Young Miss Holmes Casebook 3-4
Granted, Sherlock Holmes has always been a hot commodity, but over the past few years the Holmesverse has expanded into every corner of pop culture. Young Miss Holmes, one of the newer manga contributions to the collective, introduces Christie Hope, niece of the famous detective and a budding young sleuth, who invites herself along on several of her uncle’s cases. In this volume, Christie helps solve the mysteries found in The Hound of the Baskervilles, “The Adventure of the Six Napoleons,” and “The Five Orange Pips.” While the stories don’t follow the exact plotlines of Conan Doyle’s originals, the internal logic and solutions to the mysteries are the same, giving both manga lovers and readers new to the mystery genre a jumping-off point to the classic stories. The artist has used a more classically romantic shojo manga style, which suits the story, but it may take readers used to more modern artwork some time to get used to. Christie’s enthusiasm for mysteries is infectious, and young readers will find themselves wanting to solve the cases before she does. Grades 10-12. --Eva Volin