Girl's Best Friend (Maggie Brooklyn Mystery Book 1)

I bought this Tigers hat for my granddaughter's 10th Birthday. She is a big Detroit Tiger fan and attended a game with her family the next week proudly decked out in her Tiger gear. The hat is well made of quality materials. Doesn't look like a cheap kiddie cap, but a miniature adult-looking cap. A very nice item at a great price. (adjustable too, don't worry about the fit.

What a charming book! A smart heroine - Maggie - just barely 12 years old who accidently starts her own dog-walking business and solves a mystery while negotiating the difficulties of the 7th grade, the beginning of her interest in boys, best friends, and a cast of eccentric characters. I think any girl from 8 to 12 or 13 will love this book. It's written in the first person so it stays immediate and the author does a great job of nailing Maggie's personality. Will pass this on to my 8 y/o granddaughter and look forward to future Maggie Brooklyn books.

Very often kids books have a suggested age range that's way off in my opinion, things that are supposedly for 10 year olds my 6 year old is reading, but this is not the case here, I think it is challenging enough for a 9 year old, with probably enough to keep the 12 year olds interested.
It's very girly (obviously) our heroin Maggie is an amateur detective with the usual drama's of a girl her age to keep her occupied, a dog walking job she has kept secret, a crush, a mystery, what's not to like?

Nancy Drew it isn't but it's good, and may blossom as the series continues (I assume there are plans to do so)

Pretty wholesome throughout, shouldn't be anything in here to upset any one. 4 stars

Maggie Brooklyn Sinclair loves dogs, but she can't have one because of her twin brother Finn's allergies. Maggie and Finn live with their parents in Brooklyn, where they are tenants in a brownstone owned by the flamboyant Isabel Rose Fanini. A middle-aged former wealthy socialite, Isabel likes to talk non-stop about her ex-husbands and Broadway career. The landlady also has a habit of losing things, which Maggie has an uncanny knack for finding --- some in the most unlikely places.

Maggie's dog-walking career gets its start one summer after Isabel hurts a knee salsa dancing. Isabel cannot care for her Irish wolfhound, Preston, so Maggie's parents volunteer her services as a dog walker. Because she's good at her job, it isn't long before other neighbors hire Maggie. However, her mom and dad don't know about her paying gigs. If they find out, she could get into trouble.

Keeping a secret from her parents isn't Maggie's only problem. Life at Fiske Street Junior High hasn't been easy. Her former best friend, Ivy Jeffries, has ditched her and made new friends in Eve and Katie, who like to make fun of Maggie. But Maggie has made a few friends of her own at school and would really like to become better acquainted with her secret crush, Milo Sanchez, a new seventh-grader.

During and after school, Maggie imagines working up the courage to talk to Milo. In the past, she's been reluctant to approach him, but one afternoon she decides she no longer wants to be the kind of person who stands around and watches others have fun; she wants to take charge and enjoy herself, too. Maggie believes dogs are a girl's best friend because "you always know where you stand with them" and "dogs don't suddenly ditch you for no reason, then trash-talk you behind your back."

One afternoon, Maggie tries to strike up a conversation with Milo, but strikes out and embarrasses herself. To make matters worse, Ivy and her friends witness this humiliating experience, and Ivy makes fun of Maggie and her dog-walking duties, even though Ivy has a great mutt of her own. After Ivy's dog Kermit is dognapped, she turns to Maggie for help. And Kermit isn't the only pooch missing from Maggie's Brooklyn neighborhood. It doesn't take Maggie long to come up with a list of suspects, but one of them is somebody she cannot believe would stoop to such a crime.

GIRL'S BEST FRIEND is award-winning author Leslie Margolis's first book in the Maggie Brooklyn Mystery series. Disappearing dogs, a first crush, changing friendships and lots of surprises make it a fun read. This cute new series is sure to please middle-graders who love pets and mysteries, as well as readers who want to learn about big city living --- with brownstones, stoop sales and a preteen detective.

--- Reviewed by Donna Volkenannt

12 year old amateur detective are just as unrealistically portrayed today as they were in the 1950s, with Nancy Drew! But that's half the fun of these books, I suppose. And really, if you're going to worry about your kids emulating book heroes in ways that are dangerous, better not let them read Harry Potter or even the "Narnia" Chronicles!

