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A pun-filled mystery that places nursery-rhyme characters, both familiar and lesser known, into a modern New York City setting. Humpty Dumpty, Jr., is called on to solve the mystery of the disappearance of Patty Cake from her bakery. The story bounces a bit in the beginning and clues feel kind of random. Also, characters are given topical treatment; they lack the depth of those in better-developed chapter books. The story becomes more engaging and fluid toward the end. A showdown in an amusement park with Humpty Dumpty, Jr., Gangster "Johnny" Cakes, and a three-headed cake dragon will hold readers’ attention. Illustrations on almost every spread give the story a comic-book feel that should appeal to reluctant readers. Closer to Kirk Scroggs’s "Wiley & Grampa’s Creature Features" series (Little, Brown) than Michael Buckley’s "Sisters Grimm" books (Abrams), this is an additional purchase.—Kelly Roth, Bartow County Public Library, Cartersville, GA

Dressed in a loose-fitting tie and battered overcoat, Humpty Dumpty Jr. is a “good egg who always cracks the case” in New Yolk City. The puns and allusions come at a rapid clip to open this junior take on the detective genre, before it settles into a clever little whodunit. Dumpty’s friend Patty Cake goes missing from her bakery on the same day that his arch-nemesis, the hardened flapjack criminal “Johnny” Cakes, escapes from prison. Dumpty reluctantly takes on a partner—a street kid named Rat—and the two zoom about the city chasing clues and red herrings in equal measure. Dumpty narrates the story in a tough-guy staccato prose that will delight readers new to the genre, but underneath his hard shell lies the reluctantly warm heart that makes such detectives good guys in the end. A cast of offbeat, nursery rhyme–esque characters, including the Knave of Hearts and Peppermint Pete, round out the tale, as well as zany illustrations that showcase Dumpty’s gruff persona and the squalid streets of the city he calls home.
— Ian Chipman