Rating: My bookshelf

Reading Level: Early Elementary; Mid-late Elementary

These classic, clever little 1960’s mysteries keep my first-grader engaged.

Possible Concerns:

  • Peril. Robbers, gunshots, screams, and sneaky lying criminals. A note on the violence: My first grader is tender and scared even by cartoons like the Grinch and the villains in Wild Kraats or Paw Patrol, but he can handle the violence in these stories.
  • Fist fights. Encyclopedia befriends a girl named Sally, who knocks down Bugs Meany down a few times with several sharp punches. To be fair, she caught him bullying a little boy, but still the girl went straight to violence.
  • Peril without parent supervision. Sally and Encyclopedia go alone together with no grown-ups to a dingy motel to confront a robber’s accomplice. I would have preferred they have a grown up to escort them.
  • Boy/Girl Names? Encyclopedia comments that his dentist, Dr. Vivian is nice but he thinks Vivian is better name for a boy than a girl. This ends up being a key to cracking the case.

For me, these are not big enough issues to make me concerned about keeping this in my home and I love the clever attention to detail that encyclopedia puts to use to solve his cases!

A photo of a couple pages is given below to give parents an idea of what reading level we’re talking here.

*See also reviews of Encyclopedia Brown on ReformedPerspective.ca: https://reformedperspective.ca/encyclopedia-brown-boy-detective/