Janie's Private Eyes is the last book of the Stanley series, and it heavily features one of the two Ensemble Darkhorses, Janie, the talkative now 8-year-old know-it-all.
Janie has a good amount of book smarts regarding detective work, and excitedly rushes ahead and does her own amateurish investigations. Janie is a great character, a lot of fun, and really makes the story work.
The narration, like before, follows David, the older brother of the Stanley household. David uses the convenient plot device of blending his school project (learn things about the town and interview people) with his investigation into the dognappings. But Janie's insistence on trying out her ideas, snooping her own way, and rushing ahead to where she thinks clues are, ends up frustrating him.
This creates a contrast in how he and Janie go about their investigations - David does things the "traditional" way, asking questions and so on, but Janie tries all sorts of things, such as setting up a tape recorder to secretly record a conversation where she thinks an important one might occur. It would have been fun to see the story follow Janie during these moments, as reading about what she did after the fact, while funny, also makes her crazy investigating techniques and goofy attempts to spy sound more interesting than David's straightforward "ask questions, try to figure things out" method.
The story holds up very well, partly due to the plot twists, tension from having semi-former bully Pete Garvey (who still doesn't get along well with David) as a partner on the school project, and fun character moments. Janie steals every scene she's in, period. There's even a fun part where the kids, while spying on a dog they suspect will be dognapped soon, end up being taken to a police station by a suspicious cop. While there, as David and Amanda try to save face and explain away what they were doing, Janie ends up blabbing so much that she soon gets questioned separately, and ends up cracking up everyone in the station. The kids are let go, and when David has to return to the station to get back Janie's notebook, he witnesses the cops laughing riotously at the recording of Janie's questioning.
Janie's Private Eyes is a fun mystery, helped along by its colorful characters, but mainly its title character, the show stealer.
Book 4, Janie's Private Eyes - fun character makes for fun storytelling
Janie's Private Eyes is the last book of the Stanley series, and it heavily features one of the two Ensemble Darkhorses, Janie, the talkative now 8-year-old know-it-all.
Janie has a good amount of book smarts regarding detective work, and excitedly rushes ahead and does her own amateurish investigations. Janie is a great character, a lot of fun, and really makes the story work.
The narration, like before, follows David, the older brother of the Stanley household. David uses the convenient plot device of blending his school project (learn things about the town and interview people) with his investigation into the dognappings. But Janie's insistence on trying out her ideas, snooping her own way, and rushing ahead to where she thinks clues are, ends up frustrating him.
This creates a contrast in how he and Janie go about their investigations - David does things the "traditional" way, asking questions and so on, but Janie tries all sorts of things, such as setting up a tape recorder to secretly record a conversation where she thinks an important one might occur. It would have been fun to see the story follow Janie during these moments, as reading about what she did after the fact, while funny, also makes her crazy investigating techniques and goofy attempts to spy sound more interesting than David's straightforward "ask questions, try to figure things out" method.
The story holds up very well, partly due to the plot twists, tension from having semi-former bully Pete Garvey (who still doesn't get along well with David) as a partner on the school project, and fun character moments. Janie steals every scene she's in, period. There's even a fun part where the kids, while spying on a dog they suspect will be dognapped soon, end up being taken to a police station by a suspicious cop. While there, as David and Amanda try to save face and explain away what they were doing, Janie ends up blabbing so much that she soon gets questioned separately, and ends up cracking up everyone in the station. The kids are let go, and when David has to return to the station to get back Janie's notebook, he witnesses the cops laughing riotously at the recording of Janie's questioning.
Janie's Private Eyes is a fun mystery, helped along by its colorful characters, but mainly its title character, the show stealer.