Mystery and Adventure

Mystery and adventure go hand-in-hand. Many good adventure stories involve a mystery to be solved, and often a mystery involves characters going on an adventure. These books differ from realistic fiction and fantasy by bringing the focus toward solving a problem or escaping some event. The two books below have adventure and mystery elements, as well as horror elements. 

Heidecker, Christian McCay. Scary Stories for Young Foxes. Henry Holt, 2019. 320 pages. Tr. $16.99, ISBN 978-1-250-18142-8

Seven fox children gather around an elder fox, in order to hear scary stories. Each story follows the experiences of two young foxes, Mia and Uly. Throughout the stories we see Mia and eventually Uly (a disabled fox) learn to survive in the world against the odds. Mia's story starts with an attack against Mia's family by an infection that spreads and causes any foxes caught to lose control of themselves and become violent. Uly's story starts with learning about his disability (a malformed leg) and the abuse he faces from his siblings and ultimately his father, who wants him killed for being weak. The two escape their predicaments before falling into further ones, including Mia's capture by a scientist hunter. Each story ends with one of the fox children becoming too afraid to stay listening to the stories until only one remains. The book has themes similar to Brothers Grimm tales and other old fairy tales, where violent ends were commonplace. While there were some scenes in this book that I found to be overly gruesome for the age range, I still found myself entranced by each story, and how they all tied together. The book is aimed at children in grades 4-6, however, I feel like because of the violent scenes, reader discretion is advised.

Ansari, Rebecca. The In-Between. Walden Pond Press, 2021. 336 pages. $18.99, ISBN 978-0062916099

A middle grade adventure/mystery novel in which a brother and sister attempt to piece together what their oddly quiet neighbor has in connection to a train crash one hundred years prior. Cooper, the male lead, expresses very strong emotions regarding feeling invisible and feeling abandoned, as his father has left the family for a new family before the events of the book. The In-Between starts with Cooper being angry, with his complex emotions causing difficulties between him and his family, and him and his friends. His sister, Jess, finds an article about a train crash 100 years ago, and notices that the mysterious symbol found on a victim of the crash is oddly a match for the insignia on the mystery neighbor girl's jacket. What follows is a supernatural themed adventure all about loss of self, about being forgotten, and about growing up. A good pick for middle grade children who are beginning to understand their own mortality and the pains and difficulties that realization comes with.