The Bobbsey Twins’ Mystery at School

The Bobbsey Twins Mystery at School was published in 1949 and is set during the school year at the Lakeport schoolhouse rather than at one of the family’s travel destinations. The setting allows the series to do something it had largely avoided in the earlier outdoor-vacation volumes, namely render the daily life of school for both age groups in the cast.

Nan and Bert are in upper grades by this point, dealing with assigned readings, school plays, and an annual academic competition. Flossie and Freddie are in lower grades, dealing with their first introduction to formal classroom life. The mystery of the title involves a series of small items disappearing from the schoolhouse: a teacher’s stopwatch, several of the lower-grade pupils’ lunches, a borrowed library book. Bert and Nan identify the culprit as another student dealing with a complicated home situation, which the school addresses with surprising tact. A late-period Bobbsey entry with a slightly heavier message than usual.