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Shedunnit

Young Sleuths

Shedunnit

Caroline Crampton

Arts, Books

4.9 • 1.4K Ratings

🗓️ 15 June 2021

⏱️ 25 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Young detectives, and young readers, play an important part in the history of detective fiction. Many thanks to my guest, Maureen Johnson. Her newest YA mystery, The Box in the Woods, is out now. Find out more at her website www.maureenjohnsonbooks.com and follow her on Twitter @maureenjohnson. There are no major plot spoilers in this episode, but we do talk about the general set up of Maureen's four Stevie Bell novels: Truly Devious, The Vanishing Stair, The Hand on the Wall and The Box in the Woods. Books and sources mentioned: — The Thirteen Problems by Agatha Christie — Harriet The Spy by Lousie Fitzhugh — Emil and the Detectives by Erich Kästner — The Secret Island by Enid Blyton — Five on a Treasure Island by Enid Blyton — The Mystery of the Burnt Cottage by Enid Blyton — The Secret Seven by Enid Blyton — Cat Among the Pigeons by Agatha Christie — Holiday River by Gladys Mitchell — The Seven Stones Mystery by Gladys Mitchell — The Malory Secret by Gladys Mitchell — Murder Most Unladylike by Robin Stevens — The Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle — Killing Mr. Griffin by Lois Duncan — Mystery in Children's Literature: From the Rational to the Supernatural edited by Adrienne Gavin and Christopher Routledge Thanks to today’s sponsors. You can get $5 off mail based Victorian mystery game Dear Holmes at dearholmes.com/shedunnit using code “shedunnit” at checkout. To be the first to know about future developments with the podcast, sign up for the newsletter at shedunnitshow.com/newsletter. The podcast is on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram as @ShedunnitShow, and you can find it in all major podcast apps. Make sure you’re subscribed so you don’t miss the next episode. Click here to do that now in your app of choice. Find a full transcript of this episode at shedunnitshow.com/youngsleuthstranscript Music by Audioblocks and Blue Dot Sessions. See shedunnitshow.com/musiccredits for more details. NB: Links to Blackwell's are affiliate links, meaning that the podcast receives a small commission when you purchase a book there (the price remains the same for you). Blackwell's is a UK independent bookselling chain that ships internationally at no extra charge. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0

I can't remember how old I was when I read my first detective novel, but I definitely

0:09.6

wasn't a teenager yet. I devoured my first Agatha Christie, the Miss Marple Short Story

0:15.9

collection the 13 problems if you were wondering, under the covers on a family holiday when

0:21.1

I was 11, after finding it on the shelf at the bed and breakfast we were staying in. A

0:26.6

satisfyingly sneaky point of origin for this who done it obsession of mine. But not

0:32.0

really accurate as it happens. It really depends how you define detective novel.

0:39.1

Long before I came upon my first Christie by chance that summer, I'd been reading mystery

0:44.5

stories written for children, principally Inid Blightens the Secret Seven and Five Find

0:50.5

Outers series, as well as Louise Fitzhugh's Seminal novel Harry at the Spy. I think the

0:57.6

crime fiction bug must really have bitten me around my 7th birthday. It's only recently

1:03.4

though that I've been thinking more critically about mystery fiction aimed at children and

1:07.4

young people. Given the lengths that society goes to to make sure that kids don't see films

1:13.1

and television programmes with quote inappropriate themes, it seems incongruous that books wear

1:19.0

thefts, threats of violence and even murders are essential to the plot. I'm not only available

1:25.0

to younger readers, but actually written especially for them. Yet such mysteries are a booming

1:31.3

subgenre of today's crime fiction publishing industry. Generations of writers going right

1:37.0

back to the golden age of detective fiction and beyond have written who done it for younger

1:41.6

readers. And these books aren't just for children and teens, they're about them too.

1:48.8

So today we're going to meet the young sleuths.

2:01.6

Welcome to She Done It. I'm Caroline Crampton.

2:13.0

A quick housekeeping note before I get into today's episode proper. A She Done It Related

2:18.4

Project that I've been working on for the last few months is going to be available for

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