Tuesday 13 August 2013

The Baker Street Boys: The Case of the Limehouse Laundry by Anthony Read

As previously mentioned we downloaded this to the Nook for holiday reading, purely because we get the train from Limehouse to visit friends when we're in London.  This seemed like quite a spurious reason to download it, but we only had four books in our library basket, and you're allowed five at a time, so in it went.

It turned out to be a bit of a revelation!  C tends to denounce bedtime stories as boring unless they are instantly gripping and/or funny, preferably both.  This had just enough humour and mystery in the opening section to keep him going, and by the time we were about 10 pages in, he was hooked.  A also started to listen in, and by the end they were both heavily invested in the story.

They struggled a bit with knowing when it was set "why are they calling Tower Bridge new, Mummy?  It's really old!?  And Limehouse isn't where Chinatown is!"  Having explained the chronology, I though rather brilliantly, C piped up "so was it before or after the Great Fire then?"  I think we may spend some time this holiday making some sort of rough timeline...

Anyway, the stories involve Sherlock Holmes in a minimal role, but it's the children who make up the Boys that really solve the mystery.  It has sparked an interest in Holmes in the kids though, so we might do a visit to the Baker Street museum next time we're in London. 

The best news for C and me is that there are lots more of the books in the series, and the library have a very good selection of them available for the ereader :)  Bedtime story dilemmas solved for the foreseeable future.

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