully written, exciting and usually a little predictable. Crocodile Island was not one of my favorites, a bit choppy and the last chapter had a contradictory wrap-up with a certain detail not jiving with info from a couple pages previous! That said I am certain to recommend the series, just not this particular book to a new reader of Nancy.

Overall, I enjoyed this book. I initially picked it because I remember reading it in third grade and loving it, so I was curious to see how or if my opinions of it had changed since childhood. Re-reading it again, I definitely enjoyed it! My favorite part about the story was definitely the mystery and sense of adventure throughout the novel. Though the story started a little slow, there were definitely parts that I didn’t want to put the book down because I wanted to see what would happen next. One thing I also found interesting while reading was that there were a few illustrations scattered throughout the story, but the illustrations were more like sketches and outlines of a scene. I thought this was interesting because while show more reading, I was picturing the story in my head, but then I would come across to the scene and I had the characters looking a little different, particularly more modern than the author depicted. I think this is because Nancy Drew is an older series, and in my head I was picturing a teenager from now as opposed to 30-40 years ago. I definitely appreciated the illustrations because it reminded me of the context and time the story was written. I also enjoyed the overall message of the story. Nancy, the main character, and her friends were in Florida trying to solve a mystery about what was happening to the endangered crocodiles, so the overall message was about why it’s important to protect wildlife.
I would recommend this book for upper elementary and middle school. It’s a definitely a little bit of a longer chapter book, but pretty easy to comprehend. I think any child looking for a good mystery would enjoy it! show less

In a response to a friend's call for help, Nancy's father, a lawyer, asks her to travel to mysterious Crocodile Island with her friends Bess and George to study the reptiles and try to uncover a group of suspected poachers.
Upon their arrival in Florida, the girls are kidnapped but cleverly escape to pursue their detective work. Dangers mount as they cope with reptiles, enemy boats, and exciting chases after the men who are responsible for a sinister racket that involves many unsuspecting victims. In the end, Nancy makes a bold move to untangle the mass of clues. She and Ned become imprisoned in the enemy's submarine and are held for ransom!
How Nancy and Ned are saved and the tables turned on the owners of Crocodile Island are left for show more the reader to discover. show less

Carolyn Keene never fails to deliver an excellent mystery novel in her series of Nancy Drew, super sleuth. I really like how all of her novels follow the same pattern, one would think this could be boring, however, it is satisfying to the reader to know or be able to guess at the events of the novel.
Nancy Drew remains, as always, a terrific protagonist. Her friends, Bess and George, are terrific "sidekicks" with well-developed personalities. I never fail to enjoy these novels, keep producing them!

Bess really irks me.