A fun, quirky middle grade novel about a interesting mystery that I think we all had to deal with as kids.

Disclaimer: I received this book in exchange of my honest opinion.

This was a fun middle grade read, featuring a very judgy main character who is playing detective and loves spending time with her grandmother who loves combining Indian cooking with Western cuisine.

I loved the theme of the book - which is also the main mystery of our little detective: why do adults say one thing and do another? More exactly, why do they teach us about healthy eating but feed us junk food at school?

Great mystery, great themes.

I wish Mina was a bit less condescending and judgy of her best friend.

Thanks to Netgalley for this E-Arc.

This was such a cute children's mystery book. I finished it in one sitting. Mina is such a curious little girl. Also, loved her granny's character who kept experimenting with food. My mouth watered at the descriptions 😆❤️.

A must-read for children who enjoy mysteries.

A delightfully amusing story of a young girl and her fight to improve the quality of school dinners. Lots of laughs and a great set of characters which will be great for the 7-9 year olds.

I think that this book is way too long. The idea is very fun, and there are a lot of illustrations. I really enjoyed the profiles of the different characters. But it does not have to be such a long book.

Though I am in my 20s I absolutely enjoyed reading this book. It was fun and engaging and kept me hooked. Children will definitely love this book. Mina Mistry is a great detective, if there is a series i would love to read all the books.

Let's be frank. The plot of this book is a little bit nonsense. It takes the idea of a kid detective discovering a conspiracy to something of an extreme. Accepting this plot requires a fair amount of suspension of disbelief. I'd say it qualifies as wish fulfillment. Mina snoops around and uncovers a conspiracy perpetrated by supposedly responsible adults. She and her friends are deeply involved in organizing events for their school. The topics skew a bit older than the reading level. Interesting but not compelling in the long term.

Mina Mistry keeps notes on her friends, family, and school. After learning about healthy food in class, Mina realizes that her school is serving only unhealthy food for lunch. The food choices are so unhealthy that students are getting cavities and the dentist is completely booked. Mina decides to investigate the unhealthy lunches at her school.

This is a great story to teach children about healthy eating. Healthy eating is an important topic at schools. It was ironic that the school was serving junk food while they taught the students how to eat healthy food.

This story was also quite funny. The school planned a fundraiser for their mailman, who needed money to pay for lawyer bills. He lost his hand from a dog attack in the past. Then, he was bit by another dog and the owners claimed that bite gave their dog food poisoning, so they sued him. That was such an outrageous story that it was funny.

The solution of the story was very clever. I didn’t realize what was happening, but it would probably be easy for a reader to figure out. I had missed one of the clues, but this mystery could be solved by the reader.

This is a cute middle grade mystery!

Thank you Sweet Cherry Publishing for providing a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I definitely liked the characters and the premise. The illustrations and dramatic font changes are delightful and make it an easy pivot for readers of better known series with the same features. I wasn’t very enthralled with the story but I think the target audience would be.

Mistry's Mysteries
This book brings to you the little detective.

Her name is Mina Mistry and she loves mysteries.

Wanna know why she is the perfect little sleuth? Let's see:
1. She loves to spy anything and everything
2. She has a secret undercover name
3. She has a secret log that she hides under a floorboard
4. She also maintains secret files on everyone she meets!

Illustrations!!
A book with illustration is a child's best friend. And this book will give you ample illustrations to keep you engaged.

Mistry investigates the Mysterious lunch
The book is a perfect partner for an imaginative little mind. Mina makes every mundane things adventurous by looking at them with suspect and ensuing an investigation over them.
Do you think lunches are the last thing that could need inspection? Well, you can count on Mina to even start an investigation of the lunch boxes packed by the guardians.
Get hold of the book to see what Mina will do to investigate the "loathsome school lunches". And expect a lot fun in the process too!!

Mina was very curious and imaginative, she sees herself as a Detective, she turns everything that happens around her into a mystery, one she quickly investigates. During lunch her biggest mystery fell right within her grasp, it was terrible greasy and unhealthy. Their lunch menu had been changed a while back to healthy foods only, and now that wasn’t so, something wasn’t right, something was terribly wrong, and Mina was going to find out what’s going on with the lunch lady. She intends to put her investigative skills to work by solving this mystery.

