âFrom now on, I am going to be Sherlock Holmes, the Worldâs Greatest Cat Detective.â
With those words, my friend Spot decided he would become a crime-solving kitty.
âAnd you, of course,â he said dramatically. âWill be my faithful friend, Dr. John Watson. The one who writes down all of my adventures and shares them with the world! Weâll be famous! Everyone will know the name âSherlock Holmes, The Worldâs Greatest Cat Detective!ââ
âMm hmm,â I agreed. I wasnât too worried. I was sure that, by morning, Spot would have forgotten all about becoming Sherlock Holmes.
Boy, oh boy, was I wrong.
âFrom now on, I am going to be Sherlock Holmes, the Worldâs Greatest Cat Detective.â
With those words, my friend Spot decided he would become a crime-solving kitty.
âAnd you, of course,â he said dramatically. âWill be my faithful friend, Dr. John Watson. The one who writes down all of my adventures and shares them with the world! Weâll be famous! Everyone will know the name âSherlock Holmes, The Worldâs Greatest Cat Detective!ââ
âMm hmm,â I agreed. I wasnât too worried. I was sure that, by morning, Spot would have forgotten all about becoming Sherlock Holmes.
Boy, oh boy, was I wrong.
Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Dr. John H. Watson. My best friendâs name is Mr. Sherlock Holmes.Â
Youâve probably heard of us. Well, youâve heard of the actual Sherlock Holmes and John Watson. They werenât real people; they were characters created over a 100 years ago by an author named Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Sherlock Holmes was a famous detectiveâin fact, he was the Worldâs Greatest Detectiveâ and Dr. John Watson wrote about all of Sherlockâs adventures and crime-solving skills. They were pretty cool guys.Â
Unfortunately, we are not those guys. We are cats. Those arenât even our real names. My name is Fluffy because I am orange and white and very fluffy. My friendâs name is Spot. He is a Siamese cat. He has a brown body and black paws that make him look like heâs wearing rain boots all the time. Oh, and he has blue eyes the color of ice.
He does not actually have any spots, but, when we were adopted, our little girl, Mary, named us; she was only three at the time (sheâs almost six now) and didnât know a lot of words. These days, we call ourselves Sherlock Holmes and John Watson, because, just like the characters in the books, we solve crimes no one else can solve. Sherlock Holmes is the Worldâs Greatest Detective Cat. And me? Well, I write down his adventures.Â
This story is about our very first mystery, and how we became the crime-fighting duo we are today.
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Sherlock and I live with Mary and her parents in a big house. The Lady calls the house âVictorian styleâ. The Man calls it âa money pitâ. Mostly that means something always needs to be fixed or repainted, which costs a lot of money.Â
My favorite room in our house is called the library. Itâs not the kind of library where you have to show your library card and bring the book back in three weeks. It has comfy chairs and a fireplace and lots and lots of books. There are books stuffed into every bit of space on the bookshelves, and there are even books piled up beside the bookshelves. The Man loves his books.Â
But the Manâs absolute favorite book is a big, thick book with the words âThe Adventures of Sherlock Holmesâ stamped on the front cover. The book has gold on the edges of the pages, but itâs been read so many times that some of the gold color has worn away, and the cover isnât quite as shiny as it once was. The Man says that when a book is worn out like that, itâs very special. Â
The Man we live with is a big, big fan of Sherlock Holmes. He even has one shelf in his bookcase devoted to Sherlock Holmes; thereâs a strange hat with ear flaps, a pipe (even though the Man doesnât smoke) and a magnifying glass, which is a big glass circle with a wooden handle. If you look inside the glass, everything looks bigger than it really is. These are all things that the real Sherlock Holmes used.
Also on the Manâs shelf is a Sherlock Holmes doll. (The Man says it is a âcollectibleâ, not a doll, but we all know itâs really a doll.)
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One fateful night, during a big storm, all of the electricity in the house went out. It was very dark and quiet, and nobody could even watch TV or tap away on the computer. The Man said this was a good time for us all to âslow down and enjoy the evening the way the Victorians had.â (There werenât many people who had electricity in the Victorian times, so they used candles and oil lamps back then.)
