I received an ARC from NetGalley and Sourcebooks Kids. And I'm voluntarily leaving a review—all opinions are my own.

Genre: Middle Grade Mystery, Realistic Fiction, Contemporary Fiction
Scary Factor: Perfect for the age
Diversity: BIPOC secondary character

I love seeing what's happening in middle grade books now days. THE MYSTERY OF THE RADCLIFFE RIDDLE is perfect for young readers. The mystery is interesting, and the kids are the ones following the clues. Grady and his dad are facing eviction because of financial trouble. Then they receive this piece of family memorabilia—what good is that, right?

That's when Grady and his two friends (who are awesome) start to try and figure out the clues to find a buried treasure.

In addition to living the dream of finding buried treasure, there are realistic moments and worries for these kids. That's one of the things I thought was so fabulous in this book.

I also love how the author connects the mystery to the history of their town and family history (genealogy). This book has a lot of heart.

Mysteries are an easy way for kids to learn how to problem-solve, organize material in a sequential manner, and of course, dive into the love of reading! It would be a fun activity to have kids make their own family tree after reading this book.

This book is perfect for 8-12 year olds! Yes! I highly recommend it.

Happy reading!

This middle grade mystery is full of everything you'd want it to be:
-Puzzles to solve
-Treasures to find
-High stakes for the characters
-Danger
-The beauty and partnership of childhood friends
-A unique setting with a unique set of community members
and more.
I loved the way the mystery unfolded and how the clues came to them and were revealed layer by layer with the help of both research, past writings, and tidbits discovered by talking to community members.

The Mystery of the Radcliffe Riddle is sure to keep middle grade readers engaged and show them some excellent perseverance and research strategies along the way.

My son loves reading chapter books and especially when we curl up and read. This was just a great book for us!

Mystery loving middle graders will enjoy The Mystery of the Radcliffe Riddle by Taryn Sounders. Grady and his father are struggling financially due to medical bills for his mother, who died. One day they find out that Eudora Klinch, who is known as the town’s kook, left them something in her will. At first it appears to be just some old needlework. However, it turns out that the needlework is really a treasure map! So Grady and his friends begin to search for the treasure.

The Mystery of the Radcliffe Riddle includes a few plot twists with a little bit of suspense and humor which will keep middle scholars engaged. I love the references to the Bible verses and that the author includes Grady attending church in the story. Currently, publishers are not publishing very many books that include religious references, themes, etc. except for Christian publishers. I am thrilled to see that a secular publishing company is doing this.

Taryn Souders new book, The Mystery of the Radcliffe Riddle is a middle grade adventure that is intriguing and very well written. Grady and his dad live quiet, unassuming lives in their sleepy Georgia town. Grady discovers by accident that the bank will be foreclosing on their home, and he is devastated as he faces the upheaval moving will create in his life. He has already lost his mom, and he does not want to lose his home and friends too. He discovers an old sampler that he believes is a treasure map with clues leading to where a fortune could be buried; the fortune that will save he and his dad from having to move.

Grady and his friends set out to solve the mystery of the sampler with clues hidden in it's stitching. The robbery and murder of a beloved townsperson stirs the town, and the children learn there is more to the robbery/murder than the town knows.

Taryn's characters are well written, and the mysterious plot is well laid out. Grady and his friends are kids solving the mystery under the deadline of the foreclosure. Twists and turns in the plot lead to a different conclusion than they originally thought. was the truth. Children who love mystery and adventure will love reading this middle grade novel. As I read, I could not help but think of Kate DiCamillo (Because of Winn Dixie) and also the curiosity of Scout, Jem and Dill in in To Kill a Mockingbird - without the prejudice, drama, and angst.

A thrilling mystery about a boy named Grady and his two friends, Thad and Clemmie. Grady and his dad are struggling. Soon their property will be taken away, and there's nothing they could do about it. Until Eudora "Kooky" Klinch passes away, leaving something for Grady in her will. An old fabric that claimed it was a treasure map. Great. Grady and his friends find clues leading to the treasure, and soon....you'll have to read it yourself to find out.
I really enjoyed this book. It had a VERY satisfactory ending. I received an ARC in return for a honest review.

Souders has found her niche as an upper grade mystery writer - and we've needed a good new face on that scene! For readers who liked "Coop Knows the Scoop," they will get more of the same mystery in "Radcliffe Riddle."

