The Crown Affair (Nursery-Rhyme Mysteries)

Guides by Deb – Keeping your books in the hearts of young readers and in the hands of those who care for them.

The guide linked below was created by Debbie Gonzales, MFA. Deb is a career educator, curriculum consultant, former school administrator and adjunct professor, and once served as a SCBWI RA for the Austin Chapter. She's the author of six “transitional” readers for a New Zealand publisher and the forthcoming non-fiction picture book Girls with Guts: The Road to Breaking Barriers and Bashing Records (Charlesbridge, 2019). Deb earned her MFA in writing for children and young adults from the Vermont College of Fine Arts.

Are you interested in discussing a reader’s guide project? If so, click here. Deb’s eager to hear from you!

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• Author: Jeanie Franz Ransom

• Illustrator: Stephen Axelsen

• Publisher: Charlesbridge

• ISBN: 978-1580893916

• Synopsis:

  A Mother Goose mystery that will have readers wondering ‘Who done it?”. In this fast-paced, nursery-rhyme caper, hardboiled detective, Joe Dumpty does his darnedest to crack the case. It all started when Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall. Then, Humpty Dumpty had a great fall. Or—as his brother Detective Joe Dumpty thinks—was he pushed?  Suspects are aplenty (as are the puns) in this scrambled noir. Detective Dumpty works his way through the list of suspects, that hail from the pages of Mother Goose, in order to get to the bottom of what really happened to his brother.

  This fractured fairy-tale mystery is full of whimsy and wordplay that will delight readers of all ages.

• Click here for Discussion/Activity Guide