Cam Jansen and the School Play Mystery

Fifth-grade sleuth Cam Jansen returns in this twenty-first chapter-book devoted to her crime-solving adventures, this time confronting the theft of her school play's ticket money. While her best friend Eric Shelton stars as Abraham Lincoln in the show, it falls to Cam to solve the puzzling theft. But how could money that was collected in a sealed shoebox, sitting on a table with two ticket sellers the entire time, have gone missing...?

Like its predecessors, Cam Jansen and the School Play Mystery relies upon its eponymous heroine's photographic memory for the resolution of the puzzle. It is an engaging entry in the series, and will undoubtedly keep beginning chapter-book readers entertained. I have fond memories of reading the earlier Cam Jansen books when I was young, although this one was published long after I had moved on to more advanced fare. Recommended to fans of Cam Jansen, and to beginning chapter-book readers who enjoy mysteries. ( )

GR: L
GL: 2.9
DRA: 20
Lexile: 330L

This book is about a girl nicknamed cam, short for camera, because of her eidetic memory. Cam is helping her school put on a play about Abraham Lincoln when the money from the ticket sales go missing. Cam uses her eidetic memory to find the thief and the thief learns an important lesson from the play about honest Abe.

This realistic fiction story dives into a school play, that happens to have a theif at it. The story goes on to show how onw girl with a photographic memory and the help of others are able to solve the problem and bring justice to the theif. This story takes place at the school and gives one example to readers how school plays can work and that one can raise money for a cause by charging admission for a play. ( )