The Missing Bouncy Ball: A Fox and Goat Mystery

by Misti Kenison

Overview

Emma has lost her favorite bouncy ball in the park. Can our dapper detectives, Fox and Goat, find it for her? Young children will follow their journey through the golf course, past the soccer field, and across the tennis court to the playground as they solve the mystery and learn new concepts along the way. Is the ball small or large, smooth or rough, hard or soft? This toddler's version of Sherlock Holmes is guaranteed to both engage and entertain young minds.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780764356001
Publisher:	Schiffer Publishing, Ltd.
Publication date:	10/15/2018
Series:	Fox and Goat Mysteries , #1
Pages:	28
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 5.90(h) x 0.70(d)
Lexile:	AD260L (what's this?)
Age Range:	3 Months to 6 Years

About the Author

Misti Kenison is a web/graphic designer and owner of MK Design. This is the third board book series that she has written and illustrated. Misti, her husband, and their two children live in Little Rock, Arkansas.

Editorial Reviews

These are such great books! The digital artwork is bright, bold, and eye-catching. The question and answer pattern to each spread invites kids to think, explore, and solve the mysteries as they go, and offers the chance to talk about other colors/textures/sizes/shapes on the pages.

Rosemary Kiladitis

Although adults may have to explain the trope, Fox and Goat are clearly decked out as detectives, in trench coat and fedora and equipped with magnifying glass and binoculars, but author Misti Kenison pokes a little fun at their stereotypical ratiocinations: ace sleuths Fox and Goat may know what is NOT Emma's bouncy ball, but it takes Benji the Dog's nose to find the missing object. Keniston's appendix, "What Were the Clues to Find the Bouncy Ball?" includes graphics for shape, color, and size, and that quintessential quality—bounciness. This concept book offers many teaching opportunities for parents, teachers, and tots, including the idea of a process of elimination which is "elementary, my dear Watson!

Books for Kids Blog

2018-10-28

Detectives Fox and Goat use their powers of deduction to locate the titular lost bouncy ball.

Setting out with lofty goals—to teach visual discrimination and the process of elimination, with a lesson in opposites along the way—the book opens with a glimpse at the eponymous small ball boinging away. On each subsequent page the animal sleuths locate a different ball and explain which characteristics differ from the lost ball: A football is the wrong shape; a tennis ball has an incorrect texture. Its concept is swell, but the execution lags. Only one of the oppositional pairs is clearly shown, making it challenging to compare the two balls, and a vague page of "clues" at the end is useless. The case closes when a stalwart pup delivers the ball to the crying child, an ending that may satisfy observant readers who spotted the dog, ball in mouth, on earlier pages, but it will disappoint those invested in solving the riddle via clues. Equally pallid computer-generated art features a distracting background starburst motif, and the heavily stylized animals, with dark shades for Goat and awkwardly fitted props for both, edge toward uncanny. The detectives appear in a second, similarly flawed book attempting to locate a young black child's Lost Race Car from among a barrage of vehicles.

Upon further investigation, this board book is better off skipped. (Board book. 2-4)

Kirkus Reviews