Mystery Genre

Apologies for the lack of recent reviews. I have been reading (re-reading in many cases) Agatha Christie novels, as I created a mystery unit genre for my students.

My honors classes enjoyed these titles: And Then There Were None, A Mysterious Affair At Styles (Her first, written on a dare by her sister), Murder on the Orient Express, They Came To Baghdad and Death on the Nile. I am in the middle of Death on the Nile, and thus far it is my favorite of these few Christie novels.

Despite the lexile level (a method of determining reading level) being within or lower than their range, many students struggled with the novels. This is due of course to the fact that lexile levels don't deal with the complexity of the plot, sentence structure, the need for French translations, a huge number of characters and distractors (red-herrings).

I enjoyed rereading these novels, and had been an avid Christie reader when I was young, after going through a slew of Nancy Drew books.

This go around I was surprised by the use of the "n" word in a few of her novels. A character randomly used the word in A Mysterious Affair at Styles, and in And Then There Were None, it was used twice in a random way. I later learned though that the original title of this book was Ten Little "n" word", later it became Ten Little Indians (and the poem is a main feature of the novel, predicting each death), and then it was switched to its current title.

While I totally understand keeping certain historical novels as they were originally written, I had huge issues with the word appearing in these novels, so randomly, and without any true historical reference. Talked with the students about it...and pretty much moved on...but it was jarring to see.

It also appears in Dumb Witness. I haven't read all of her novels, so can't swear it doesn't appear in others...but in the 10 I have read recently it was in those 3. They remain great mysteries with clever twists.

Speaking of plot twists, nothing beats her short story, A Witness for the Prosecution. I read this aloud to my classes as an introduction to the genre. They all loved the ending. The movie ending is very disappointing, as it changes the ending greatly (just an fyi).

Many students weren't able to read the Christie novels, and I found some titles that they are enjoying. Shakespeare's Secret by Elise Broach is very engaging, well written, with nicely developed characters. Perfect for the average 4th-7th grade reader.

One I highly recommend is Sammy Keys and the Wedding Crasher by Wendelin Van Draanen. This is the 13th in the series, featuring Sammy who is now in the 8th grade. I had read the first years ago, and decided rather than catching up I would just jump into this, her latest. I loved the characters, and the mystery. I think every middle school student will appreciate it as well. Sammy and others are accused of threatening their history teacher, Mr. Vance. It was realistically told, and Sammy as the narrator, has an engaging voice.