Apparently, this series launcher is up for an award. I don't think it will win anything from me, although it serves a purpose as providing a generally fulfilling time-passer for the under-tens. Our heroine, welcomely mixed-race Indian/British, is suffering in school under a barrage of culinary advice about which foods are good and which are bad for us, when she suddenly realises all the school lunches are cack. Delicious, but bad for you cack. And so, with the help of her sounding board – ooh, sorry, stuffed panda toy (that just loves to read magazines about parkour, bungee jumping and so on) – she gets to work out exactly why that is.

A lot of this is on point for this kind of book for this kind of reader – easy, pleasant illustrations, huge lettering and multiple changes of font where at all justifiable, chatty style of diary entry writing... There are some suitable quirks too, with Mr Panda, and some oddball recipes. I liked the way we just jumped into the mystery without spending too long world-building, and allowing for a much smaller drama than consequent books. But it's not the best example of its kind – the level of detail is too high, and the whole conceit of it being written by our heroine on the sly is out the window when scenes take longer to read about than they did to live out in real life. She must spend much of every evening pen in hand, if this evidence is to go by. But it was never written and produced for the likes of me – if you are an adult checking this out before purchase you'll be done in an hour max, and you won't find it terribly exciting. If you are the target audience, then you will probably find it raises a few smiles, and its scenario does suitably force an eyebrow to be raised. Just how is the school managing to overload its pupils' arteries, despite our main character and others realising the error of its ways?

A cute and fun book for children to read with an appealing layout and great illustrations. The font used and size of it is a good choice to help children read without much difficulty and certain words are printed in extra bold print for emphasis. The author opts for the mystery angle to drive home an important point about healthy food and diet. When her school still continues to serve unhealthy school lunches even after a presentation warning them about the bad effects of unhealthy eating, Mina Mistry, a 3rd grade who plans to become a detective/investigator as an adult, takes it upon herself to investigate the matter, with plenty of help from her grandmother and best friend Holly along the way.

I think the kids will enjoy this book. Afterall, it's never too early to get their thinking caps on 😉.

My thanks to NetGalley, the publisher Sweet Cherry Publishing and the author Angie Lake for the e-Arc of the book. The illustrations are done by Ellie O'Shea.

The book publishes today, September 29, 2020.

I really wanted to like this book. Thinking back on Cam Jansen or Young Nancy Drew, I thought it would be a fun twist to use the Diary formula for a middle grade mystery. But I just couldn't buy it.

I was immediately put off at the beginning when an educator stood in front of an assembly and told the students to "shut up". Following that with the shallow and unrealistic friendship between Mina and Holly, I was hoping that at least the mystery part of the story would prove worthwhile.

I did expect it to be predictable, and it was; but then it left me confused about the target audience. There were times the plot and characters seems to be 7-8 years old - but then with the makeup and boy obsession of Holly it was possibly 10-12. This inconsistency made it hard to give any credence to the story. I did appreciate the lesson of healthy eating, but it was overdone to the point that it felt be the end I was reading a PSA.

Review to come September 23rd on Blog/Goodreads.

Sorry, but Mina is just not the nicest. She is constantly making horrible remarks about her supposed best friend Holly who loves fashion. As if it is horrible and terrible to love fashion. She never has anything nice to say about the girl and seriously? That is just not good. I couldn't even see them as friends as I read this book. I just found it very harmful.

Not only is she judging her supposed best friend... but also her teacher who just loves sweet foods. ARGH.

I am quite confused about the ages of these girls. The way the book is written and how the characters act I would say 9/10, a bit too young in my eyes to go fully make-up as Holly is said to do. Nail polish, sure, but the rest?