In "Girl's Best Friend", 12 year old Maggie Brooklyn Sinclair will curl the hair of sensitive adult readers with her penchant for putting herself in the way of dognappers and other potentially dangerous characters. In fact the climax of this story (which I won't spoil, but deals largely with her attempts to rescue a kidnapped pup) had me warning my gradeschooler - more than once, as we read - that when you find out that someone is doing something illegal, you take the issue to a parent or other trusted adult. Yes, even if dogs are in danger!

But my curmudgeonly adult literalism aside, "Girl's Best Friend" is a fun read, where the mystery's "puzzle" is well crafted enough even to hold an adult's attention. Oh, I figured out "Who Dun It" a little before Maggie and her friends did, but I think most of the targeted age readers will be kept guessing, at least as to how the villain will be caught.

Another reviewer commended Leslie Margolis' depiction of the relationship between Maggie and her brother Finn, but I think that the most striking characterization in the book is that of Ivy, Maggie's former best friend, who somewhere along the way to puberty, grew into a very different person than the pal Maggie had known. Margolis treats the subject of friends growing apart deftly and delicately, and refuses to reduce Ivy to an evil(ish) caricature, so much as someone who doesn't have the maturity to appreciate a friend "left behind" until (thanks to the plot) she finds herself in a pickle. The message to young readers is clear: sometimes, you lose friendships, and it doesn't have to be anyone's fault, entirely. That bittersweet message is an empowering one for sensitive, mystery-loving girls!

I've subtracted a star for some stereotypes in characterization, particularly that of the eccentric landlady who plays enabler for some of our heroine's exploits. Also for the 1st person narration: Maggie's dialogue reads more or less like the 12 year old she is in this novel, but her "narrator voice" betrays a certain maturity past any normal 12 year old's ken. I almost read it as though Maggie were telling this story as an adult looking back - it's not that the vocabulary is particularly sophisticated, but there are a few idioms and figures of speech in the narration that would only be used by the most precocious of pre-pubescents.

Kudos also to the author for making the neighborhoods and parks of Brooklyn NY come alive. My favorite books are the ones where the setting is almost a character in its own right. And I expect that my daughter will be after me to go shopping when the next "Maggie Brooklyn Mystery" comes out.

The Maggie Brooklyn Mystery series is so fun!! Move over Nancy Drew, you've got some competition! Maggie Brooklyn is a modern day girl detective and I know that girls all over are going to fall in love with her stories! My eight year old daughter really loved this book. The cover, of course, brought her in at first.. the pug on the front is so cute! But she was also quickly drawn into the story and enjoyed it immensely. We read it together as a nightly storytime book and found ourselves reading "just one more chapter" for several nights. I would definitely recommend this book for young girls!!

A delightful mystery for middle-graders. Maggie Brooklyn has a part-time job walking dogs after school. Luckily, she is also a bright, observant dog-walker, because when dogs start disappearing, she is the one who notices all the clues to solve the mystery. Fun and entertaining!

This review was prepared by me along with Fallon, a ten year old, so below are her impressions.
This book is appropriate for the upper end of the age group given. Overall she liked the book, and finished it quickly, but she was disappointed that the culprit (Maggie's crush Milo) was pointed out in the book synopsis on the liner notes for the book. As she said, there was no mystery.
From Fallon:
The main character in this book, Maggie Brooklyn Sinclair, a 10 year old dog-walker, sees herself as a very good detective, and agrees to help her ex best friend Ivy find her dog, who is being held for ransom. Meanwhile, Maggie develops a crush on a boy named Milo. When Maggie tries to flirt with Milo, her ex best friend blew the moment and said to Maggie "You don't have a dog" in a snotty voice. After that Maggie left and was feeling very down. She ran into a lady when she was turning a corner. When this happened, the lady dropped some papers about dog breeding. The lady picked up the papers fast, and whispered something as she was doing this, which leads Maggie into the mystery.
I think this book was way too predictable and gave away the culprit much too fast.
I liked the style of the writing, and I liked the characters, even the ex best friend, because her personality stood out. I didn't like the lack of mystery with the plot, I would have preferred to guess "whodunit".
I would read another book by Leslie Margolis, as long as it was not a mystery.
I would recommend this book if you don't mind knowing how the story ends.

A delightful mystery for middle-graders. Maggie Brooklyn has a part-time job walking dogs after school. Luckily, she is also a bright, observant dog-walker, because when dogs start disappearing, she is the one who notices all the clues to solve the mystery. Fun and entertaining!

I thought the storyline of this book was cool. However, it took me much less time to figure out the mystery than Maggie did. The book was still interesting, but I was a little disappointed. I'm 11,and I'd reccomend this book to anyone looking for a good read, just not a really good mystery.