Undercover Super Sleuth/Detective Kit

I would feel myself to be remiss if I didn’t point out cool things like the Alex toys Super Sleuth Kit/Detective Activity Kit in conjunction with the Children’s Classics Mystery Reading Challenge. As I’ve mentioned before, I so wanted to be Nancy Drew when I was younger. My good friend and I at one point tried to establish our own Detective Agency. We set up a table in the front yard of my house and advertised ourselves to the neighborhood children. Amazingly, we were not hired but we made moderately good use out of a set of walkie talkies that she owned. I would have keeled over in a perfect state of glee if I had been handed a Detective Activity Kit. As it is, I’m still about to keel over.

This Super Sleuth Kit arrived on my front porch a little bit ago and I hastily lit into it. My husband Jonathan thought I was so, I dunno (weird), for shoving the super sleuth black sunglasses on my head upon opening the box. “You’re kidding me, right?” he asked incredulously.

What he didn’t realize was that the black sunglasses on my face were equipped with “rear view mirrors” and that even though I “wasn’t” looking at him — I was.

My son was eager to get his hands on the magnifying glass and began inspecting anything in sight. I stopped his 3 1/2 year old fingers short when he landed on the bottle of white fingerprint powder but I was still duly impressed. This kit is amazing! It’s perfect for one child, or for multiple children to share together. There are two code wheels so that the ah hem, children, can write and crack their own codes. There are code files, teaching children how to hide secret messages with the use of a telephone, using a scytale, Morse code, a code grid, etc., etc., etc. They can learn how to write and make use of over 10 different codes to communicate something like, “The neighbor forgot to take out his trash last week. What do you think that means?” The possibilities are endless!

The kit also includes:

* Fingerprint files
* 3-D glasses
* A small pen light for sleuthing in darkness
* Those super, duper cool rear view mirror glasses
* Fingerprint dust & a duster/stickers to collect fingerprints and transport them elsewhere, if you’d like!
* A magnifying glass
* Code wheels
* A top secret file
* A small stamp pad
* Invisible ink marker set
* Information and files for creating and cracking codes

This is a fabulously inventive and imaginative Super Sleuth Kit/Detective Activity Kit and one I think any budding sleuth would thoroughly enjoy.

I’m delighted to inform you that Alex Toys has offered one such kit to one of our readers here at 5 Minutes for Books. I was tempted to make you crack a code in order to gain an entry into the contest but I’ll spare you my rabid tendencies when it comes to the mystery challenge and let you just leave a comment, as always. (But doesn’t that sound so boring!?) The contest will be open through IHEUDU1 38 (that’s February 16th to you) and is open to U.S. Residents only.

In the meantime, I’ll be seein’ you…..or won’t I? Bwaaahaha!

Carrie has apparently not recovered from her addiction to lurking “anonymously”, seeking out all kinds of information – both the useful and the not. She blogs more productively about books at Reading to Know and Reading My Library.