The Puzzling Paintings (Undersea Mystery Club Book 3)

In this book, Violet returns to school to find out that someone has painted graffiti on her school! Soon this graffiti starts popping up all over town, which causes Violet and her friend Wally to investigate, especially after prankster Gill gets blamed for it. In the end, it turns out it is the expressive new octopus Ollie who was doing the deed, but he does community service to clean up the graffiti. This was a wonderful early chapter book that felt very cohesive. All of the clues that Violet used to solve the mystery were clearly shown throughout the book. I appreciate this because it allows children to try to solve the mystery too. I also loved that the difference between graffiti and murals was shown and explained to the readers in the text. This was furthered explained with real-life examples at the end of the book. Lastly, I could read this third book without any knowledge issues from not reading the first two books. This is a definite bonus for this reading level.

This is a wonderful mystery adventure for young readers (grades 1-3). Students will also love the graphics that accompany the story. Epic is doing a great job of engaging young readers.

My daughter and I really loved this book. It was a fun book about mermaids and other creatures who live under the sea. Violet, Wally and the other characters were so cute and my daughter loved the story about Violet and Wally going to school and going on a detective hunt to find out who was responsible for doing graffiti on the local buildings. The story, characters and illustrations were fantastic. I highly recommend this book; it was really good!

Many thanks to the author, publisher and Netgalley for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

An interesting and short read, supplemented with wonderful illustrations and even more impressive characters that will easily attract the attention of your child.
The first thing that made my little daughter smile was the character of Violet, a little mermaid who was a decisive factor when choosing what kind of picture book to read. Although this is part of a series, for us it was the first book we read, and we had no problem because we had not read the previous books.
Children get an extraordinary opportunity to get acquainted with the inhabitants of the seabed, to increase their knowledge of certain types of aquatic creatures, so masterfully combined with fantasy, and more than enough to hold their attention to the very end.

The Puzzling Paintings (Undersea Mystery Club Book 3) by Courtney Carbone contains powerful profound messages and topics for reflection, presented through the use of simple and adequate language structures, which children can easily understand. The author in a very simple, but at the same time impressive way with the topic of the graffiti leads the children to think about social responsibility, about acceptable versus unacceptable behavior. Furthermore, what impresses me personally as a parent is the subtle message that, regardless of age, every child can take the initiative and play a role in solving the problems that affect them as well.

The additions at the end are an absolute benefit for all readers, who will opt for this wonderful picture book, which will help them to get to know the world around them better.

I don't know if you realized by now that I really liked this picture book, and I think it will be a great choice for parents with children who want to enjoy and learn at the same time.

The illustrations in this book are fabulous and very colorful! I loved the mystery aspect in here and I think it's perfect engagement for children and let them practice to think critically. I also loved how this book celebrates artists and their works/art.