Also I don't see why there is a mystery for the unhealthy dinner stuff. From what I read in books and see in shows that is apparently how lunches go in the US. No clue why, I always found it very silly.
But we do later find out that the cook in charge apparently is a big fan of healthy food, so I can imagine that it is weird then that they only get unhealthy food all the time. The mystery itself was underwhelming. There wasn't a lot of excitement or investigation happening in my eyes. Mina said she was doing things... but I just didn't see anything really happen which was a shame.
In the end it was just a bit of a disappointment with how it all came together. Wow, gee, I haven't seen that plot ever before. I do think it is a bit hilarious that they get bad dental health from just bad lunches. If you just brush your teeth right and correct once/twice a day and eat healthy (which looks like it happens) the other couple of times it shouldn't be this bad. Unless your teeth hate you.

I did like that the fundraiser was for Postman Pete who has had his fair share of trouble in life. It was one of the few times that I saw someone with a prosthetic arm in a children's book, so I really appreciate that. We need more prosthetics in children's book.

I did like the Indian foods and that they were trying to make all sorts of things (Mina and her grandma).

The art was cute and fun. I like the style.

And the format didn't work for me. I got this one BEFORE the whole formats were added to the book page and so I didn't know this one would be PDF... If I had known I would have avoided it. I just cannot read long books on my PC or phone. My eyes and head just burn right away. Not to mention that I kept forgetting things because reading this in ADE meant long loading times... At times the program almost crashed. In my frustration I kept forgetting what I read on the previous page and I had to go back again.

So yeah, not my kind of book. Not interested in reading the rest. Unless the story gets better and Mina becomes a bit nicer and friendlier towards people around her.

This is a cute and sometimes funny book about Mina's investigation on the school lunches. The mystery surprised me when it's revealed and I actually liked it. I just wish Mina's narration about her best friend, Holly, is kinder and not demonizing her just because they don't have the same likes and goals in life.

Disclaimer: I received this book from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I was really looking forward to reading this book with my daughter but the characters aren't particularly nice, especially the main character, Mina.

There were problems with the plot and I have a feeling the age range this is targeting will pick up on it.

There were... so many issues with this book. First of all, Mina, the main character, is kind of mean, but it's never addressed or dealt with. She clearly looks down on her best friend and rarely says anything nice about her. She's constantly talking about how Holly is obsessed with fashion and says they're only friends because she likes that Holly doesn't care about her interests which is really strange. She's also pretty rude when talking about the teacher who likes to eat "junk food." I was really hoping this would be a book about healthy eating that didn't include shaming others for their eating habits, but alas, no.

There were also just some parts of the plot that were entirely unrealistic. Yes, this is for kids, but I think the target audience will still pick up on it. For example, if the school lunch deliveries have been going wrong for years wouldn't the school cook have said something about it to the person placing the orders by now? And do we really need a book that tells kids the dentist is evil and wants them to get lots of cavities?

Also, I could not figure out how hold Mina was supposed to be. Iif the book mentioned it, I missed it). Holly is, according to Mina, never seen without a full face of makeup and perfect nails, and obsessively talks about the boy she likes. So, presumably, these kids are at least a little bit older than the target audience of the book, although they're still in elementary school. I'm not saying second graders can't read about characters with these traits, but it seems a little odd for the age range it's intended for.

I do think kids would enjoy reading this book. The illustrations are fun and the font changes throughout make it eye catching and appealing to read. The conclusion is hinted throughout the book and young readers may be able to solve the mystery before Mina, which is great. I think the overall idea of "hey, if we're supposed to be eating healthy food, why are school lunches full of junk food" is a good one that kids will relate to! The execution just didn't live up to the concept.

Disclaimer: I received this book from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Very cute book with lots of illustrations on every other page, so perfect for early independent readers who wants a more complex story. Mina is a smart and spunky little detective who wants to solve the mystery- why is her school lunches so unhealthy? The illustrations are great, very cute and breaks up the story nicely. I also liked the extra bold print for emphasize on certain words. I think fans of Junie B. Jones or Heidi Hecklebeck would also enjoy this story.

Very cute and easy for young children to read. The illustrations were adorable and expressive. My only issue was the formatting of the ebook. Some pages were blank and others had weird text issues.