What Really Happened to Humpty?: (From the Files of a Hard-Boiled Detective): 1 (Nursery-Rhyme Mysteries) - Softcover

Jeanie Franz Ransom; Stephen Axelsen

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1580893910 ISBN 13: 9781580893916

Publisher: Charlesbridge Publishing,U.S., 2010

Synopsis

A Mother Goose mystery that will have readers wondering 'Who done it?". In this fast-paced, nursery-rhyme caper, hardboiled detective, Joe Dumpty does his darnedest to crack the case. It all started when Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall. Then, Humpty Dumpty had a great fall. Or--as his brother Detective Joe Dumpty thinks--was he pushed? Suspects are aplenty (as are the puns) in this scrambled noir. Detective Dumpty works his way through the list of suspects, that hail from the pages of Mother Goose, in order to get to the bottom of what really happened to his brother.

This fractured fairy-tale mystery is full of whimsy and wordplay that will delight readers of all ages.

About this title

Product Description:

What Really Happened to Humpty? Humpty Dumpty had a great fall. Oras his brother Detective Joe Dumpty thinkswas he pushed? This case isnt all its cracked up to be. Suspects are plenty (as are the puns) in this scrambled story of nursery rhyme noir. Was it Little Miss Muffet? Theres something not right about her tuffet. Or could it have been Chicken Little, whos always been a little cagey? Or was it the Big Bad Wolf, whos got a r... Full description

Review:

Clever wordplay marks Ransom's (What Do Your Parents Do? [When You're Not Home]) fast-paced, noir-styled offering. Detective Joe Dumpty unravels the real reason his brother, Humpty, took a spill, interviewing characters that hail from the pages of Mother Goose (she puts in an appearance, too). The puns, a little more subtle than in similar stories, are on target for the suggested audience, e.g., "I looked at my brother. He wasn't moving. Whoever did this was gonna fry!" Axelsen (the Piccolo and Annabelle series) provides plenty of humor with busy cartoon illustrations, many of them inset with boxed vignettes; Chicken Little and her offspring, for example, wear crash helmets and reside in a fortified bunker. The noir conventions add a layer of sophistication to the nursery-rhyme setting, ratcheting up the book's appeal for primary-grade readers.

--Publishers Weekly

About this edition

• Publisher: Charlesbridge Publishing,U.S.
• Publication date: 2010
• ISBN 10: 1580893910
• ISBN 13: 9781580893916
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 40