review
Katharina Reschke is already well-known for her screenwriting of children’s TV series and films, and this engaging new story for 8-12 year-olds puts her firmly on the map as a successful author. Roxy Sourdough – The Secret of the Fourth Floor is full of colour and vibrancy. Characters and situations are imbued with cartoonstyle energy and the winning storyline captures the reader’s imagination.
Roxy Sourdough is an 8¼-year-old would-be detective. She has a wild shock of red hair and is inseparable from her bright green diving mask. When she marches into a neighbour’s flat in search of adventure she finds a mysterious map, and soon discovers that plans are afoot to steal a valuable painting from the local art museum. Roxy manages to solve the crime with the aid of a host of appealing characters: a lonely neighbour, a spoilt best friend, the tramp from the park who happens to have been a world-class biologist, and a tax collector who fulfils his spiderman ambitions at night.
Roxy is a tremendously likeable heroine and readers can only hope that there will be more instalments in her promising detective career soon.
All recommendations from Autumn 2012