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On The Thread’s Ask a Bookseller series, we talk to independent booksellers all over the country to find out what books they’re most excited about right now.

With school back in session this month, Ask a Bookseller is focusing on books for kids. 

Author and bookseller Rosanne Parry of Annie Blooms Books in Portland, Oregon, starts us off with a middle-grade mystery series, perfect for fans of Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys. 

There are five books in Michael Hutchinson’s Mighty Muskrat series, with a new book forthcoming next year.

The series features four mystery-solving cousins living on the fictional Windy Lake reservation in Canada. Hutchinson is a member of the Misipawistik Cree Nation.  

Parry says the mysteries are active and well-paced, fun for kids and nostalgic for parents and grandparents. She also appreciates that they address contemporary concerns: 

“The mysteries are typical of the kid mystery genre — missing people, lost or stolen items and rigged sports events. Hutchinson weaves in information about his Cree heritage and issues relevant to First Nations without ever being heavy-handed, and he livens it all with humor. In the first one, “The Case of Windy Lake,” for example, they're looking for a missing archaeologist. Is archaeology on an Indian reservation fraught? It is. 

“He gets into that a little bit without it, it being heavy-handed. The series presents First Nations communities in the present day and actively engaged in the wider world in ways I seldom see in children’s literature.” 

 Rosanne Parry is an excellent author in her own right; she writes the Voice in the Wilderness Middle Grade series. Each book is written from the point of view of a wild animal, including wolves, horses, and orcas. Her most recent book, published this year, is “A Wolf Called Fire.”) 

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Rosanne Parry of Annie Blooms Books in Portland, Oregon, recommends Michael Hutchinson’s Mighty Muskrat series.

Ask a Bookseller: The Mighty Muskrats mystery series by Michael Hutchinson

A book cover with the title "The Case of Windy Lake." On it, four kids ride in a boat across a lake at nighttime.

Ask a Bookseller: The Mighty Muskrats mystery series by Michael Hutchinson

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