{"product_id":"mystery-of-meerkat-hill-isbn-9780345804464","title":"Mystery of Meerkat Hill","description":"Precious wants to be a detective when she grows up. She is always practicing at being a detective by asking questions and finding out about other people’s lives. There are two new students in her class, a girl called Teb and a boy called Pontsho. She learns that they are brother and sister, and—even more exciting—that Pontsho has a clever pet meerkat named Kosi. \u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eOne day, Teb and Pontsho’s family’s cow disappears. Precious helps them look for clues to find the cow. But getting the cow back home will require some quick thinking and help from an unexpected source.\"If you’re lucky, you’ve met sleuth Precious Ramotswe in Alexander McCall Smith’s best-selling No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency mysteries for adults. Now in \u003ci\u003eThe Mystery of Meerkat Hill,\u003c\/i\u003e second in Smith’s series for children, young readers get a chance to follow her adventures.... The book is written with the ease of a consummate storyteller, while Iain McInstosh’s woodcuts enliven the text and handsomely depict the terrain, people and animal life of Botswana.\"\u003cbr\u003e     --\u003ci\u003eBookPage\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"A marvelous chapter book ideal for young readers, and, really, all fans of McCall Smith.\" \u003cbr\u003e     --\u003ci\u003eBooklist\u003c\/i\u003e (starred review)\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Kids will love this kind and clever new detective.”—Patricia Reilly Giff, Newbery Honor–winning author of \u003ci\u003eLily’s Crossing\u003c\/i\u003eAlexander McCall Smith is the author of the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series, the Isabel Dalhousie series, the Portuguese Irregular Verbs series, the 44 Scotland Street series, and the Corduroy Mansions series. He was born in what is now known as Zimbabwe and lives in Scotland, where in his spare time he is a bassoonist in the RTO (Really Terrible Orchestra).\u003ci\u003eExcerpted from Chapter One\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTHIS IS THE STORY of a   girl called Precious. It is also the story of a boy whose name was   Pontsho, and of another girl who had a very long name. Sometimes people   who have a very long name fi nd it easier to shorten it. So this other   girl was called Teb. There is no room here, I’m afraid, to give her  full  name, as that would take up quite a few lines. So, like everybody  else,  we’ll call her Teb.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ePrecious’s last name was Ramotswe,   which  sounds like this—RAM—OT—SWEE. There: try it yourself—it’s not  hard to  say. She lived in a country called Botswana, which is in  Africa.  Botswana is very beautiful—it has wide plains that seem to go  on and on  as far as the eye can see, until they join the sky, which is  high and  empty.\u003cbr\u003eSometimes, you know, when you look up at an empty sky, it seems as if it’s singing. It is very odd, but that is how it seems. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThere are hills that pop up on these plains. The hills look rather like islands, and the plains look a bit like the sea.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ePrecious   lived with her father, Obed, in a small house outside a village. Obed   was a good, kind man who wore a rather battered old hat. That hat was   well-known in the village and even further away.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Here he comes!” people would say when they saw his hat in the distance. “Here comes Obed!”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOn   one occasion Obed lost his hat while walking home in the dark. A wind   blew up and lifted it right off his head, and because there was no  light  he was unable to find it. The next day, when he went back to the  place  where he had lost the hat, there was still no sign of it. He  searched  and searched, but without success.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“You could buy a new one, Daddy,” Precious suggested.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eObed   shook his head. “A new hat is never as comfortable as an old one,” he   said. “And I loved that hat.” He paused, looking up at his daughter.  “It  saved my life, you know.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ePrecious wondered how a hat could  save  your life. “Please tell me the story,” she said. She loved her  father’s  stories ,especially when he told them at bedtime.There is  something  very exciting about a bedtime story, and it is even better if  the story  is told after the lights have been turned out. The words  sound  different—as if they are being whispered just for you and for  nobody  else. The words are all around you, like a warm blanket.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSo Obed told her about the hat that evening, when it was already dark outside and the African sky was filling with stars. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Quite   a few years ago,” he began, “before you were even born, I worked for a   while on a farm. It was a very dry place, as there was not much rain  in  that part of the country. But each year the rains came, and the land   would turn green as the plants returned to life. That could happen so   quickly—sometimes overnight.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“My job was to see that the cattle   were getting water to drink. We had to pump the water up from deep   wells. Then the cattle could satisfy their thirst. I had to go and check   that everything was working properly and fix it if it was not. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Now,   it was rather remote and empty down there, and although there were no   lions, there were other wild animals—and birds. And this is all about   one of those birds—a very dangerous bird.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ePrecious interrupted him. “Birds can’t be dangerous,” she said, laughing at the thought. “Birds are far too small.” \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eObed shook his head. “That’s where you’re wrong, my darling. There are some birds that are very big.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“An eagle?” asked Precious. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Bigger than that. Much bigger.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eShe thought and thought, and was still thinking when Obed said: “An ostrich! \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“An   ostrich,” her father went on, “is much bigger than a man, and yes, it   can be very dangerous. You have to be very careful if you get too close   to an ostrich because they can kick. They have these very strong legs,   you see, and at the end of one of them there is a claw. You can be  very  badly hurt by an ostrich kick—very, very badly hurt.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ePrecious shivered. Sometimes her father’s stories were a little bit frightening, even if they usually ended well.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Now,”   Obed continued, “I was walking through the bush one day, looking for   some stray cattle, and suddenly I heard a noise. It was a very strange   noise, and I stopped in my tracks wondering what it was. Then I saw it.   Not far away from me, looking at me with those big angry eyes that they   have, was an ostrich. And I knew right away that I had disturbed this   creature and that it was about to attack me. The reason why it was so   angry was that I had come too close to its nest. These birds make large   nests on the ground in which they lay massive eggs. Think of a hen’s   egg. Then think of an egg twenty times bigger than that—that’s an   ostrich egg.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Suddenly I remembered something I had been told,   and it was just as well it came back to me. Looking down on the ground, I   saw a long stick that had fallen from a nearby tree. I picked this up   and put my hat on the end of this stick. Then I held it up high in the   air—like this.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Ostriches may be strong, but they are not very bright. I had remembered being told that if you put your hat\u003cbr\u003eon   a stick and then held it up high, an ostrich would think that the hat   was your head. They would also think that you were much taller than  they  were, and so they would leave you alone. And, do you know, it  worked!  The ostrich saw my hat and thought I must be a very tall and  strong  creature—more than a match for her. So she backed off and I was  able to  continue on my way unkicked.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ePrecious breathed a sigh of relief. She did not want her father to be kicked by an ostrich—who does?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“I’m glad it worked out well for you,” she said.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Thank you,” said her father. “And now you go off to sleep, Precious, as you must be ready for school tomorrow morning.” \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ePrecious   closed her eyes and thought of school. She had heard that there was a   new family coming to the school the next day—a boy and a girl—and she   wondered what they would be like. New people are always interesting, and   she thought that perhaps they might be her friends. It was good, she   thought, to have old friends, but it was also good to have new ones. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut   what about the lost hat? Did Obed get it back after it had blown away?   Yes, he did. It landed a long way away but when people picked it up  they  knew immediately whose it was, and it was returned to him a few  days  later none the worse for its adventure. Of course he was very  pleased,  and from that day onwards whenever there was a high wind, he  held onto  his hat very firmly. Which is what all of us should do, don’t  you  think?","brand":"Vintage","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46301277454565,"sku":"NP9780345804464","price":7.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780345804464.jpg?v=1767733418","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/es\/products\/mystery-of-meerkat-hill-isbn-9780345804464","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}