The Mystery on Alaska's Iditarod Trail

I think it is wonderful that Carole Marsh uses real kids and real places in her mysteries. She creates wonderful mind pictures with her many detailed discriptions. As a result it is easy to imagine you are there a part of the action and the story.

Good read-aloud for younger kids and read-alone for older kids.

My son is ten and really enjoyed this book. I picked it up because he has really enjoyed the huskies on Nintendogs, and I thought he might like this tale. He did! We will be reading more of these mysteries! Carole Marsh uses real kids in her book. As far as a work of fiction, there is not that much imagination, but the stories are VERY real, and very educational. The dialog between the kids is excellent, and that is what keeps the real interest going. As a parent, I so appreciate how she includes maps and educational tidbits. There's a scavenger hunt at the end that can be photocopied. I did this book as a read aloud. It was not so thick as to be cumbersome. I gave my child a copy of the scavenger hunt. He enjoyed 'finding' the items and checking them off his list. We turned this book into a unit study and it was FUN! I did not get one word of complaint, and my son would always want to do another chapter, even when I was busy. Therefore, we finished this book QUICK! I hope they will let me pass on this tidbit - in addition to the book, there are great pictures and educational worksheets on math and many other academic subjects over at http://www.iditarod.com Here's the link to the worksheets and lessons - they go LIKE A DREAM with this book and are free: http://www.iditarod.com/4-1-1.html Enjoy!