The Detective of London

by Robert Kraus and Bruce Kraus

Book Overview

The Detective of London searches for missing dinosaur bones that were to be the showpiece of Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee. This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0525615687
• ISBN13: 9780525615682
• Release Date: January 1978
• Publisher: Windmill Books(CA)
• Length: 32 Pages
• Weight: 0.77 lbs.
• Grade Range: Preschool to Grade 2

Customer Reviews

Fun Read with Excellent Artwork!

It's unfortunate that this book is out-of-print, because it's a fun read with excellent artwork. Written by Robert Kraus -- author-illustrator of over 50 children's books, and artistic contributor to The New Yorker magazine (including cover art) -- and his son Bruce Kraus, with illustrations by children's book artist Robert Byrd, The Detective of London follows a dog detective (that is, he's a dog who is a detective, clad in Sherlockian inverness cape, hat, and pipe) as he tracks down a missing collection of valuable dinosaur bones. (There's even an amusing but harmless subtext on the controversy of Darwinian evolution, as it turns out that the bones were stolen by a scholar laughed out of academia because of his assertion that dogs descended from wolves. Children won't understand the humor in this, but adults will get a chuckle.) I first spotted this book at my local public library, and my 6-year-old daughter enjoyed it so much that I enventually purchased a used copy off the Internet. Now my 3-year-old son loves it, even though I have to simplify the text as I read it so that he can understand it. Indeed, the only reason I give this book a 4-star rating, instead of a 5-star rating, is because some of the text is rather advanced for the young audience at which the book is aimed: References to "Prime Minister," "Lord Chancellor," and other British-isms along with words like "Jubilee" require me to swap these terms out with synonyms like "important persons" and "party," so that children can better understand the story. Byrd's illustrations are rendered in moody black-and-while pen and ink with charcoal shading, which adds much to the late 19th-century London atmosphere one associates with Sherlock Holmes-inspired tales such as this one. I hope someone will reprint this little book and give it a new lease on life; otherwise, you can certainly find used copies around.