Where is the bad hair day fog coming from?

The third novel from winner of the MacMillan Prize for Picture Book Illustration, Kate Pankhurst. The perfect book for 7-9 yr olds who love funny stories with quirky illustrations like DIARY OF A WIMPY KID, the DORK DIARIES and CLARICE BEAN. Mariella Mystery (That's me!) - totally amazing girl detective, aged 9 and a bit. Able to solve the most mysterious mysteries and perplexing problems, even before breakfast. It's the week before Hallowe'en and the citizens of Puddleford are being terrorised by a strange fog. People caught up in the fog experience such unnerving hair problems as extreme frizziness, wild, uncontrollable volume and shocking colour transformations for days afterwards. Just what is going on? It's up to the Mystery Girls to find out - before the huge hair scare gets even bigger...

Early readers will be hooked on this mystery chapter book from page one! Mariella Mystery (age nine and a bit) knows that all good detectives write down important information about their investigations. She's smart as a whip, super sleuth-y, and able to solve most mysterious mysteries and perplexing problems in no time flat. Parents, teachers, and gift givers will find: a mystery chapter book that early readers will love! a book perfect for school, libraries, or home! In this top-secret journal, Mariella Mystery tackles the case of who is trying to sabotage the Puddleford baking contest with important clues and observations, helpful drawings, and handy tips for new detectives.

Early readers will be hooked on this mystery chapter book from page one! Mariella Mystery (age nine and a bit) knows that all good detectives write down important information about their investigations. She's smart as a whip, super sleuth-y, and able to solve most mysterious mysteries and perplexing problems in no time flat. Parents, teachers, and gift givers will find: a mystery chapter book that early readers will love! a book perfect for school, libraries, or home! In this top-secret journal, Mariella Mystery tackles the case of who is trying to sabotage the Puddleford baking contest with important clues and observations, helpful drawings, and handy tips for new detectives.

In the years between the end of World War II and the mid-1950s, the popular culture of today was invented in the pulpy, boldly illustrated pages of comic books. But no sooner had comics emerged than they were beaten down by mass bonfires, congressional hearings, and a McCarthyish panic over their unmonitored and uncensored content. Esteemed critic David Hajdu vividly evokes the rise, fall, and rise again of comics in this engrossing history. "Marvelous . . . a staggeringly well-reported account of the men and women who created the comic book, and the backlash of the 1950s that nearly destroyed it....Hajdu’s important book dramatizes an early, long-forgotten skirmish in the culture wars that, half a century later, continues to roil."--Jennifer Reese,Entertainment Weekly(Grade: A-) "Incisive and entertaining . . . This book tells an amazing story, with thrills and chills more extreme than the workings of a comic book’s imagination."--Janet Maslin,The New York Times "A well-written, detailed book . . . Hajdu’s research is impressive."--Bob Minzesheimer,USA Today "Crammed with interviews and original research, Hajdu’s book is a sprawling cultural history of comic books."--Matthew Price,Newsday "To those who think rock 'n' roll created the postwar generation gap, David Hajdu says: Think again. Every page ofThe Ten-Cent Plagueevinces [Hajdu’s] zest for the 'aesthetic lawlessness' of comic books and his sympathetic respect for the people who made them. Comic books have grown up, but Hajdu’s affectionate portrait of their rowdy adolescence will make readers hope they never lose their impudent edge."--Wendy Smith, Chicago Tribune "A vivid and engaging book."--Louis Menand,The New Yorker "David Hajdu, who perfectly detailed the Dylan-era Greenwhich Village scene in Positively 4th Street, does the same for the birth and near death (McCarthyism!) of comic books inThe Ten-Cent Plague." --GQ "Sharp . . . lively . . . entertaining and erudite . . . David Hajdu offers captivating insights into America’s early bluestocking-versus-blue-collar culture wars, and the later tensions between wary parents and the first generation of kids with buying power to mold mass entertainment."--R. C. Baker,The Village Voice "Hajdu doggedly documents a long national saga of comic creators testing the limits of content while facing down an ever-changing bonfire brigade. That brigade was made up, at varying times, of politicians, lawmen, preachers, medical minds, and academics. Sometimes, their regulatory bids recalled the Hays Code; at others, it was a bottled-up version of McCarthyism. Most of all, the hysteria over comics foreshadowed the looming rock 'n' roll era."--Geoff Boucher, Los Angeles Times "A compelling story of the pride, prejudice, and paranoia that marred the reception of mass entertainment in the first half of the century."--Michael Saler,The Times Literary Supplement(London) David Hajdu is the author ofLush Life: A Biography of Billy StrayhornandPositively 4th Street: The Lives and Times of Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, Mimi Baez Fariña and Richard Fariña.