Galley Review – A Mystery at Lily Villa by Arathi Menon

Title – A Mystery at Lili Villa

Author – Arathi Menon

Genre – Children’s Fiction / Mystery

Plot:

Arj, Tam and Mira – cousins who love to spend time at their village Elathoor during summer vacations together. What they did not expect was a robbery that happened one night and the suspects turned out to be people whom they have known for quite a while. Donning their detective hats, this book deals with how these little brats would solve the mystery that would turn out to be dangerous and fun in many ways.

My Take on the book:

Personally, when I come across a Children’s book, what apparently catches my eye is how the innocence of the kids are shaped up and how exciting it would turn out for the kids when they read the same. This book ticks up both the boxes of being fun and also letting the kids think as the book progresses. From dealing with how people live their life with bare and minimum to people who would do anything for quick cash exploiting the unawares, this book deals them all with equal innocence and educating kids as well.

Though with all the high points in the book, there are a bit of gray areas that are quite problematic which could have been dealt in better ways. The climax part where the kids had to look for criminal in the middle of the night to one of the almost horror scenes that come up when Mira goes to call her parents could be a bit traumatic and mental illness could have been dealt better here.

Overall, the book is pretty fun to read and would surely keep both the kids and adults engaged throughout. Each chapter brings in new elements in the book and that turns out to be more fun (for example, getting to know the livelihood of the fisherwoman or when a mean cook is actually the friendliest of all), this book is entertaining. Pick it up for getting to know a simple livelihood of people from Kerala and to strengthen a bit of vocabulary about the South Indian languages.

My Ratings– 🌟🌟🌟🌟 (4 out of 5 stars)