Grady and his dad have been in a bad place since the death of Grady's mother. Two things happen nearly simultaneously that give Grady hope that he and his dad have a chance at a happy future. Grady's dad shares the news that they are being evicted and must move far away from Grady's friends and a lawyer tells them that Eudora Klinch, the town "kook" was actually a distant relative and has left the something in her will. Grady, hoping it is her huge, sprawling house, is disappointed to find it is a tapestry. Soon, though, he discovers that the tapestry contains clues to a treasure, and that treasure may just be what Grady and his dad need to stay home.

Solid upper grade mystery - I think this one will find its way to several state reading award lists. Excellent choice for an upper elementary/middle school library collection.

Taryn Souders delivers another pleasant young adult novel suitable for every age reader. Her writing is lyric, each word chosen with great care, and delivers Southern sayings and authentic flavor from start to finish. For those wondering what Mark Twain’s stories would be like if he were still alive and writing today - Souders is a “modern Mark Twain”!

From the Edgar-nominated author of Coop Knows the Scoop comes an exciting mystery perfect for fans of From the Desk of Zoe Washington and Holes.

When Grady and his dad learn that the town oddball, Eudora "Kooky" Klinch left something for them in her will, they can only imagine what it might be. When it turns out it's an old scrap of 300-year-old tapestry, they are bitterly disappointed. But the cloth comes with a note saying, "This is no ordinary piece of needlework. It's a treasure map. Riddles and Clues. To the victor go the riches." Grady's dad dismisses it, but Grady thinks this could be the chance of a lifetime. With the help of his friends Thad, Clemmie, and the town dog Ophelia, Grady is determined to crack the clues and find the treasure.

But when someone tries to break into Grady's house one night, and then the local antiques expert who examined the tapestry is found unconscious, Grady realizes that he's not the only one who knows about the treasure map. There's more at risk than he bargained for, and solving this mystery just got a lot more dangerous.

The life lessons Grady learns are delivered to readers through down-home Southern sayings and matter-of-fact actions by a full cast of entertaining characters. The novel flows like a reader is sitting on the front porch with the author and hearing her tell the tale in person.

The town and all its inhabitants, along with their struggles, feel authentic and real. Readers can imagine walking the streets, sitting in the local diner, and digging through the antiques and stacks of yellowed documents with Grady. This story feels less like fiction and more like a tall-tale about actual events that unfolded for this family.

The progression of riddles, clues, and solutions is both entertaining and informative. Nothing is forced. The reader’s interest is piqued and held while learning American history and culture until the moment a puzzle is solved. All of the excitement culminates in a conclusion reminiscent of Nicolas Cage’s National Treasure!

The only question left unresolved is whether Grady and his friends will find another treasure lead in the old house? If so - I’d like to go along on that adventure too!

Taryn Souders was born in Dallas, Texas, and lived all over before settling down in Florida with her husband, David, and their three kids. Despite popular belief, Floridians do experience four seasons. They have Spring, Early Summer, Mid-Summer, and then Late Summer rounds out the year and finishes them off (figuratively and sometimes literally).

Souders never started out planning to be a writer - she was a middle school math teacher for a couple years. But, being a voracious reader as a kid gave her a love of words (and working with middle-schoolers gave her a sense of humor). It seemed like a good idea to combine the two (words and humor) and voila, her first book was born.

She enjoyed the writing process so much, that she’s kept with it and has enjoyed some success along the way.

Read more from Taryn Souders at https://tarynsouders.com and find her on social media at Facebook(@taryn.souders), and Twitter(@TarynSouders).

Taryn Souders does it again! She has a way with writing small town mysteries that puts you right in the middle of the town gossip. Taryn masterfully intertwines history with the storyline in The Mystery of Radcliffe Riddle. I honestly looked up some of the historical events to see if they were true and was suprised by the little known to me events in history.

This will be a book that will be an easy sell to students in the library because they are already hooked on Coop Knows the Scoop and the way Taryn mingles in unexpected twists and turns that results in keeping the reader hooked to see the final result.
This is a must to add to any class or school library.

Another great middle-grade mystery by author, Taryn Souders. Taryn has a way of writing where you root for the characters to come out on top so wanting Grady, Thad and Clemmie to succeed was easy. I felt like I was living in the small town of Gifton while reading. Elementary students will enjoy this fun adventure/mystery.

