DONNY, MARY GRACE AND THE UGLY MARBLES

The Grandma Gang is back and ready to embark on another adventure in Pepe’s third volume of a mystery series.

Not since Donny, Mary Grace and the Dognappers (2022) have Mary Grace, Donny, and the Grandma Gang uncovered a culprit as devious as the one they find in this installment. The author’s brother and sister protagonists visit their great-grandmother Gigi at her residential facility near their home in Lompoc, California, only to find themselves accidentally embroiled in a major smuggling operation. Five-year-old Donny has Down syndrome and is friends with Ed, the 13-year-old son of the facility’s manager, Mrs. Knight. Donny and Ed share a strong affinity for marbles, and together they enjoy playing marble games during weekly visits to the facility. Then one day, an employee at the facility’s reception desk asks fifth grader Mary Grace and Donny to bring a package up to Ed’s room for him, but when they arrive upstairs, they notice the wrapping is already open. Despite Mary Grace’s reservations, Donny peeks inside to find a Chinese checkers set that includes “ugly marbles” alongside the normal playing pieces. They reveal this issue to Ed, and the three go to the toy store, where the owner suggests these extra tokens may be raw diamonds and not marbles. Mrs. Knight dodges any questions about the package, and a new problem arises that distracts the key players in this mystery: A family wanting to lead church services at the facility is not willing to open the choir to people from other faiths, and tensions are steadily rising. “Well, we already have one mystery to solve!” says Donny, “About the ugly marbles in the box. Maybe this can be another mystery; how everyone can sing songs!” More ugly marbles appear over the weeks as Donny mulls these two questions, until he and Ed have removed so many of them from the Chinese checkers sets that everyone finds themselves in danger from the men who asked Mrs. Knight to receive these packages. With the help of local police and Gigi’s friends—the Grandma Gang—Donny and Mary Grace must stop the diamond smugglers and return harmony to the facility.

Written in the vein of James Preller’s Jigsaw Jones (1998), Pepe’s early elementary school mystery novel is one of the few currently on the market to feature a disabled main character. It treats Donny with respect, making sure that his Down syndrome is emphasized without making it the sole focus of his character. Like Donny, Ed is also “a little different from most kids,” and the other characters, like Mary Grace and Grandma Cathy, do a good job of modeling interaction with him and Donny. The entire story is briskly paced and smoothly integrates its two intersecting plotlines, one about the diamond smuggling and the other concerning the tensions surrounding church services at the facility. The mystery keeps readers on their toes while remaining realistic about the children’s involvement. The choice of broken English for smuggler Jorge as well as the use of a sports analogy to explain religious discrimination are the only questionable moments in the book. Fans of the A-to-Z Mysteries by Ron Royand Carolyn Keene’s Nancy Drew and the Clue Crew series will enjoy this mystery, which begins with an innocent, everyday activity and ends with a once-in-a-lifetime adventure.

A warm, well-paced follow-up in an inclusive series that will keep readers coming back for more.