Belly Up

By Stuart Gibbs

For ages 9-12

Recommended by Sari in Manlius, NY:

“Belly Up is a cozy mystery for kids. It's set in a zoo and is part of the Fun Jungle Series that is mostly silly fun but also takes on conservation issues such as poaching and the exotic pet trade. It's the first non-graphic book that my daughter sat down and read without prompting. She's now introducing the series to her reading-hesitant friends.”

FROM THE PUBLISHER

This is book one of nine in the acclaimed FunJungle series.

Twelve-year-old Theodore “Teddy” Roosevelt Fitzroy has murder on his hands and trouble on his tail. He believes that Henry, the hippopotamus at the brand-new FunJungle, has been murdered. The zoo’s top brass claim the hippo went belly up the natural way, but Teddy and his feisty friend Summer McCraken have other ideas. Could the culprit be FunJungle’s animal-hating head of operations? Or is it FunJungle’s owner—Summer’s dad—a man who is much more concerned about money than animal welfare? The deeper Teddy and Summer dig, the more danger they’re in—because when it comes to hippo homicide, the truth can’t be caged!

Released in July 2011 by Simon & Schuster | 320 pages