HarperCollins Children's Books Dotty Detective (Book 1)

My daughter loves the Dotty Detective series! After we read the first book together, with it's lively diary format and fun illustrations, she couldn't wait to get more of the series and quickly whizzed through them all herself. The stories are funny, honest and full of adventure, and my daughter can really relate to the characters and their experiences at school/away at camp etc.I love that Dotty is a strong, intelligent character who follows her own path (as well as the detective clues to solve the mystery) and who looks out for her friends. I particularly like the fact that Dotty's best friend is a boy (Beans). So many children's books, films and TV programmes separate the sexes nowadays, but boys and girls can be friends and enjoy playing together, and both boys and girls can enjoy these books.My daughter regularly re-reads these books and uses the secret codes and detective ideas in her games and her own stories. She was also lucky enough to meet the lovely author at a book festival, and it really inspired her! She uses the tips she picked up in her own drawings and it made her want to be a writer and illustrator herself one day. We'll have to wait and see!

I have been trying to find a book for ages that my 8 year old will read alone and now I have! This is a fantastic book for children to take that next step from adult led reading to reading independently. The pages are well laid out with a good balance of illustrations and text making them interesting and not over burdened with text. The story is funny and clever and had me hooked too! This author definitely knows her age group as my daughter really identified with the classroom setting and the family setting too. My only disappointment is that there is only one other dotty detective in the series I would love to see more

Another series favourite book for our family, we borrowed the rest of this series books from library ，but they didn’t have this one. So we ordered it from amazon.We can’t stop laughing for the waffle codes. We Definitely recommend it.

Brought this for my 5 year old for me to read to her now and to keep for her to read for herself when she's ready. My little girl loves detective stories ( as do I ) this is a good fun and nice detective story done well as a diary we read it over 3 nights my daughter loved it and couldn't wait for the next instalment, going to order the next book now.

Very enjoyable story and as a learner reader she actually looked forward to every chapter..