our youngest reviewer loves major and mynah so it was no surprise that she LOVED this book. the crime mystery really grabbed her attention and she thought it was so cool to see callie and grace work on such a. high level criminal investigation.

this book is quite short, which made it a lot easier for her to read. it will also make it easier for other children to read too cause of its size - it helps convince children to give it a go if it’s a bit shorter. she was very happy with this book and cannot wait to see what comes next in the major and mynah instalments.

Delightful chapter book for young (and old!) readers. Callie and Grace are best friends and are aided in the detective adventures by Callie’s pet mynah bird Bo. Through her hearing aids, Callie and Bo can talk. This 2nd adventure on the series takes them to the Tower of London on a school trip, where they get involved in solving a crime. Bo is a key player here, aided by the famous ravens of The Tower. Many thanks to the author, publisher and NetGalley for a preview copy. Have just ordered both titles!

The story opens with Callie about to go on a school trip on a school bus driven by his mom, with a little stowaway talking bird. It is quite a hilarious setting to start with. Real detective work starts when they uncover a case of theft. Bo is a hilarious character and I like how Callie's hearing issue is portrayed here.

It is a fun, easy read .

Some children's book are compelling and exciting and I love them even if I'm well over the target age.
This is one of those cases and I loved it.
Highly recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher for this arc, all opinions are mine

Callie, Bo, and Grace ride again in this super new adventure. And my, what a fun one it is too.

Our crime-fighting young friends, Callie and Grace, are heading off on a school trip to the Tower of London. But the last thing they expected was to find fellow detective Bo, the talking Mynah bird, in Callie's school bag. The second to last thing they expected was to get embroiled in a new mystery during the visit!

Keeping a determined stowaway bird hidden isn't as easy as it sounds, especially as Callie's mum is the bus driver. Bo has his own reason for visiting, which might prove dangerous and distracting.

Delightful hijinks ensue when the three pals think they spot something amiss and start to investigate! Keeping everything hidden from the adults is going to be difficult, especially under the eagle eyes of their teacher, Mrs Manning. I shall say no more for fear of spoiling things.

We loved the first book, and this new adventure sees our S.P.U.D. (Super Perceptive Undercover Detectives) team take it to the next level — many levels, in fact, including a dungeon!

Once again, Karen Owen has captured and skillfully distilled the essence of a great, fun adventure. Coupled with Louise's dynamic illustrations, we get a readily accessible, compelling tale for the younger and the reluctant reader alike.

Incidentally, the fact that Callie has hearing aids, aka 'slugs', never really gets any focus other than in a positive way in line with how they allow her to hear what Bo says. Which, of course, is exactly what we like. 💙

I think the biggest complaint that those of us addicted to children’s books have is that there are simply too many books we want to read and too little time in which to read them. The first title in this sequence is one that has been on my TBB list since it first came out having been highly recommended to me by a friend on Twitter but, foolishly, I’ve never quite got round to reading it.

That is a mistake I now have every intention of rectifying because having read this, the second in the series, courtesy of Net Galley, I can now see the books’ enormous appeal. Full of fun, friendship and adventure, this is an absolute delight – perfectly pitched for those who are just moving onto short chapter books, gorgeously illustrated and inclusive, and a story that I thoroughly enjoyed and know that my Year 3s will love too.

Friends Callie Major and Grace Ambrose make up two thirds of the Super Perceptive Undercover Detectives (SPUD), together with Callie’s mynah bird, Bo. Excited at the prospect of her class’s trip to the Tower of London, Callie starts to get ready by popping in the hearing aids that not only allow her to hear better but also to understand what Bo says. Packing her school bag ready for the day ahead, Callie tells a disappointed Bo that he is not welcome on the trip, if only because her coach driver mother doesn’t allow animals on her vehicle.

Determined to accompany her, Bo sneaks into the bag and lies undiscovered until the coach is well on its way to London. Worried about the prospect of the carnage he might create if left unattended, Callie and Grace are left with little option but to take him around the Tower with them once they arrive. After being allowed out for a comfort break, Bo attracts the attention of the Tower’s Ravenmaster and while trying to escape accidentally flies into the face of a tourist, causing her to drop her bag and its contents.

On closer observation, it appears that the woman is possibly not in fact a tourist but is actually visiting the famous site for other, more nefarious, reasons. Can the SPUD agents discover just what she is up to and put a stop to it before it is too late?

I love a mystery story and this is one which is absolutely spot on. Not overly threatening for young, possibly more sensitive, readers, it is one which unfolds at just the right pace to hook those who are growing in confidence in to its plotline. This, together with Louise Forshaw’s fabulous illustrations, means that this is a story which will bear reading and re-reading over and over again – something that is often important to those children who are just starting to read chapter books for pleasure and need that comfortable familiarity of a treasured text.

