Purloined Posies! The Case of the Missing Chalk Drawings by Richard Byrne

Out in the school playground, all the chalks are having recess fun drawing flowers.

But when they came back from lunch...

ALL THE FLOWERS WERE GONE!

The chalks draw a blank! Who could have made their flowers disappear? Their teacher, Mrs. Red, makes some big red signs.

DO NOT TOUCH THE FLOWERS!

The chalks draw even more flowers. But when the little chalks come back after story circle time, the flowers are gone AND the fence for the schoolyard seems also to have been erased! Obviously there is a pitiless posy pilferer in the neighborhood. Mrs. Red calls the police.

Sgt. Blue lines up some suspicious-looking characters. None of them seem to have been caught red-handed until Sgt. Blue has them all turn around. One has a chalk-dusted red bottom! Aha!

But the culprit escapes in a cloud of chalk dust! Not to be outdone, Officer Blue has the little chalks prepare a trap--the most colorful drawing of all, one that the evil Eraser cannot resist!

A RAINBOW!

Aha! The suspect soon appears. Sgt. Blue is about to collar the crook. But the Eraser pleads an alibi that all the chalks cannot refuse.

"I'M NOT A ROBBER.

I'M AN ERASER--SO YOU CAN DRAW MORE STUFF!"

Chalks and erasers go together like ying and yang, in Richard Byrne's artsy mystery story, The Case of the Missing Chalk Drawings (Henry Holt and Company, 2018). Author Byrne's well-paced page turns perfectly set up each vignette, with his many-hued, googly-eyed chalks bright against black background pages, and this case is cracked with a solution which suits all. As School Library Journal says, "In addition to being pure fun, the story demonstrates the importance of understanding motives before judging actions."