From the age of eight, well before she founded The Number One Ladies’ Detective Agency, Precious Ramotswe was already solving mysteries.
Third in the Young Precious Ramotswe series
Precious Ramotswe is on holiday, staying with her Aunty Bee at a safari camp deep in the Botswana countryside, and is excited when a new lion arrives. Not just any lion—but an actor-lion called Teddy with his own film crew! But when the four-legged movie star goes missing, the camp is thrown into confusion. Can the young detective and her resourceful new friend Khumo solve the mystery and find out where Teddy has gone? The search plunges the two young sleuths deep into the jungle. As they dodge the hippos and crocs they will need all their bravery and cleverness to catch their prize.
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Excerpt
The girl in this picture is called Precious. That was her first name, and her second name was Ramotswe, and when all this happened she was nine. Nine is a good age to be. Some people like being nine so much that they really want to stay that age forever. They usually turn ten, however, and then they find out that being ten is not all that bad either. Precious, of course, was very happy being nine.
Like many of us, Precious had a number of aunts—three in fact. One of these aunts lived in the village in Botswana where Precious was born, while another lived on an ostrich farm almost one hundred miles away. And a third, who was probably her favourite aunt of all, lived right up at the top of the country, in a place called the Okavango Delta. That’s a lovely name, isn’t it? Try saying it. OKA-VANGO.
The first in the Young Precious Ramotswe series
In this delightful, enchanting tale for children, we find out how the young Precious became the crafty and intuitive private investigator we all know and love. When a piece of cake goes missing from her classroom, a traditionally built young boy is tagged as the culprit. Precious, however, is not convinced and sets out to find the real thief. But along the way she learns that your first guess isn’t always right.
Alexander McCall Smith’s sassy girl detective takes on a new dimension in this delightful children’s series.
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Excerpt
Have you ever said to yourself—not out loud, of course, but silently, just in your head: Wouldn’t it be nice to be a detective? I have, and so have a lot of other people, although most of us will never have the chance to make our dream come true. Detectives, you see, are born that way. Right from the beginning, they just know that this is what they want to be. And right from the beginning, even when they are very young—a lot younger than you—they show that solving mysteries is something they can do rather well.
This is the story about a girl who became a detective. Her first name was Precious, and her second name was Ramotswe. That is an African name, and it is not as hard to say it as it looks. You just say RAM and then you say OTS (like lots without the l) and then you finish it off by saying WE. That’s it.
The second in the Young Precious Ramotswe series
Having already cracked the case of the missing cakes at school, young Precious Ramotswe has a new mystery to solve. Her new friends have the funniest and most resourceful pet you can imagine, but strangely their family’s most valuable possession, their cow, has gone missing. Precious has a plan to find the missing animal, but she needs the help of another in her search. Will she succeed? What obstacles will she face?
Reviews
Excerpt
This is the story of a girl called Precious. It is also the story of a boy whose name was Pontsho, and of another girl who had a very long name. Sometimes people who have a very long name find it easier to shorten it. So this other girl was called Teb. There is no room here, I’m afraid, to give her full name, as that would take up quite a few lines. So, like everybody else, we’ll call her Teb.
Precious’s family name was Ramotswe, which sounds like this: RAM–OT–SWEE. There: try it yourself—it’s not hard to say. She lived in a country called Botswana, which is in Africa. Botswana is very beautiful—it has wide plains that seem to go on and on as far as the eye can see, until they join the sky, which is high and empty. Sometimes, you know, when you look up at an empty sky, it seems as if it’s singing. It is very odd, but that is how it seems.
