Book Title: The Case of the Racehorse Ringer
Author: Anthony Read
Series: Sherlock Holmes' Baker Street Boys #7
Series: Sherlock Holmes' Baker Street Boys #7
Date Started: July 21st 2013
Date Completed: July 22nd 2013
Genres: Adventure, Mystery
Rating: Four stars
Review:
I do think that this is one of the best children's series out there. It might not be a 'classic' and have a clear moral, but such a good story for younger readers - and even I was really engaged throughout the whole thing.
The Case of the Racehorse Ringer carries on from the previous Baker Street Boys book, The Case of the Haunted Horrors, and follows Sherlock Holmes' irregulars as they try and solve a murder for which Gertie's father has been wrongly accused of. But it seems that the mystery has more to it than just a night of bloodshed.
The writing was appropriate for the age group this book was aimed at: basically, it was incredibly easy and gave the reader a lot of the answers directly. The speech was fairly unrealistic and didn't always suit who was speaking - but at the end of the day, this is a children's book, and therefore isn't necessarily affected by the peculiar use of language for the characters.
The thing I really love about Read's writing - and therefore hope he actually goes on to write some sort of Young Adult novel in the future - is that it has a huge amount of potential. He may be obvious with his descriptions and doesn't vary his vocabulary much, but I can see how each sentence could easily be tweaked by adding an extra adjective etc to make it a really interesting text.
At the end of the day, the writing style was very fitting to the age group this book is aimed at, and therefore was good enough to keep my attention whilst I was reading the story.
I love the innocence of Read's stories. I'd read all the other Baker Street Boys stories when I was younger and, since this was the last instalment, I felt obliged to finish the series.
The plot is always predictable, and the mysteries are easy to slow very early on, but that's what gives it a certain charm, I think.
Read's stories are always fast moving and simple to understand. Not that much tends to happen, honestly. One of the characters discovers a crime, and the rest start to investigate: Wiggins has his visit to Holmes or Watson, and one of the gang get an undercover job at the scene of the crime. They then continue to get into a bit of a mess, where they are then saved by their friends and get into contact with the police, where it turns out that Holmes has been following them the whole time and helps draw the case to a close. This episode is no different.
I liked the slight addition to the typical story with Gertie's father being involved, but there wasn't much else variety from the usual books in the series.
I felt a lot of the characters were neglected in this book, so I'm going to describe all of them anyway.
Wiggins is effectively the main protagonist, being the leader of the Boys and closer to Holmes than the rest of them. He always has a big part to play in the stories, as he did in this one. Wiggins is always the one to end up solving the cases, but to be honest I doubt he could do much with the help of his friends. But, since this is a children's book, that makes sense, so as to promote working together with other people.
Gertie is the tom-boy of the group; she refuses to wear a dress, and therefore gets jobs since the employers think of her as a boy (yet she still seems to advertise the fact she's female - which does confuse me a little). Her feisty attitude is definitely needed in the group, since the rest are all either trying to be sophisticated or are a little too cheeky for their own good.
Sparrow is lovely. He makes friends really easily, and he's good at adapting to new situations. This is probably why he's usually quite involved in the plots of most of the stories - he's regularly the member to go in as an undercover agent.
Beaver is Wiggins' right-hand man. He's very loveable, and quite slow most of the time too. He's hardly mentioned at all in this book, but when he is included in the stories, he usually has a big part playing as the leader's personal assitant.
Queenie is by far my favourite character - which is why I get really annoyed when she's forced to stay in HQ and very rarely gets a big part in any of the books. She's the 'mum' of the Boys, and has the loveable, protective nature that's common in older siblings in children's books (she does happen to be Shiner's older sister, as well). I've always related to her more than any of Read's other characters because she seems the most real to me (the little details mainly - correcting her friends when they get their grammar wrong, since only she and Wiggins can read and write - that sort of thing). But, because of this, she rarely gets in on any of the action.
Rosie always annoyed me a little bit; she's the 'damsel in distress'. Admittedly, I understand that this sort of character might appeal to some children reading the books, but her absolutely hopeless nature did get on my nerves quite a lot throughout the series.
