An ideal way to teach information literacy and leadership skills to 1st to 4th graders—using chocolate chip cookies and glitter pens! The Cayuga Island Kids are five big-hearted friends who solve mysteries and have wonderful adventures together. They are fact detectives who follow clues, find answers, and puzzle out solutions. Above all, they are kind, helpful, smart, and resourceful kids who have lots of fun together. In Book 1 the Kids hunt for a certain kind of tree and instead unearth a cannonball. As they hunt for clues and follow leads, the inquisitive and adventurous fact detectives discover that the island they live on is home to both history and mystery. In award-winning Book 2, the Kids rescue a mallard and pull plastic bottles out of the creek. How they bring the community together to build a recycling bin big enough to hold plenty of plastic makes for a lively adventure. Brainstorming, teamwork, and recycling lead to the realization that although we are each just one person, together we can make a BIG difference! In Book 3, Julian and his dad are trying to make perfect chocolate chip cookies when glitter pens go missing at school. Clues point to a suspect, but when they encounter misinformation and disinformation, the importance of not jumping to conclusions becomes clear.

It’s Fall now and the Cayuga Island Kids are busy with homework, projects, and after school activities. But there’s still plenty of time for mystery and adventure! In the third book in the Cayuga Island Kids chapter book series, Julian is exploring food science as he experiments with recipes on his quest for the perfect chocolate chip cookie. Being a cookie sampler takes Mac’s mind off his troubles with fractions. Yoko is practicing gestures and facial expressions in anticipation of the school play tryouts. Maya is Ms. Choi’s helper in the after-school Make-and-Take-Club for younger crafters. Lacey is taking care of the little community library that Gram built—and searching for the next mystery to solve.When two of Ms. Choi’s glitter pens go missing, Maya turns to Lacey for help. The clues and evidence point to a suspect, but are they jumping to conclusions? When a classmate jumps to conclusions and shares false information about Julian’s cookies, the Cayuga Island Kids join forces to set the facts straight. When the kids research explorers for a school project, they uncover misinformation that blurs the truth, and makes the reasons for being a fact detective crystal clear.As the fall leaves turn color, the Cayuga Island Kids come to realize that sorting through clues and evidence—just like research—means making sure information is factual, and not just a fraction of the truth. Young readers will cheer for the Cayuga Island Kids as they embark on this latest adventure involving faulty assumptions, missing facts, flour bugs, and chocolate chip cookies.