Or more aptly titled, the series I’ve wanted to talk about for over a year.

A few years ago, I started in on a series of books. It had everything, I mean everything I love in a story. Mystery. Humor. A detective duo. Red herrings. Secret identities.

Maybe you’ve heard of this fantastic and hilarious team of detectives?

Minnie and Moo.

Two cows who continue to solve mysteries in their fashionable clueless way while the farmer suspects something’s up.

And yes, this is an early reader series by Denys Cazet. I love them!

One of my favorite’s was this next one: Minnie and Moo: Wanted Dead or Alive.

Minnie and Moo want to help the farmer so they dress up in his old clothes and go to the bank to ask for money. I mean, how else would a cow get money? Unfortunately, they look exactly like two wanted bank robbers. You can imagine the hilarity. A bank heist and a high-speed chase through a cornfield! Minnie and Moo get away on the farmer’s tractor. So much fun.

You’d think there would be no lesson to be learned from a book for this age group; and frankly, that’s why I was so impressed with these. Using simple sentences and words, this author caught an adult’s attention.

Here are some of the elements I found:

• Inciting incident
• Three-dimensional characters
• Plot points and complications
• Climax
• The end-of-story twist
• Fun language
• Humor through hyperbole.

I realized that all of these elements are found in the books I write and the books I read. I can remember all the times I fell asleep reading to my kids. I mean some books were loooong. Yes, I was one of those parents that chose the picture books with fewer words per page. Sorry. (Unless the story was good!)

I never fell asleep on this fantastic crime fighting team though.

Who are some of your favorite and memorable detectives?