Chet Gecko-private eye, a lizard who attends an elementary school with various other animals, is asked by Shirley to find her brother, Billy, who went missing. In exchange for a stinkbug pie, Chet agrees to take on the case and eventually teams up with Natalie, a bird, who helps him. Chet, and later Natalie, encounter many adventures that lead them to discover that Herman, a Gila monster, has enlisted Billy to help him steal the school statue after creating a diversion by letting out a large number of bugs. Luckily, Chet Gecko discovers their plan and stops them.
Impact on me
The dialogue and thoughts of the main character, Chet Gecko, were pretty funny. I wonder how an "ages to 8 to 12" (the text on the book of the book) student would view the witty word choice of the author, Bruce Hale. This book was by far my least favorite of the mystery books that I read. The "mystery" was just too silly and boring for me. Like the review from Knight (below) says, the adult characters were all very mean, especially the teachers! Being a kind teacher myself, I found this to be offensive because teachers work very hard for all of their students. This book did not show the good and caring qualities of teachers. This book is a part of a series, so obviously it is very successful; I just did not enjoy it.
Reviews
The clever dialogue is filled with the kind of sarcastic similes that would have made Mickey Spillane proud. ("Brick snorted and giggled, a sound like two owls in a blender.") Even for satire, however, the book is often over the top. Adult characters are uniformly unattractive-gleefully cruel teachers, a sloppy coach, and a feline principal who sharpens his claws on the curtains.
Knight, E. E. (2000). The Chameleon Wore Chartreuse (Book Review) (Undetermined). School Library Journal, 46(8), 155.
The mystery is slight and its construction is haphazard, getting submerged under the trappings of the story; the trappings, however, are zesty and entertaining. The combination of school details, animal classmates, and homage to Raymond Chandler is glib but broadly and sustainedly humorous; Hale capably plays the elements
against one another to increase the amusement value (Chet gets out of a sticky situation by dropping his tail), and the deadpan monosyllabic style is wittily effective.
Stevenson, D. (2000). The chameleon wore chartreuse (Book Review) (Undetermined). Bulletin Of The Center For Children's Books, 53(10), 357.
In the Library
The sentences found in this book were very creative and playful. Students could write down three of their favorite sentences on sentence strips to put up in the library. Students can then see good writing on the wall and use these as examples in their own writing. The sentence strips would also make great advertisements for the series itself. This book also has various characters with different personalities. Students can draw and paint these characters and write quotes about them on the same paper. This would be a great lesson in characterization and again, provides a great visual to advertise the series in the library.
Hale, B. (2000). The Chameleon Wore Chartreuse. San Diego, CA:Harcourt.
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