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“A detective is born! What a delightful, breezy read!" —Mary Pope Osborne, bestselling author of The Magic Tree House series “Told with an innocence that will captivate young readers, The Great Cake Mystery is a kind-hearted, feel-good story for all. Loved it!” —Graham Salisbury, author of Under the Blood-Red Sun and the Calvin Coconut series “Kids will love this kind and clever new detective. They’ll love the mystery, and they might even love the thieves. I look forward to more!” —Patricia Reilly Giff, award-winning author of Wild Girl and other books “Good for kids who like mysteries and stories about other cultures and friendship all packed into one.” — TIME for Kids magazine “Stunning artwork. . . . A compelling plot and interesting secondary characters, especially classmates who are quick to make unfounded accusations and their teacher, who provides wisdom just when it is needed, will leave readers wanting more. One case where an adaptation from an adult book is as much fun to read as the original.” — Kirkus Reviews , starred review “This mini mystery and its jaw-dropping illustrations will please proto-detectives, both large and small. . . . What [McCall Smith]’s done with The Great Cake Mystery is unique. . . . His fans will pluck it up like so many of his other books. . . . A really fun read.” — School Library Journal "Bold and striking, McIntosh’s chunky, two-color woodcutlike pictures present evocative images of the African setting. This is a story, and a heroine, with impressive dimension." - Publishers Weekly , starred review Informationen zum Autor Alexander McCall Smith is the author of the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series, the Isabel Dalhousie series, the Portuguese Irregular Verbs series, the 44 Scotland Street series, and the Corduroy Mansions series. He was born in what is now known as Zimbabwe and lives in Scotland, where in his spare time he is a bassoonist in the RTO (Really Terrible Orchestra). Klappentext Years before the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency was established, a young Precious Ramotswe thought she might like to be a detective. When a piece of cake goes missing, a young boy is tagged by his classmates as the culprit. Precious Ramotswe, however, is unconvinced and sets out to discover the truth. Chapter One Have you ever said to yourself, Wouldn't it be nice to be a detective? Most of us will never have the chance to make that dream come true. Detectives, you see, are born that way. Right from the beginning they just know that this is what they want to be. And right from the beginning they show that solving mysteries is something they can do rather well. This is the story about a girl who becomes a detective. Her name is Precious. Precious smiled a lot. She often smiled even when she was not thinking about anything in particular. Nice people smile a lot, and Precious Ramotswe was one of the nicest girls in Botswana. Everyone said so. Botswana was the country she lived in. It was down toward the bottom of Africa. She lived in a wide dry land, which had a lot of amazing things to see. There was the Kalahari Desert, a great stretch of dry grass and thorn trees that went on and on into the distance, farther than any eye can see. Then there was the great river in the north, which flowed the wrong way. It did not flow into the ocean, as rivers usually do, but back into the heart of Africa. When it reached the sands of the Kalahari, it drained away, just like water disappears down the drain of a bath. But most interesting, of course, were the wild animals. There were many of these in Botswana: lions, elephants, leopards, monkeys—the list goes on. Precious had not seen all of these animals, but she had heard about most of them. Her father, a kind man whose na...