The Mystery of the Radcliffe Riddle is a fast paced, fun read that will be perfect for mystery lovers in grades 3-8. Set in south Georgia, Mrs. Souders perfectly captures the quirkiness of life in a small southern town with well developed characters and lots of regional aphorisms and dialect.
Grady and his father have struggled emotionally and financially since the death of his mother. It looks like things may be looking up for them when they learn that a wealthy eccentric has named them in her will. Unfortunately, their inheritance doesn't appear to be the answer to their prayers and may end up causing a host of new problems. When the local antiques shop is burgled and the owner's husband is killed, Grady and his friends race to solve the Radcliffe Riddle in time!
This book should be considered for all library collections. Highly recommended!

Grady and his father, a cabinet maker, live outside of the small town of Gifton, Georgia and are trying to make do after the death of Grady's mother in a car accident. When local eccentric "Kooky" Klinch dies, there is a lot of interest in her property (as well as her funeral, complete a meal afterwards provided by the local cooking club). Grady and his father are suprised to find out that they are distantly related, and in the absence of other relatives, are left an antique sampler that is rumored to be a treasure map. Never mind that her money has been left to take care of her abnormally large collection of cats! That would have been useful, since Grady's father is struggling to make ends meet and is almost certain to lose their house. When Grady finds this out, he enlists his friends Thad and Clemmie to help him solve the riddle of the sampler, and hopes that finding a treasure will allow him and his father to remain in Gifton. When someone breaks into their home and trashes the place, Grady suspects the thief is looking for the sampler, and when the local antiques store is also robbed, and one of the elderly owners is killed, he is sure the sampler will lead to a lot of money. Utilizing the local library an church resources, the children think they have a location and start to dig, only to find that things have changed a lot in the last 250 years, even in Gifton.
Strengths: Gifton was an amusing small town with a collection of inhabitants that were quite amusing. There's a diner, an antique store, library, and church, and these all play a good role in the mystery. It's a small enough town for Grady and his friends to be able to travel all over, but has resources to help them uncover the mystery. Their digging, but literal and figurative, meets just enough resistance to make things interesting, and the look back at history and how it affected Grady's ancestors was appealing. Thad and Clemmie are good foils, and there's even a town dog, Ophelia. This is about as close to a "cozy" mystery as I have seen for middle grade readers-- I think it's the antique store that really helps!
Weaknesses: The death of the mother was unnecessary to the plot. Reading about young people processing grief slows down middle grade books, and my students, who well may be different from other middle school students in other schools, don't enjoy this element. It used to be that they would ask if the dog died in the book; now they ask if the parents are still alive. I'm not a fan, either, although Grady's father was mostly functional.
What I really think: This is a good choice for readers who enjoyed McDonald's Pepper's Rules for Secret Sleuthing, Johnson's The Parker Inheritance or Strong's Just South of Home as well as Souders' 2020 Coop Knows the Scoop.

This latest Taryn Souders mystery is my favorite of her books so far! Grady, Thad, and Clemmie are such lovable characters (reminiscent of our favorite Harry Potter trio) and the setting had me longing for that small-town life. After things get set up in chapter one, the mystery moves quickly- full of cliffhanger chapter endings that kept me turning pages. I found the embroidery sampler/inheritance/treasure map theme to be unique and fun, and the librarian in me loved how much the characters relied upon real, honest-to-goodness library research to help them solve the mystery. This book is going to fly off the shelves in my elementary library!

Five stars for this treasure of a middle grade mystery by Taryn Souders! I fell in love with Grady, Thad, and Clemmie in the first pages, and the quirky town residents had me laughing out loud (literally!). Throw in a squirrel-chasing town dog, fascinating, little-known historical events, a little bit of danger, riddles and clues, and buried treasure and you have a book that kids (and adults) will love! I can't wait to get this book in my library.

What a fun read The Mystery of the Radcliffe Riddle by Rayn Souders would. A big fan of adult cozy mysteries, this mystery story for kids gave me the same vibes and had several fun twists and turns. Grady, our main character, is having a tough time - his mom passed away, his father is struggling (with finding work, with paying bills, with connecting with Grady), and what he thought was going to solve all their problems, a bequeath from an unknown relative really was NOT what it seemed to be. But Grady is also determined - he has a feeling that maybe, just maybe, he can find a missing treasure (which may or may not be true) and change their luck.

With a likeable cast of characters, some unexpected twists and turns, a "villain" that isn't quite expected and a quirky little town with a lot of heart, this book was a fun read that absolutely would appeal to kids. As an added bonus, real history is woven gently into the story, providing some new knowledge that isn't dry or boring.