The Man lit some candles and opened âThe Adventures of Sherlock Holmesâ. He began to read aloud while Mary played with me and Sherlock on the rug and the Lady drew in her sketchbook. It was a very cozy evening, and the Man and Lady liked it so much they decided to do it as often as they could. On most nights, after Mary was all tucked into bed, the Man and the Lady would go into the library, light a fire in the fireplace, and the Lady would crochet or draw in her sketchbook as the Man read aloud to her.Â
Of course, that meant he was reading to Spot and me, too, because we would be curled up in our cat beds listening.Â
So, there we were, listening to these great adventures, and when the Man got to the part in the story where Sherlock Holmes was about to solve the crime, Spotâs ears perked forward, and his eyes grew large. As the Man read, Spot moved from his comfy cat bed underneath the chair and jumped up into the Manâs lap. He looked like he was hanging on the Manâs every word. Which, of course, he was.
Just when we were getting to the really exciting part, the Man yawned, and then said, âI think thatâs enough for one night,â before he placed a bookmark between the pages and closed the book. He reached over to scratch Spotâs head and smiled at him. âThat was a good story, wasnât it?â he asked. âWouldnât it be wonderful if Sherlock Holmes had been a real person?âÂ
The Man chuckled. âMaybe you can be the next Sherlock Holmes, Spot!â
Spotâs eyes gleamed with excitement.
âGoodnight, boys,â said the Lady, and they turned off the lights and went upstairs to their bedroom. I snuggled down in my own bed.
Spot watched them leave, then jumped to his feet, ran over to the desk and pulled the little chain on the lamp with his teeth. Immediately, light flooded the library, and I squinted at him.Â
âWhatâs the matter?â I asked sleepily.Â
He turned to me with a twinkle in his blue eyes. âFinally!â he said. âI have finally found a purpose,
instead of just lying around and sleeping in the sun and eating.â
âWeâre cats,â I said, kneading my blankie so that it felt just right for sleeping. âIsnât that what we do?âÂ
âDonât you crave more?â
âUhâŚno. Not really,â I said. âI guess Iâm pretty content. Weâve got a nice family, and a warm place to live, and we get lots of tuna. Iâm very thankful for tuna. And tuna melts, tuna casserole, tuna sandwichesâŚâ my voice faded away as I imagined all the wonderful tuna meals weâve had in the past.
âHonestly!â Spot exploded. âListen to me, Fluffy. From now on, I am going to be Sherlock Holmes, the Worldâs Greatest Cat Detective.â
I curled into a ball, getting comfy in my bed. âOkay,â I said sleepily. âWhatever you say.â
âAnd you, of course,â he said dramatically. âWill be my faithful friend, Dr. John Watson. The one who writes down all of my adventures and shares them with the world! Weâll be famous! Everyone will know the name âSherlock Holmes, The Worldâs Greatest Cat Detective!ââÂ
âMm hmm,â I agreed. I wasnât too worried. I was sure that, by morning, Spot would have forgotten all about becoming Sherlock Holmes.
Boy, oh boy, was I wrong.
Sherlock Cat and The Missing Mousie by MX Publishing is a delightful book for young readers and also adults. It is a wonderful way to introduce inquisitive children to the world of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson. It is also the perfect book for adults to indulge in between heavy reading.
I enjoyed the playful story of two pampered cats in a household, Fluffy and Spot. When Spot asks, âDonât you crave more?â, we know he is facing an existential crisis. Much like Don Quixote, the stories he hears every evening in the Manâs library inspire him to seek an adventure. Spot goes around looking for a mystery to solve and enlists Fluffy as his scribe. Well, it all starts like a misadventure for these novice feline detectives.
Spot suspects something fishy in the neighborâs house, and his curiosity gets them dangerously close to the dog, Toby. Then, his favorite toy companion mouse goes missing. Fluffy wants to help Spot because she knows her friend is sad. The book has positive vibes. It touches upon camaraderie and encouragement in the face of failure. The story is educational while being humorous. There is a clever reference to the popular book, The Three-Body Problem, but I doubt children will get a drift of the reference.
The story reminded me of my favorite series, Tom and Jerry. There are nice drawings in the book. The images could be more lively and colorful instead of being so crisp and accurate. The real treasure is the narration and the story that ties it all together. This one-hour reading will keep you engrossed in the adventure of two sincere cats and their investigations.