Shiner is Queenie's brother, and again gets very little time in the limelight. Shiner is adorable, and I think he should be included more, along with his sister. I also want to know more about both of their pasts - the most we ever hear is that they ran away from their abusive father when their mother died, and then they never said another word about it.
The pace was fairly consistent, but it was never really that thrilling. We're thrown into the story right from the beginning, but it never really peaks that high on the excitement scale. Once again, due to the audience, it doesn't really matter that much, but it definitely sticks out from an older reader's perspective.
I haven't witnessed many adaptations of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's ideas before, but I definitely think this is near the top of my list for the ones I have experienced. They're reasonably true to history, and Doyle's traditional idea for the sorts of stories that took place, so I think that first of all is a great way to portray the series to a young age group.
The portrayals of Doyle's characters are slightly different to what I would imagine, but for children, I think the appropriate stereotypes were addressed in order to appeal to the readers. Holmes isn't actually included that much, leaving Watson to deal with the irregulars for a lot of the time, but there was nothing particularly wrong with this, and it definitely kept up the mysterious air around their idol. Mortiarty's presentation was a little too innocent for my older taste, but, once again, it fitted perfectly for the younger readers.
This book has four stars because, compared to other books aimed a similar target audience, it's definitely one of the best. I know I am reasonably strict with the ratings I give books so do not, however, presume I am comparing this story to those of the Young Adult or more mature genres - because I'm not. It's a very good book for younger readers, and that is why I felt it deserved such a high rating.
I would recommend this to anyone who has younger siblings that they want to get interested in mystery and Sherlock Holmes. I admit, I wasn't particularly thrilled by the idea of the Holmes series when I was younger, but after reading this books, I was definitely more eager to try them - so I think it's a great idea for getting your siblings/children etc into the stories.
If you're an older reader, maybe not. I read the book because I wanted to finish my childhood, but it might not appeal that much to anyone else my age.
But definitely recommended to younger readers. They're great for getting kids into reading etc.
Image Source: http://www.walker.co.uk/walkerdam/
getimage.aspx?id=9781406335248-1&size=webuse
I do think that this is one of the best children's series out there. It might not be a 'classic' and have a clear moral, but such a good story for younger readers - and even I was really engaged throughout the whole thing.
The Case of the Racehorse Ringer carries on from the previous Baker Street Boys book, The Case of the Haunted Horrors, and follows Sherlock Holmes' irregulars as they try and solve a murder for which Gertie's father has been wrongly accused of. But it seems that the mystery has more to it than just a night of bloodshed.
The writing was appropriate for the age group this book was aimed at: basically, it was incredibly easy and gave the reader a lot of the answers directly. The speech was fairly unrealistic and didn't always suit who was speaking - but at the end of the day, this is a children's book, and therefore isn't necessarily affected by the peculiar use of language for the characters.
The thing I really love about Read's writing - and therefore hope he actually goes on to write some sort of Young Adult novel in the future - is that it has a huge amount of potential. He may be obvious with his descriptions and doesn't vary his vocabulary much, but I can see how each sentence could easily be tweaked by adding an extra adjective etc to make it a really interesting text.
At the end of the day, the writing style was very fitting to the age group this book is aimed at, and therefore was good enough to keep my attention whilst I was reading the story.
I love the innocence of Read's stories. I'd read all the other Baker Street Boys stories when I was younger and, since this was the last instalment, I felt obliged to finish the series.
The plot is always predictable, and the mysteries are easy to slow very early on, but that's what gives it a certain charm, I think.
Read's stories are always fast moving and simple to understand. Not that much tends to happen, honestly. One of the characters discovers a crime, and the rest start to investigate: Wiggins has his visit to Holmes or Watson, and one of the gang get an undercover job at the scene of the crime. They then continue to get into a bit of a mess, where they are then saved by their friends and get into contact with the police, where it turns out that Holmes has been following them the whole time and helps draw the case to a close. This episode is no different.
