Hound the detective by Kimberley Andrews

Puffin, 2020. ISBN: 9780143774655.
(Age: 5+) Highly recommended. Hound is known for always solving his cases, hunting out clues to find the answer to the question, but this time he is stumped and asks the readers to walk alongside him as he follows the clues on each page. Readers are at once saddled with a quest, to seek out  the clues on each page, noting things which may lead Hound to a conclusion, and along the way search for the 17 hidden  caterpillars.
Readers will love searching through the detective paraphernalia illustrated, from magnifying glasses to the deerstalker hat, while notes, scraps of paper, letters, postcards and signposts all muddy the waters ready to sweep the avid sleuths onto the wrong trail.
Each page has a different clue, given in the rhyming stanza, pointing the reader to look in a certain way and travel along the path given, through several houses, and gardens, a village fair, shop and cabin in the woods, a train station, and finally to a dark part of the town with overhanging Elizabethan timbers to meet his fate.
A fun time will be had as readers follow the sleuth, finding with him the answers to the questions posed in the stanzas, marvelling at the sumptuous illustrations, taking in the huge amount of detail before their eyes, watching out for the array of animals on each page, hunting for the caterpillar, and above all having fun.
Author of Puffin the architect and Song of the river, Kimberley Andrews lives and works in Wellington, after training as a biologist in Canada and living and working in London, New Zealand and Borneo before settling in New Zealand where she is able to pursue her passion for the plants and animals of that country.
Theme: Detecting, Clues, Animals.
Fran Knight