The hunt is on! Dink, Josh, and Ruth Rose are spending Thanksgiving in Plymouth, Massachusetts. They can't wait to see the sights and have a Thanksgiving dinner just like the Pilgrims would have eaten. Then the kids learn about a sapphire necklace that went missing on the real Mayflower. Could the 400-year-old treasure be hidden somewhere nearby? And will someone else find it before they do?
The Mayflower Treasure Hunt is the second A to Z Mysteries Super Edition and opens with Dink, Josh, and Ruth Rose touring Mayflower II, a replica of the original Mayflower. It's here that they learn the (fictional) story of Emma Browne's missing necklace, believed to have been stolen by a crew member named Lawrence Mudgett. And since no one's found the jewelry in all the years since... well, of course the kids are on the case.
Once again, of course, the children manage to solve a crime--this time a four-hundred-year-old crime... and they also get themselves into some serious danger while doing so. (Afterward, Dink's mother, in keeping with her super lackadaisical parenting style, is pretty chill about what very nearly happened to them. She doesn't even call the police until the morning after they explain everything.) On the other hand, it gives Ruth Rose another opportunity to demonstrate the kind of quick thinking she utilized in earlier installments such as The Bald Bandit, so that's kind of nice. I mean, the circumstances are quite contrived, but she's clever nonetheless.
Unusually for the series, all the parents and siblings in the Duncan, Hathaway, and Pinto families show up toward the end; I think it's the first and only time Ruth Rose's parents have been illustrated. And while they make a few joking comments about wishing their kids had a more "normal" hobby, they still don't seem to be as concerned with their children's safety as you'd expect.
So it's essentially your typical A to Z Mystery book, albeit a little longer than the original twenty-six and with a minor element of interactivity. It should be a fun book to read around Thanksgiving, if you celebrate or observe the holiday.
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