I liked the slight addition to the typical story with Gertie's father being involved, but there wasn't much else variety from the usual books in the series.
I felt a lot of the characters were neglected in this book, so I'm going to describe all of them anyway.
Wiggins is effectively the main protagonist, being the leader of the Boys and closer to Holmes than the rest of them. He always has a big part to play in the stories, as he did in this one. Wiggins is always the one to end up solving the cases, but to be honest I doubt he could do much with the help of his friends. But, since this is a children's book, that makes sense, so as to promote working together with other people.
Gertie is the tom-boy of the group; she refuses to wear a dress, and therefore gets jobs since the employers think of her as a boy (yet she still seems to advertise the fact she's female - which does confuse me a little). Her feisty attitude is definitely needed in the group, since the rest are all either trying to be sophisticated or are a little too cheeky for their own good.
Sparrow is lovely. He makes friends really easily, and he's good at adapting to new situations. This is probably why he's usually quite involved in the plots of most of the stories - he's regularly the member to go in as an undercover agent.
Beaver is Wiggins' right-hand man. He's very loveable, and quite slow most of the time too. He's hardly mentioned at all in this book, but when he is included in the stories, he usually has a big part playing as the leader's personal assitant.
Queenie is by far my favourite character - which is why I get really annoyed when she's forced to stay in HQ and very rarely gets a big part in any of the books. She's the 'mum' of the Boys, and has the loveable, protective nature that's common in older siblings in children's books (she does happen to be Shiner's older sister, as well). I've always related to her more than any of Read's other characters because she seems the most real to me (the little details mainly - correcting her friends when they get their grammar wrong, since only she and Wiggins can read and write - that sort of thing). But, because of this, she rarely gets in on any of the action.
Rosie always annoyed me a little bit; she's the 'damsel in distress'. Admittedly, I understand that this sort of character might appeal to some children reading the books, but her absolutely hopeless nature did get on my nerves quite a lot throughout the series.
Shiner is Queenie's brother, and again gets very little time in the limelight. Shiner is adorable, and I think he should be included more, along with his sister. I also want to know more about both of their pasts - the most we ever hear is that they ran away from their abusive father when their mother died, and then they never said another word about it.
The pace was fairly consistent, but it was never really that thrilling. We're thrown into the story right from the beginning, but it never really peaks that high on the excitement scale. Once again, due to the audience, it doesn't really matter that much, but it definitely sticks out from an older reader's perspective.
I haven't witnessed many adaptations of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's ideas before, but I definitely think this is near the top of my list for the ones I have experienced. They're reasonably true to history, and Doyle's traditional idea for the sorts of stories that took place, so I think that first of all is a great way to portray the series to a young age group.
The portrayals of Doyle's characters are slightly different to what I would imagine, but for children, I think the appropriate stereotypes were addressed in order to appeal to the readers. Holmes isn't actually included that much, leaving Watson to deal with the irregulars for a lot of the time, but there was nothing particularly wrong with this, and it definitely kept up the mysterious air around their idol. Mortiarty's presentation was a little too innocent for my older taste, but, once again, it fitted perfectly for the younger readers.
This book has four stars because, compared to other books aimed a similar target audience, it's definitely one of the best. I know I am reasonably strict with the ratings I give books so do not, however, presume I am comparing this story to those of the Young Adult or more mature genres - because I'm not. It's a very good book for younger readers, and that is why I felt it deserved such a high rating.
I would recommend this to anyone who has younger siblings that they want to get interested in mystery and Sherlock Holmes. I admit, I wasn't particularly thrilled by the idea of the Holmes series when I was younger, but after reading this books, I was definitely more eager to try them - so I think it's a great idea for getting your siblings/children etc into the stories.
If you're an older reader, maybe not. I read the book because I wanted to finish my childhood, but it might not appeal that much to anyone else my age.
But definitely recommended to younger readers. They're great for getting kids into reading etc.
Image Source: http://www.walker.co.uk/walkerdam/
getimage.aspx?id=9781406335248-1&size=webuse
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