The Eleventh Hour
Author: Graeme Base
Publisher: Puffin Books/Penguin Putnam Inc.
Copyright: 1988
Pages: 32
Reading Level: Ages 9 and up
Genre: Picture Book/Mystery
Rating:****

Summary:
Now this picture book is unlike most. Though its pages are brimming with color and detailed art, that is not the best part. The best part is that whether you know it or not, from page one you are solving a mystery. The story goes that Horace the elephant is turning eleven and is throwing a birthday party. So he makes a kitchen full of food and invites all of his friends over. So the day of the party arrives and all of his friends show up which include: the pig, the zebra, the rhino, the swan, a tiger, a mouse, a crocodile, a cat and last but not least the twin giraffes. Once they see all the food they are ready to eat, but Horace has a plan. No one will eat until eleven. Until then they are going to play games. Like good friends they all comply and play a variety of games like crochet, tug of war, chess and more. Finally the times comes and they all rush to the house to eat, when they enter and find, that someone has stolen all of the food! Everyone is being blamed, and blaming someone else. After much debate, Horace comes back from the kitchen with sandwiches and the cake which surprisingly had been left untouched and the book ends. Or so you think. But on the last page the reader is encouraged to find out who the thief was. And after much deliberation and lots of detective work you will find who the culprit is. Who do you think it is? If you would rather not know and find out for yourself don’t read on…otherwise, the thief is the one that you would suspect least of all. It is the mouse. He with the help of 111 other mice friends all ate the feast at eleven minutes till eleven.

Who would benefit from reading this?
This book is a great book for older kids, those in the mid to later elementary years. Not only for them to read on their own, but it would be a great book for parents and kids to solve together. There are more clues than you would think and by working together you would be able to solve more. Even if kids can’t understand the detective side of the book the pictures are phenomenal and the whole story rhymes.

Problems/Conflicts:
Some problems with this book may be one, it may be too challenging or too busy for many kids. The pictures are amazing, but there is a lot going on in them. Another conflict might be that it makes light of stealing.

My reaction:
I loved this book! It is one that I just read through first time and enjoyed the rhyming of the story along with the phenomenal artwork, but also one that I was able to go back and re-read over and over because there was so much I missed. This book has the pictures, the story line, and the fun that every good pictures book should. I will be reading this book to my kids one day, and enjoy watching them as they work to solve the mystery themselves, a mystery that is not so easily solved might I add.