JOE SHERLOCK

JOE SHERLOCK is another not new, but new-to-me series. Joe is a ten-year-old detective who charges his friends and neighbors $10 a day to solve their mysteries. Although Joe seems to get the job done, it's generally not without a few mishaps. 

I read Case #00002, The Neighborhood Stink, this week during Reading Workshop. In this book,  Joe has been hired to discover which neighborhood dog is pooping on his neighbor, Mrs. Fefferman's, otherwise pristine lawn.  In one hilarious chapter, he is staking out the yard and sits in an ant pile. Of course he has to take his pants off right there. He runs across the street in his Captain Winkie Boxers; his two evil sisters think this is hilarious and lock him out of the house. Joe decides to crawl through the dog door, but gets stuck halfway, still clad in only his Captain Winkies. 

The books are a little racier, and a little more Captain Underpants-ish than some of the typical series that are easily accessible to kids just breaking into chapter books. My fourth grade boys have devoured the first three and are begging me to make a trip to the bookstore to pick up more this weekend.