When I was in elementary school (and wooly mammoths roamed the Earth), I stumbled upon a series of books called T.A.C.K. and really enjoyed them and reread them over and over. I recently came across copies and decided to see how they held up.
While quite dated as far as technology and social norms were concerned (Like so much 80s kids literature, these are serious free range kids), the actual writing held up much better than I had expected.
It's a series of kiddy mysteries in an Encyclopedia Brown format so I guess the spoilers buffer is necessary to discuss any of the stories.
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As I already mentioned, the T.A.C.K. books are anthologies of kids solving mysteries with each one ending with a challenge to the readers to solve the mystery themselves before flipping the page to see the solution. The gold standard of this formula is Encyclopedia Brown and almost all of the strengths of T.A.C.K. come from the ways that it is different from those books.
The stories clearly take place in a New England state (while Mr. Brown clearly lives in Florida) with a group of four kids who solve problems, mostly small but at least one major one per book. The name T.A.C.K. comes from their names. Toria who is the narrator with an interest in journalism and sailing. Abby, the agent in remote, who moved away before the start of the series but comes back to visit once a book. Chuck, a toned down version of the All American Boy. And Will, who is the clever one. Will 'goes by K' by as a reference to the old telegraph short hand for Switch, because his brain can flip a switch and see things in different ways. Except that no one ever calls him K and that's not what K really meant in telegraphs. Hilariously, Toria openly admits all that and says it's just to justify calling themselves T.A.C.K.
What I remembered about T.A.C.K. was that the writing was very character driven, with almost all the characters having well rounded, developed personalities. (Sorry, Chuck) Toria's voice is snarky and observant. Having worked with fifth graders and high schoolers, she sounds more like a high school freshman than a fifth grader but there are occasional moments that remind us of her real age.
I am positive that I still have nostalgia filters on but I still think the books have solid tone and characterization going on.
What I had forgotten was how different the solutions are from the Encyclopedia Brown books. Encyclopedia Brown's stories are all logic puzzles with usually one distinct clue that readers have to find in order to solve the case. While some of the T.A.C.K. mysteries are like that (In one case, how melted ice cream sandwiches were to establish the passage of time), many of them have more common sense application solutions. Being able to make sure a skunk left a garage by sprinkling flour to check for footprints. Piling up snow to be able to reach a window ledge.
On the one hand, this means that T.A.C.K. isn't as fair play as Encyclopedia Brown, which are literal puzzles. On the other hand, this method leads to better actual stories. It might also lead to better lessons in lateral thinking but I'm not sure if elementary age kids need any help thinking outside the box.
The T.A.C.K. books are long out of print as far as I can tell but managing to revisit them was fun. I don't know if I can recommend them to an adult audience in good conscious but the hour or so it took for me reread the books was fun.
