Title: Nooks and Crannies
Author: Jessica Lawson
Narrator: Susie Riddell
Length: 7h 27m
Format: Full length story
Age Group: 9+
Tabitha Crum has two great joys in her life: (1) talking to her pet mouse Pemberly, and (2) reading mystery novels featuring a wise, fictional mentor – Inspector Pensive. Otherwise, she is a lonely child, bullied at school and sadly neglected by her parents.
But wait! Excitement is just around the corner. When Tabitha and five other children receive invitations to the home of a wealthy countess, Tabitha is plunged into a delicious, real-life mystery. There are disappearing guests, ghostly noises emanating from walls, portraits with roving eyes, puzzling questions about their knife-wielding hostess, a (not-too-gruesome) dead body, and a questionable inheritance. Tabitha’s powers of deduction must rise to the occasion.
The book seems to draw initially on Roald Dahl (particularly Charlie and Chocolate Factory and Matilda), but quickly charts its own rollicking, mystery-novel course. Narrator Susie Riddell more than does justice to the tale, which is written with humor, poignancy and suspense.
Suggestions: This is a long audiobook – save it for a lengthy road trip. Before listening, it might be wise to give kids a heads-up: The story begins with an excerpt from a news article, each chapter begins with a quote from a fictional Inspector Pensive novel, and Tabitha often has conversations on the side with her mouse Pemberly. A heads-up might prevent confusion when listening to the first chapter.
Access: The link above is through Audible at Amazon.com. Depending upon where you live in the world, you can likely also access this audiobook for free through your public library and other resources that I am blogging about, like Hoopla.
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