The London Eye Mystery has a Lexile rating of 640L, suitable for 4th grade and above. An activist for literacy, Dowd founded or worked for programs that support children’s rights, reading in under-served communities, and the rights of writers worldwide. It was also shortlisted for many English awards, including the Red House Children’s Book Award, the Doncaster Book Award, and more. (Feb.The novel was nominated for a Carnegie Medal, was listed as a 2008 Booklist Children’s Editors’ Choice title, and a School Library Journal Best Book of 2008. , and fresh cause to mourn her premature death this year.

Just as impressive as Dowd's recent debut, A Swift Pure Cry Comparisons to The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-timeĪre inevitable-this release was delayed when Mark Haddon's book (from the same publisher) became a bestseller-but Dowd makes clearer overtures to younger readers. The author wryly locates the humor as Ted wrangles with his symptoms (learning to lie represents progress) but also allows Ted an ample measure of grace. Dowd ratchets up the stakes repeatedly: is a boy in the morgue Salim? Has he drowned? Been kidnapped? Katrina and Ted work together to solve the puzzle, developing new respect for each other. At the outset Ted explains that he has cracked the case: “Having a funny brain that runs on a different operating system from other people's helped me to figure out what happened.” The tension lies in the implicit challenge to solve the mystery ahead of Ted, who turns his intense observational powers on the known facts, transforming his unnamed disability into an investigative tool while the adults' emotions engulf them. As Ted and his older sister Katrina watch, their visiting cousin Salim boards a “pod” for a ride on the London Eye, a towering tourist attraction with a 360-degree view of the city-but unlike his fellow passengers, Salim never comes down. A 12-year-old Londoner with something like Asperger's syndrome narrates this page-turner, which grabs readers from the beginning and doesn't let go.

The london eye mystery by siobhan dowd