Callie, Grace and Bo make a fabulous team. The two girls are the very best of friends and it was a delight to see that while Callie does not use BSL herself as her preferred method of communication, both of them know some signs and see using them as a very positive thing to share. As for Callie’s hearing aids, yes we the reader know that such things do not give their users the magical gift of communication with animals but again it is really lovely to see them presented so positively. By calling them her slugs, revealing why she has nicknamed them so and going on to explain the amazing effect they have had on Callie’s experience of the world around her, those readers who are hearing impaired will see themselves represented here and their friends will gain a greater understanding of the impact that wearing them has.

I absolutely loved this book and tempted though I was to request Book 1 from Net Galley will definitely be getting hold of a proper copy instead because this is a series I so want my class to share and enjoy. Publishing March 2nd, my enormous thanks go to publisher Firefly Press and Net Galley for my advance virtual read ahead of that date.

Thank you so much to Firefly Press and Netgalley for the ebook to read and review.

Callie is going on a school trip to The Tower of London, she tells Bo to stay home but he stowaways in her backpack, wanting to meet the famous Ravens. Whilst there a crime is spotted and with Bo in the sky to spy on everything they keep check on the suspects and what they are up too.

This was another incredibly fun book in the series, I really loved that they were on a school trip it made the case that much trickier. Bo was hilarious sneaking around at the tower to see the ravens, then flying around everywhere to spy on the criminals.

I loved that this book taught history by being set at the tower, but you wouldn’t even realise as you are so swept up with the story and the mystery that was going on. It was really fun and trying to solve how they were going to catch them was great. I loved the inclusion of the ravens in the solving the case.

The illustrations are amazing and capture the funniest scenes within the book. The story is so much fun, I loved the setting of the mystery and loved seeing them solving it in secret whilst on a school trip.

I highly recommend this book and it’s predecessor, they are so fun to read, the characters are amazing and Bo is hilarious, the mystery is always interesting to solve and you can learn a lot about being a spy with the SPUD agents.

I really enjoyed Major and Mynah, so I took the first opportunity to read Operation Raven, the sequel. The Super Perceptive Undercover Detectives (SPUD) are now well established, with three operatives, Callie, our main character, her best friend Grace and of course the spy in the sky, Bo the mynah bird. And as in the first book, Callie can talk to Bo due to her hearing aids, the slugs, but everyone else just hears him making chirping noises.

This story combines a school trip to the Tower of London with a daring theft. Callie, Grace and Bo are the only ones aware of it for much of the book, having spotted some suspicious behaviour, but they're left facing two problems: how to stop the criminals and how to alert people to what's going on without having to explain that they know about it because of a talking bird! There's also the problem of keeping Bo's presence on the school trip a secret, not easy to do when he's flying around the Tower courtyard!

The balance of the plot threads worked really well. I liked a lot of the school trip stuff, dealing with other students and the teachers, and Callie's mum being on the coach too (as she is driving it), and the occasionally grisly and often fascinating trip around the Tower made an excellent backdrop to the crime mystery elements of the story. It was particularly fun seeing Callie and Grace make all sorts of different efforts to investigate without letting on that's what they were doing, and seeing the ways they overcame this challenge is a central part of the book. Bo is as troublesome as ever, and I love the balance between him being a really useful investigator, with his abilities to fly and go unnoticed, and him being a huge pain in the bum, Despite being able to talk to her, he often pays no attention to what Callie tells him to do, and his very presence on the trip is the result of him totally ignoring instructions. With a lot of ravens around, things look pretty scary for Bo at times, though he doesn't seem to be as worried about it as Callie is for him!

Once the crime mystery really kicks into high gear, it's really cool watching Callie and Grace getting involved in a real and serious criminal investigation, working with the Robbery Squad. In Operation Raven the SPUD are definitely moving things up a notch and it's fascinating to watch.

It's a fairly short book, and the language and sentence structure are going to make it very accessible to younger middle grade and reluctant readers. The proof I read had a few illustrations by Lousie Forshaw, and they're fantastic! I'm hoping there are more of these in the final edition. And as with the first book, it's great to see a heroine with a hearing disability, something that's still pretty rare in books. As well as the fantastical elements, there is a lot of consideration for real life difficulties, from batteries running out to burgomasters blowing whistles too near your hearing aid.

There's even a hint of romance! Bo sneaks away on the school trip because he wants to meet one of the ravens, Branwen. Unfortunately we don't really see any resolution for that particular thread. I just hope that for Bo, travelling to London to meet with his crush didn't end in disappointment!

A charming, fun mystery with a highly engaging pair of main characters. Major and Mynah: Operation Raven doesn't disappoint!