Watermelon Mystery at Sugar Creek

A boy's prize watermelon gets stolen in this charming 1950s children's mystery. Bill Collins has spent all summer nurturing his beloved Ida, a massive watermelon he's entered in the county fair, only to wake one morning and find her missing from the truck patch. The theft propels Bill and his friends Poetry and Dragonfly into a real investigation, one that unfolds through moonlit stakeouts, suspicious characters, and rural Ohio countryside. Their amateur sleuthing collides with genuine crime when the boys discover the watermelon theft connects to a recent supermarket burglary and a fugitive the police have been chasing for months. What begins as a boy's summer disappointment becomes a genuinely dangerous adventure. Written in warm, immediate first-person narration that captures the boundless energy and wonder of childhood, this is wholesome rural adventure with real stakes and a satisfying payoff.