The Boxcar Children: Great Adventure 3 - The Detour of the Elephants

The Boxcar Children's 75th Anniversary celebration continues with this third book in the "Great Adventure" series. And as I continue reading this five-part mystery/adventure, I discovered that this "Great Adventure" series falls outside the ongoing mystery series - for Amazon shows that once these five books are published, then the next book, The Donut Whodunnit, is listed as book 146 - which would be the correct number following The Election Day Dilemma, which was the last book published in 2016 and was numbered 145.

In any event, The Detour of the Elephants was, I thought, a rather odd name for a mystery. This series has found the four Alden children traveling the world to return priceless artifacts to their original owners, helping the super-secret Reddimus Society. And even though it is a bit of a stretch to think that any responsible adult would let four children, all under the age of 16, go gallivanting across the globe without any parental supervision, one simply puts that factor aside for the enjoyment of the story. After visiting New Mexico, Egypt, England, and Italy, this third installment finds the Aldens visiting Beijing, China and then Bangkok, Thailand.

Authors Dee Garretson and JM Lee provide plenty of clues for the children to solve (although they are not so difficult for any adult reader), and that is half the fun of reading the story is watching as Henry, Jessie, Violet, and Benny work their way through the clues to discover their destination, as well as the code necessary to open each box containing another artifact.  Garretson and Lee provide plenty of history for the two countries the siblings visit, and like with the children's mystery series of days gone by, there is plenty of knowledge to be gained about the various cultures and lifestyles of their foreign citizens.  (In a way, this "Great Adventure" is somewhat similar to the Greetings From Somewhere series for early readers - making the Boxcar Children an almost intermediate series, bridging the gap between Greetings From Somewhere and the Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew series.)

This book also features an interesting departure from the previous two books. While the rival organization, the Argents, have been following the Alden children, trying to steal the artifacts before they can be returned, their antics have been somewhat limited to simple theft. In this mystery, however, Garretson and Lee raise the stakes - for not only does the Argent society mislead the children and have them travel to Thailand unnecessarily, but the children learn there is a traitor in their midst - and while they don't know exactly who it is, they have it narrowed down to two people who are very close to them!

The art, for both the cover and the interior, by Anthony VanArsdale is beautiful.  His pencil art on the interiors is especially gorgeous to me, as I love the pencils - very reminiscent of the Ruth Sanderson art in the Nancy Drew and Bobbsey Twins books back in the early 1980s, in that there are the soft lines and curves, rather than the dark, harsh angles from a lot of pencil interior art I've seen in children's books.

Only two more books to go in this 5-part adventure, so I'm curious to see how the authors will ultimately resolve the over-arching mystery.

RATING:  7 empty camera cases out of 10 for reinvigorating a childhood favorite series of mine with a fun new mystery adventure.