Just So Stories

Penguin Australia

June 2025

ISBN: 9780241636183

Imprint: Puffin

RRP: $16.99

It was actually quite serendipitous that as friend, Zanni Louise, mentioned she was enjoying a Janice Hallett murder-mystery – an author whose work I didn’t know – I replied by saying, I had just got a review copy of her first kids’ book, also a murder mystery.

And it’s been a terrific read over the past week or so, though not at all what I expected. It’s sort of like an extended game of Cluedo to my mind – an interactive murder investigation that invites the readers to figure out the solution via all the given information. It was a fabulous reading experience, especially for M/M tragics like myself.

Ava and Luke are siblings, separated by only a year and very close, whose parents have divorced. Each child lives with a parent, not because they wanted to be apart but because neither wanted a parent to be alone. Luke is still with Dad and Daisy, the dog, in what was also their grandparents’ former home. Ava, with her mother, is in a flat not far away.

When Luke discovers a box of papers, folders and other ephemera in the loft, it seems to be a record of a scout/guide camp from 1983 where there were some very mysterious happenings – including a possible murder or two! Sending a page at a time, photographed, to Ava via text messages, the children begin to unravel the circumstances of a camp like no other [certainly not like any I led back in my days of being a brownie and guide leader – thank goodness!].

From the outset the first paper in this collection invites ‘future readers’ to try and solve the case. The papers themselves consist of diary entries from the campers, incident reports from the leaders, police reports, newspaper clippings and intermittently, a progress report for the intended ‘future readers’ to complete.

The actual reader is, of course, privy to all these and so is also in the same position as Ava and Luke, trying to piece together fragments of evidence, and in the unique position of overseeing all the bits and pieces that were not necessarily available to the actual people involved at the time.

It is a truly ingenious method of inviting the reader into the narrative, and was both clever and cunning. Along with the mystery itself, the children are highly amused by finding out about ‘old school’ technology like digital watches and walkmans as well as defining unknown words.

There is a good sprinkling of humour throughout especially with the siblings’ texts which also include tiny emojis and also, the misunderstandings of some of the campers’ e.g. the police officer’s ‘sauce’ of information, rather than ‘source’ as written by one.

I thoroughly enjoyed it, and your able readers from mid-primary up to early secondary would also. They probably need to be discerning readers, as they need to sift and interpret the written clues with attention but it would make for a very fun read for many.

The great thing is that we already know there will be more as Luke discovers, at the end, there are MORE such boxes in the loft. Let the investigations continue! I enthusiastically give it a 5 🕵️🕵️🦤🕵️‍♀️🕵️‍♀️for readers from around year 4 upwards.

EDIT: More serendipity – CSIRO posted their Freaky Fungi Friday pics and lo! Dead Man’s Fingers (read the book!)