If hope is a thing of feathers, Grady’s just molted. Grady and his father have been down on their luck since Grady’s mother passed away. With little money and a looming foreclosure on their family home, all hope seems lost. That is until one of residents of Grifton unexpectedly passes away and bequeaths Grady (and his dad) a bag of cat food and an old needlework sampler. However, Grady soon discovers the sampler may just be a treasure map in disguise and it’s up to Grady and his two friends to find the treasure and hopefully save his family home before it’s too late. But, in a small town of gossips, nothing stays secret for long, and soon Grady and his friends learn that they aren’t the only ones who are searching for treasure and there’s someone willing to murder to find it.

As a lover of adult mysteries, I really liked this book. The author has a way with words and and it truly gave me this cozy mystery in the South vibe. Additionally, the riddle was interesting, the antagonist wasn’t easy to figure out, and the treasure wasn’t exactly what I expected. I enjoyed the theme of hope woven in the story and how Grady deals with the loss of his mother, very beautiful concept.

Grady, who recently lost his mother, lives with his father in the small town of Gifton. The family has recently fallen on hard times as high-paying carpentry gigs are hard to come by. Plagued by foreclosure notices, Mr. Judd feels the only way out is to pack up what they can fit into a borrowed camper and move to a larger town to get back on their feet.
In Grady’s mind things begin to look up after Mr. Burns finds them in the local diner to let them know that they have been left a little something in Eudora Klinch’s will - a sampler that contains riddles and clues to a treasure that Eudora herself had yet to uncover.
With the help of his friend Clemmie and Thad and a lot of research the trio decide to find this treasure to save Grady’s home to keep him where he belongs. Meanwhile, an attempted break-in at the Judd’s, as well as a break-in at the local antique store where Mr. Judd sent Grady to sell a sampler to help with the bills, adds an additional layer of urgency and fear to the quest for the treasure.
The characters in this book are well written and their personalities jump off the pages.. Clemmie uses the names of famous architects to curse. The now deceased Eudora Klinch toted a shovel everywhere she went. Winifred’s the town gossip. No small town would be complete without the dog who doesn’t have an owner, but still is very well-loved.
This book provides for so many classroom lesson extensions. For language arts phrases including “gopher on caffeine”, “corn bread wasn’t quite cooked all the way through” and “tough as a pine knot” could lead to great discussions on figurative language. In social studies classes students could research little known events like the War of Jenkins Ear and create presentations. Students could interview their family members to learn about their own histories or go to a local museum to study their town and how it began. The possibilities are really endless.
Highly recommend this book for upper to middle grade classrooms and students who are looking for an excellent mystery mixed with a little bit of history.

The Mystery of the Radcliffe Riddle is a fun and well-plotted mystery filled with quirky secondary characters and a trio of young main characters with compelling backstories and inner challenges. I think middle grade readers will enjoy seeing Grady, Clemmie, and Thad piece the clues together, but the story is even more than a mystery because it’s also layered with subtexts. Grady and his dad are trying to get along following the death of his mother a couple years ago, but it’s not easy because they are very different. They also struggle financially because of the extensive medical bills from Grady’s mother’s illness. The mystery is linked to the real War of Jenkins’s Ear, which took place in both the Caribbean and GA, and that’s something educators can build upon in the classroom. The small town setting is vivid, with a coffee shop/diner as the hub of activity and a graveyard Grady and his pals search at night. The story demonstrates how people with differences can get along, and there’s plenty of humor for kids to enjoy along the way.

Well I’m not surprised how much I liked The Mystery of Radcliffe Riddle by Taryn Souders! She has proven that she can fool me. Just like in Coop Knows the Scoop, I had no clue who the guilty person was. So many cool clues and facts. Can’t wait to buy copies in July for my students.

Love this quote, “If life always went as we expected it to, we’d never know how much capacity we have for resilience, grace, and a whole bunch of other qualities.”

This is a good book for middle schoolers. As a SPED teacher, I'm always looking for high interest books that I can suggest to students. I didn't check the lexile level, but the vocabulary used and storyline are appropriate for the upper elementary & middle school reading level.

I personally enjoy mysteries and suspense stories so this one jumped out to me for review based on its title & cover. I think the kids will also be drawn to it for these things and the writing will help them to finish it out. Keep those kids reading!

** Educator reviewing an advance review copy **