Detective Stories

Detective Stories Selected by Phillip Pullman

This book is skewed for a lightly older audience than the grades I'm certified to teach. Perhaps 8th-9th grade reading levels are appropriate here. And to be honest, I didn't finish this book before I returned it to the library. Short story collections are not really my style of reading.

Still, I like detective stories. Sherlock Holmes is my favorite. But I like Encyclopedia Brown, Pullman's own detective/mystery trilogy, and the like. Not a big fan of Poirot, which is one of the selections in this volume. And definitely not a big fan of "stupid kid" stories like Emil and The Detectives, which is another selection in this volume.

Stupid kid stories are annoying. Well, should I say it's more like "lack of common sense kids" stories. The kind where their own naivete puts them in increasingly more ridiculous situations than the previous one before. Like Sammy Keyes and the Hotel Thief.

Spunky kids, random kids, adventurous kids, mean kids, innocently wide-eyed kids, those stories I can handle. But not the stupid kids. Seriously, stupid kids don't belong in detective stories - unless they are the victims.