Children's Mysteries: A Fine Line

Authors of children's mysteries have a fine line to walk and the good ones do it very well. Every children's mystery, worth its salt anyway, needs to have some very specific elements woven through the story. But done without the violence of murder.

Violence as a rule is not part of the good children's mysteries. Puzzles are the order of the day. The story must still hold the twists and turns of adult fiction, plus plenty of intrigue and who-done-it-ness. That's a fine line to walk when you have to keep the violence out of the story.

The top authors of children's mystery books also work in lessons learned by the heros and crime-solvers of the stories. They learn the kind of lessons that are age appropriate for the reader level of the books.

Even though the hero might be a 12 year-old, the readership is younger, usually 9-10 year-olds. So the lessons learned by the older hero must still match the younger reader. But this gets woven in gently. Preaching to children through books is a no-no and doesn't achieve it's mark anyway.

Adult authors who can write for children in the mystery genre have my high praise. This is a tricky business and the good authors have done it well. Those are the books that child in me enjoys reading, too.