The Tattooed Potato and Other Clues by Ellen Raskin - 9/10

This book weaves together childlike elements, such as nursery rhymes and games, with reflections on the nature of life, art, and mystery.

Dickory, a young art student, finds an internship with Garson, an eccentric and mysterious portrait painter, and the two begin consulting with the local police chief to help with particularly challenging cases. However, as the book progresses, we begin to see that things are not quite as innocuous as they seem, and that there are deeper mysteries at work here relating to the haunted pasts of both Dickory and her mentor.

This book is hard to define because it contains a variety of different traits. The tone begins as childlike and draws heavily on nursery rhymes, however the main character is a freshman in college - who moves out to live by herself by the end of the book - and several complex and heavy themes (such as murder and criminal responsibility) are introduced and explored. I have categorized it with the college age novels in the hopes that it will find readers like me who have reached the age where they are ready to re-visit and enjoy child-like books - as I think that is safer than labeling it in a lower category and risking shocking a young reader with sudden shift in the last section of the book.