Coop Knows the Scoop

by Taryn Souders

Overview

2021 Edgar Award Nominee for Best Juvenile Mystery and the perfect Easter basket addition!

From award-winning author Taryn Souders comes a charming, southern middle grade mystery perfect for fans of Stranger Things and the Masterminds series.

The whole town is talking about what's buried beneath the playground...

Windy Bottom, Georgia is usually a peaceful place. Coop helps his mom at her café and bookstore, hangs out with his grandpa, bikes around with his friends Justice and Liberty, and is determined to live up to his dad's legacy. Windy Bottom is full of all kinds of interesting people, but no one has ever caused a problem. Until now.

And somehow, Gramps is taking all the blame! It seems like there are a lot of secrets that were buried in their small town after all...

Will Coop and his friends get to the bottom of the mystery and clear Gramps's name before it's too late?

You will love Coop and his adventures if you are looking for:

• Mystery books for kids 9-12
• Heartfelt and quirky stories for young readers
• Kids detective books
• 5th grade mystery books

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781492640189
Publisher:	Sourcebooks
Publication date:	07/07/2020
Pages:	304
Sales rank:	35,156
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.20(h) x 0.90(d)
Lexile:	610L (what's this?)
Age Range:	8 - 12 Years

About the Author

Taryn Souders graduated from the University of North Texas with a specialization in mathematics. She is the author of Edgar-nominated Coop Knows the Scoop as well as How to (Almost) Ruin Your Summer. She lives in Winter Park, Florida, with her family. Visit her at tarynsouders.com.

Editorial Reviews

05/25/2020

After his dad died five years ago, 13-year-old Coop and his mother moved to Windy Bottom, Ga., to live with the boy’s paternal grandfather. Construction at the local playground unearths a skeleton that is soon revealed to be that of Coop’s grandmother, who left when Coop’s dad was young. Everyone assumed she had abandoned the family—a terse note from the fashionable woman said she had to get away from small-town life—but it now seems that she was murdered. Suspects begin to emerge, from the town funeral director, who bakes muffins that reek of formaldehyde, to a family that has long hated Coop’s. When his grand-father becomes a person of interest, Coop, an avid mystery reader who has just come into his father’s old Hardy Boys books, becomes determined to find out who committed the crime, even if that person is Gramps. Delightfully quirky townsfolk and details of small-town life create the perfect backdrop for this deftly plotted mystery by Souders (How to Ruin Your Summer). Well-placed red herrings and clues will have readers guessing until the truth comes out. Ages 8–12. Agent: Sally Apokedak, Apokedak Literary. (July)

Publishers Weekly

"Coop Knows the Scoop is a gem of mystery with everything you’re looking for in a whodunit from the pitch perfect setting, to the heartwarming hero, and a plot that will keep you guessing until the end." — James Ponti, Edgar Award-winning author of Vanished!

"An engrossing, good-humored page-turner. " — Kirkus Reviews

"Artfully composed and offering several genuine surprises, this mystery will have young readers speeding through it in a quest to uncover the truth." — Booklist

"[For] libraries with plenty of voracious, and patient, mystery readers." — School Library Journal

"Delightfully quirky townsfolk and details of small-town life create the perfect backdrop for this deftly plotted mystery by Souders (How to [Almost] Ruin Your Summer). Well-placed red herrings and clues will have readers guessing until the truth comes out. " — Publishers Weekly

"[Pleasingly] dark with its secrets, lies, and murder, and it’s pleasingly free of predictability as the author unravels the story. Lovers of mysteries are sure to appreciate the uniqueness of this piece" — The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books

From the Publisher

06/01/2020

Gr 4–6—Summer is winding down in Windy Bottom, GA, and Cooper "Coop" Goodman and his friends can barely contain their curiosity when construction at the town playground uncovers a human skeleton buried under the rusty slide. Coop's excitement is soon replaced by worry when his beloved Gramps is implicated in a long-unsolved crime. Convinced of Gramps' innocence, Coop and his twin pals, Liberty and Justice, set out to solve the mystery and clear his name. Coop winds up suspended from school and grounded by his widowed mom, but, as the title suggests, he indeed "knows the scoop" by the end of the story. The mystery itself is intriguing, but it doesn't take off until almost halfway through the book. Much of the earlier chapters are devoted to introducing Windy Bottom's abundant quirky residents and offering plentiful details of the town's quaintness, which may lose some readers' attention. And while some of the clues are subtle and well placed, others are so obvious that it's not clear how Coop manages to miss them. VERDICT An additional purchase for libraries with plenty of voracious, and patient, mystery readers.—Dana West, Roosevelt H.S., Seattle, WA

School Library Journal

2020-04-12
A middle-grade mystery set in the American South serves up murder and mayhem with a side of hot mustard.

After his Marine hero father died five years ago, Cooper Steven Goodman and his mother, Delilah, took up residence with his paternal grandfather, Dr. Harley Goodman, in bucolic Windy Bottom, Georgia. (Despite the setting and several Civil War references, race plays no part in the story, and all characters are assumed white.) Now 13, Coop spends most of his time with best friends Justice and Liberty, brother-and-sister twins whose parents co-own A Latté Books, Windy Bottom’s only bookstore/cafe, with Coop’s mother. A few days before seventh grade begins, a playground renovation disinters the earthly remains of Tabby Goodman, Coop’s grandmother, who allegedly skipped town four decades earlier, and shatters the small town’s idyllic peace. As evidence stacks up, Coop reckons with revelations that rattle his family’s history. How could he have known his grandmother was the heiress to a shipping fortune? That his grandfather jilted his high school sweetheart when he returned from college? That Gramps’ lifelong injunctions against drinking and gambling are rooted in practice, not principle? Coop’s narration, playful language, nuanced characters, intricate plotting, and a bittersweet conclusion help transform a slow-as-molasses whodunit into a race against the clock. Can Coop and his friends clear Gramps’ name in time—or is everything he thought he knew a lie?

An engrossing, good-humored page-turner. (Mystery. 9-13)

Kirkus Reviews