Books Five Books Five SFF Works About Meddling, Mystery-Solving Kids Darn kids, always battling ghosts and exposing conspiracies and making a mess… By James Davis Nicoll | Published on May 21, 2025 Art by Simon Stålenhag Comment 0 Share New Share Art by Simon Stålenhag Masterminds, villains, cults, realtors, and other dimensional beings inimical to the very fabric of reality know that their dastardly schemes face one true foe: Kids. Governments can be suborned, police paid off, authority figures easily distracted. Kids, on the other hand, can be annoyingly perceptive, don’t know enough to dismiss the evidence of their own eyes, and lack the well-developed sense of self-preservation that would keep them from poking into dangerous matters. You can prep all you like, but the moment you see a van with four nosy teenagers and their talking dog, a kid proudly proclaiming himself the finest detective in all of Lillköping, or even a group of bored D&D nerds, fold your tent immediately and leave town. Pay heed to these five instructive works. Rocketship Galileo by Robert A. Heinlein (1947) Invited by Don Cargraves to help kit-bash an atomic rocket from surplus parts before heading off to the Moon, all-American teens Ross Jenkins, Art Mueller, and Maurice Abrams could hardly say no. Parental qualms are easily assuaged and bulk orders of thorium are surprisingly affordable. Despite the project’ curiously high incidence of accidents, mishaps, and overt sabotage, the quartet departs Moonward. The quartet is prepared for hazards such as space debris, vacuum, and radiation. That someone has beaten the four to the Moon; that that someone is a vast, right-wing conspiracy whose plan for global domination relies on their secret moonbase; that that someone is aware of Don and kids, and has been working hard to prevent them from discovering the illicit moonbase—and plans to kill the four of them to keep the base secret—it’s all a surprise. As is the fate of the Moon Nazis once they get Don, Ross, Art, and Maurice’s full and complete attention. As I once said in a review, “if it’s wrong for an atomic scientist and three expendable teens to head to the Moon in a homemade rocket to shoot Space Nazis, then I don’t want to be right.” Meddling Kids by Edgar Cantero (2017) Exposing the Sleepy Lake Monster as would-be burglar Thomas Wickley in a rubber mask was the triumphant final case of the Blyton Summer Detective Club. Too bad that the teen detectives—Peter, Kerri, Andy, Nate, and their dog Sean—followed their successful teen detecting careers with decidedly less than successful adult lives1. They can at least comfort themselves with the knowledge that, as teens, they confounded many a miscreant. Thirteen years later, the surviving members of the Blyton Summer Detective Club discover that their final triumph was no triumph at all. In fact, they got it horribly wrong. No choice, therefore, but for the former teens to dust off their detective skills, return to Blyton, and confront the villain they overlooked. Or die trying. Yes, technically the club members no longer qualify as kids, but the plot is shaped by what they did back when they were kids. This either reflects how age cannot prevent us from being young at heart or (more likely) that it is impossible to escape the past. I could not resist the book’s title. Spirit Hunters by Ellen Oh (2018) The Grady House has a reliable life cycle. (Well, cycle—not so much the “life” part.) Would-be homeowners focus on its affordability, not its dire reputation. Once resident, each new set of owners discovers for themselves why the Grady House has gained that dire reputation. The owners flee, and the house is on the market once more. Lather, rinse, repeat. Enter Harper Raine and her family. A mixed blessing for the ghost who calls Grady House home. Both Harper and brother Michael are sensitive to the occult. Michael is the perfect candidate for possession, but Raine could end the ghost’s threat… provided that Raine masters certain abilities about which she has been kept in the dark. A considerable part of the plot is set in motion by Raine’s parents, whose well-meaning efforts to protect Raine from knowledge that would only upset her have denied Raine vital, need-to-know, information. I am sure there’s no general lesson to be learned. The Dark We Know by Wen-Yi Lee (2024) Following the tragic deaths of two of her closest friends, Isa Chant fled backwater mining town Slater for art school. A meager inheritance tempts the cash-starved student back for her father’s funeral. Isa would have been better off staying at school. Slater is plagued by tragedy. Isa’s friends were only two of the many young people who died or vanished under mysterious circumstances. When she was sixteen, fleeing Slater was the best option Isa had. Now that she is a world-weary eighteen-year-old, Isa may be Slater’s best hope to discover the cause of the deaths and put an end to it. Or perhaps it may put an end to Isa. There are some terrible people in Slater but that plays less of a role in the plot than one might expect. The major players, protagonists and antagonist alike, pursue what they believe is the greater good. It’s just that they have a fundamental disagreement about what constitutes the greater good. Tales from the Loop by Simon Stålenhag, Nils Hintze, and Tomas Härenstam The Loop, largest particle accelerator in the world, was intended to advance the cause of human science. Perhaps the Loop did. Thanks to certain unforeseen properties, the Loop has provided the immediately neighborhood2 with a surfeit of Weird Crap. Adults are useless or worse. It’s up to the Kids to investigate the odd goings on around the Loop, and where possible, resolve them. Each Kid brings their own special expertise… but will that be sufficient to deal with the Loop’s legacy? This Swedish roleplaying game shares a name and inspiration—Simon Stålenhag’s remarkable illustrations—with 2020’s television show Tales from the Loop. Otherwise, the two properties are not closely connected. Meddling kids appear over and over in fiction, particularly fiction aimed at younger readers. The above-mentioned works are only a few of those I could have discussed. Feel free to mention your favourites in comments below.[end-mark] Sean the dog seems to have had a perfectly respectable life. For a dog. Thirteen years is a lifetime for dog, so it’s Sean’s descendant Tim who accompanies the last three members of the club. ︎Either the Mälaren Islands (Swedish game setting) or Boulder City, Nevada (American option). ︎The post Five SFF Works About Meddling, Mystery-Solving Kids appeared first on Reactor.