Title: The Puzzle of the Paper Daughter: A Julie Mystery
Series: American Girl Mystery
Author: Kathryn Reiss
Publishers: American Girl Publishing Inc
Genres: Mystery, Middle Grade, Children’s, Historical
Pages: 181
Format: Paperback
Rating: 5/5
Release Date: March 1st 2010
Summary: Julie discovers a mysterious note written in Chinese. She brings it to her friend Ivy to translate, and learns that the note once belonged to Ivy’s grandmother, from long ago when she was a girl immigrating from China to San Francisco. The note promises great treasure, but it doesn’t quite make sense–it’s almost as if the writer was sending a secret message in code. Soon after the discovery of the note, Julie’s and Ivy’s beloved dolls are stolen. Who would do such a thing, and why? Seeking clues, Julie and Ivy search all over Chinatown and even visit the immigration station on Angel Island. Gradually, Julie realizes that in order to find the doll thief, she must figure out the real message hidden in the Chinese note.
Review: This book was nothing as I expected based on the title of this book. It was such an amazing read, filled with so much history and information I never knew a thing about prior to this book.
Julie finds a note hidden in donated clothing and soon finds that it had an amazing heartbreaking story behind it which leads to Julie and Ivy trying to find her PO PO’s best friend from many years ago all while solving who took their dolls and why.
It was such an amazing journey and trying to solve it was really fun as this wasn’t one of the overly predictable ones like some of the AG mysteries have been.
About Author: Kathryn Reiss was born in Massachusetts, grew up in Ohio, and received B.A. degrees in English and German from Duke University, and an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from the University of Michigan. After college, she lived in Bonn, Germany as a Fulbright Scholar, and during this time wrote the first draft of her first novel.
Ms. Reiss has been a Writer in Residence for the Princeton Arts Council, a recipient of the New Jersey State Council on the Arts Grant for Writers, and has been a featured speaker with (among others) Sisters in Crime, Mystery Writers of America, The Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators, The Northern California Library Association, The International Reading Association, Fresno County Office of Education, California Reading Association, The American Library Association, and the National Council of Teachers of English. She lives in Northern California with her husband and five children, and teaches Creative Writing at Mills College.
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