A review by mrskatiefitz
The Great Shelby Holmes by Elizabeth Eulberg

4.0

Young adult author Elizabeth Eulberg (Revenge of the Girl with the Great Personality, Take a Bow, Better Off Friends) makes her middle grade debut with this modernized elementary school retelling of the Sherlock Holmes detective stories. With many nods to the original tales, Eulberg builds a world where nine-year-old Shelby Holmes is the perceptive, observant, yet socially awkward solver of crimes, and new kid John Watson is her friend, assistant, and biographer. Together, Shelby and John help solve the mystery of a show dog who is stolen just days before an important competition. The writing in this book is great, but sadly, the ideas are tired and cliched. There are already so many missing dog stories in children's fiction that one more almost seems like a joke. Also problematic is the fact that this is a children's spin-off of a series of books too complex for most kids in the target age range to appreciate. They won't get the jokes until they read the original books, and when they read the original books, something of the experience will have been spoiled by reading this first. The setting and characters are spot-on, and I hope Eulberg will write more middle grade. I just hope for an original set of characters in a fresh new plot for her next book.