Settings in Middle-Grade Mysteries

Our Tuesday “Case Files from our Detectives” feature is currently spotlighting Crime Scenes, a.k.a. Settings. What goes into choosing and researching settings? How can mysteries grow out of their settings? How do we bring places or time periods to life on the page, finding the right details? Two weeks ago Diana Renn described how a novel was born from an unexpected challenge she faced while traveling in Japan. PRETTY CROOKED author Elisa Ludwig showed howshe created the setting for her mystery entirely from research. Today, Kristen Kittscher explores settings in middle-grade mysteries.

Here’s a riddle for you. What do Shawn Thomas Odyssey’s THE WIZARD OF DARK STREET, Trenton Lee Stewart’s MYSTERIOUS BENEDICT SOCIETY, Elise Broach’s MASTERPIECE, Rebecca Stead’s WHEN YOUR REACH ME, Matthew Kirby’s ICEFALL and Nancy Springer’s Enola Holmes mysteries all have in common?

The books are disparate enough that it might be hard to notice any shared traits — other than that they are all, to one extent or another — middle-grade mysteries that were published within the last five years. If you look again, though, you’ll realize that not one of these books is set in a realistic contemporary setting. Broach’s MASTERPIECE, while set in modern day New York, involves talking insects. Stead takes us back to 1970s Manhattan, Springer plants us in Victorian England, and Odyssey creates a magical world. ICEFALL recreates a fantastical ancient Norway and Trenton Lee Stewart creates the fictional Stonetown Harbor and Nomansen Island as the backdrop for his intrepid gang’s adventures. 

In fact, I’d go out on a limb and that it’s much more common for middle-grade mysteries to be set in unusual, fantastic, or historical settings than in modern towns. YA mysteries, on the other hand, seem much more rooted in contemporary settings. Why is that?

Part of it may be simply that middle-graders have much greater thirst for adventure and fantastical, over-the-top worlds. However, as someone who set my own mystery in a slightly off-kilter, surreal version of a contemporary suburb, I have an inkling there’s more to it: one of the greatest challenges of writing middle-grade mysteries is keeping stakes high while still creating conditions in which the kids solve the crime on their own. The moment things get too dangerous is the same moment our readers could say, “Hey, why isn’t the FBI all over this?” There are ways around this in contemporary mysteries, of course, but many of them involve peopling a story with bumbling law enforcement and clueless or absent parents.

Skewing reality a bit or setting the story in the past lifts that obstacle and helps readers suspend disbelief that much more easily. Sure, in real life it might be wiser to call your parents on your cell rather than foil an evil man set on destroying the world, but on surreal Nomansan Island in Stewart’s MYSTERIOUS BENEDICT SOCIETY, that’s not an option. Similarly, life in the 1970s Upper West Side of Manhattan (WHEN YOU REACH ME) affords kids much more investigative freedom than life in Manhattan would today. (Although: Kirsten Miller wisely gets around this in KIKI STRIKE: INSIDE THE SHADOW CITY by setting Ananka Fishbein’s story in the literal underworld of New York, amidst rat-filled tunnels where it feels like anything can happen.)

What do you think? Have I cherry-picked my examples, or are middle-grade mysteries indeed more often set in fantastical or historical worlds? And, if so, do you think it has anything to do with helping along our willing suspension of disbelief?

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Kristen Kittscher’s debut middle grade mystery THE WIG IN THE WINDOW (Harper Children’s) will be released in  2013. It follows the comic misadventures of two tween sleuths who suspect their school counselor is a dangerous fugitive — and just might be right! A former middle school English teacher, Kristen lives in Pasadena, California with her husband, Kai. When she’s not writing, you’ll find her running her after-school tutoring business or taking orders from her hopelessly spoiled pets.

Investigating Middle-Grade Sleuths

Last week as part of our continuing our month-long "Young Sleuths" theme, ElisaLudwig placed a help wanted ad describing her ideal YA sleuth. Lower the 14 – 18 age range a bit, and her requirements would hold just as well for the perfect middle-grade sleuth.

Of course, it’d help us middle-grade mystery writers tremendously if we included a few desirable traits for our ideal young sleuths’ parents. Dead, missing, clueless, or work-obsessed would be preferable. If not, a predilection for taking sudden, long trips would do nicely – especially if said parents also despise cell phones. How about a lawyer or detective who nevertheless consults with his child like a brilliant equal, à la Nancy’s father, Carson Drew? Yes, please!

Since requesting deceased parents in our “help wanted” might violate some discrimination laws, I’ll think I’ll steer clear. Instead, I’d like to train my magnifying glass on a few of my favorite sleuth traits and great characters who possess them.

Audacity. I love this trait most when a young sleuth discovers her own boldness as her curiosity deepens and the stakes are raised. Nancy Springer’s Enola Holmes (The Case of the Missing Marquess and several more) is a wonderful example. Uncertain and a touch self-pitying at first, Enola’s soon running away with money and supplies shrewdly stuffed into her Victorian bustle and marching into Scotland Yard undetected right when the authorities are on her tail.

Intelligence. Admittedly, every middle-grade sleuth is endowed with exceptional smarts – so I’ll go with a classic favorite here: The Westing Game’s feisty, shin-kicking Turtle Wexler has plenty of audacity, but her powers of logic and observation are also top notch! How else could she sift through 16 possible suspects and crack an exceptionally difficult code?

Imagination. I like my middle-grade sleuths to have overactive imaginations that lend themselves to wild speculation, even if that means they’re frequently misled. Stories are no fun without crazy hunches to propel the mystery. Ben H. Winter’s hilarious seventh grade heroine Bethesda Fielding provides a perfect case study in wild speculation in The Secret Life of Ms. Finkleman, when she doggedly seeks to prove her inkling that Ms. Finkleman is not the boring music teacher she seems to be. 

Curiosity. How can I avoid bringing up Louise Fitzhugh’s classic kid spy, Harriet? She doesn’t want to get to the bottom of a mere mystery. She’s more interested in uncovering the secrets of human nature, whether she realizes it or not. Now that’s some ambition and curiosity. 

Sense of humor. Mysterious super spy Kiki Strike (Kiki Strike: Inside the Shadow City) zips around town on her Vespa, has an extensive knowledge of poisons and weaponry, and happens to be a martial arts master to boot. But even though she’s about as audacious and savvy as sleuths come, it’s her wry sense of humor and one-liners I appreciate most.

It’s no surprise that in these great books, each of the sleuths is graced with all of these traits to some degree. What about you? What traits do your favorite sleuths exemplify?

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Kristen Kittscher’s debut middle grade mystery THE WIG IN THE WINDOW (Harper Children’s) will be released in  2013. It follows the comic misadventures of two tween sleuths who suspect their school counselor is a dangerous fugitive — and just might be right! A former middle school English teacher, Kristen lives in Pasadena, California with her husband, Kai. When she’s not writing, you’ll find her running her after-school tutoring business or taking orders from her hopelessly spoiled pets.