Carole Marsh

The worlds worst author. She has no creativity. She is the author of the books Real Kids, Real Places. The books usually start the same. Two children named Grant and Christina, ages 6 and 8, are allowed by their irresponsable grandmother Mimi, AKA Carole Marsh(apparantly Mimi, Grant and Christina are based off real people and supposedly real events), to wander around heavily populated places by themselves without adult supervision. One thing that bothers me is the fact that Mimi(Carole) is ok with her grandchildren wandering around heavily populated places and never worries about them getting kidnapped, murdered, or god forbid raped. Nope, she would rather do whatever her character does than actually care about the well-being of her grand-children. After that some crime is commited, rather than the kids telling police about the crime, they go on their own "search" to find the criminals themselves. You might have noticed that I put quotations around the word search, mainly because it isn't really a search. Its more like a game of scavenger hunt, but the baby version of scavenger hunt. Apparantly the criminals give clues to their whereabouts to the children and boy are the clues obvious. In one of the books called "Mystery at Disney World" one of the clues is "Its a world of laughter and a world of peace". Wonder what that must mean? Its a small world of coarse and it only took three seconds to solve. I believe that Carole did not want to have Grant and Christina actually think so she had the criminals give them obvious clues so she wouldn't have to think much while she wrote the books. Then the kids usually go find the clues which takes them on a tame-goose chase to another part of the country they are in. Usually the clues lead to monuments, museums, or other public places rather than dark alleys, abandoned warehouses, or peoples houses. After that they spend half of the time enjoying themselfs rather than calling the police or at least looking for the next clue. When they finally find the clues, they spend thirty minutes trying to decode the clues that would take a smart person two seconds to solve. The two kids, who are usually occompanied by two other kids, follow the next clue and this continues for another thirty pages. Sooner of later we get to the climax, which is usually very tame and anticlimatic. The criminals usually give up once they are found and the police usually follow.Though most of the time the criminals aren't arrested in the end. The books always end when Grant and Christina are reunited with Mimi, doing god-knows-what while they were gone, and Mimi usually doesn't care that her grandchildren have been chasing criminals the whole day. So there you have it, I basicly described the plot-arch of every Real Kids Real Places book. Now there are somethings that aren't related to the plot of the story. For one thing: The books are highly unrealistic. What criminal would give obvious clues to children without intentions of killing the children in the end? More importantly: Why is Carole Marsh promoting the idea of kids running away from their parents in search of criminals? We might never know, but I have my ideas. I believe that Carole Marsh thought "How about I have the children solve crimes by themselves! That would be original". Man, how many times has that been done? I can already think of four child detectives who solve crimes by themselves: Nancy Drew, Encyclopedia Brown, The Boxcar children, and the Hardy Boys. The last thing I am going to say is that the books all send bad messages to kids. I think her book unintentionally send a message that it is ok to wander around populated places and you wont get hurt because your kids. It also says that when a criminal sends messages to you in hopes to you finding him(or her), go follow them and get yourself cought by the criminal. The last message is that when a crime is commited and only you know about it, dont tell the police. I do not believe that Carole Marsh did these things on purpose, but I just hope she knows.