Nate the Great Goes Undercover

Nate the Great has his first night case! "Detective work is not fun and games," Nate explains. "Detective work is dirty garbage cans instead of clean beds. Detective work is banana peels, dishrags, milk cartons, floor sweepings, cigar ashes, fleas, and me..." It's a tough case. Somebody is raiding Oliver's garbage can each night, but who? The list of suspects is long--Rosamond and Esmeralda, the girls down the street; Rosamond's cats; and all the shrews, moles skunks, birds, and racoons in the neighborhood. Nate courageousely encounters a skunk (nose first) and a telephone pole (head on), but not until he goes under cover of the garbage-can lid does he narrow the suspects down to one.

Born in Portland, Maine, in 1928, Marjorie Weinman Sharmat dreamed of becoming a writer. Little did she know that she would be the author of more than 70 books for children of all ages. Another of her childhood dreams, that of becoming a detective, has also been realized in her most popular Nate the Great series, begun in 1972.

Many of Sharmat's books have been Literary Guild selections and chosen as Books of the Year by the Library of Congress. Several have been made into films for television, including Nate the Great Goes Undercover, winner of the Los Angeles International Children's Film Festival Award. Nate the Great Saves the King of Sweden has been named one of the New York Public Library's 100 Titles for Reading and Sharing.