Review of "Mysteries At School" by Robert Gilbert

Score: 90+/100 (9.0+ out of 10)

Mysteries At School is a cozy, mellow YA fiction novel by Robert Gilbert. It is the second book in The Ryan Griffith Adventures series, following the prequel titled Forgotten Summer.

The story is set in the academic year 1966-1967 at a fictional school named The Village School (VS) located in Greenwich Village, New York City. It chronicles the life of a teenage protagonist, Ryan Griffith, who experiences mystery, interpersonal dynamics, and the transitional anxieties of moving toward high school.

Ryan, seemingly convinced by his father, has his mind set on getting accepted to a top-end high school, specifically McBurney School, a prestigious and academically rigorous prep school. We also get the tidbit that Ryan's older brother also attends McBurney, giving him some added motivation.

However, along the way, he becomes entangled in a series of private investigations. One of them involves him trying to get to the bottom of the money that has gone missing from the school's coffers. This eventually leads him on the heels of Frank, the school’s shop teacher, whose suspicious behavior and secretive financial dealings raise red flags. As Ryan pieces together clues—from overheard arguments to clandestine observations at a neighborhood store—he uncovers a troubling web of gambling debts, hidden past crimes, and potential motives. His sleuthing not only deepens the mystery but also forces him to confront the moral weight of accusation, trust, and the responsibility that comes with knowing more than he’s supposed to.

He also attempts to get to the bottom of Helen's illness and the prospect of potential poisoning. This prompts him to confront the possibility that his favorite teacher, Carl, may be implicated as Carl is the only one with access to the chemical(s) in question.

Also, along the way, he develops a huge crush on a girl named Rachel, a smart and kind classmate who’s always shown a special interest in him. As they spend more time together—working on class projects, sharing quiet moments during after-school activities, and dancing at a Halloween party—Ryan begins to see her in a new light. Their connection grows subtly but meaningfully, adding a layer of emotional complexity to his already eventful final year at The Village School.

We're torn about how to feel about this book.

On one hand, it's very calm, cozy, and mellow. Ryan's budding relationship with Rachel is particularly cute and charming as the two get to know each other's likes and dislikes with a sensitivity that only comes from really caring about another person. One of our favorite moments was when Ryan realized that Rachel loved ballet and sought out to buy some $10 ballet tickets to a performance across town.

Everyone remembers their first big crush, and that whole dynamic resonated with us.

The problem we have with this book is that the rest of it didn't resonate with us very much. A lot of this book seemed flat and uneventful—too calm, too cozy, too clean.

Ryan's problems just don't seem like problems.
At most, they're first-world problems.

Gosh, I'm graduating from middle school and want to get into the best high school.
Do 13 to 14-year-olds actually worry about that stuff? What private high school they're getting into?

This whole plotline falls flat in our opinion because it's so unrelatable to the grand majority of people. If his concern were about which college or university he was getting into, then we might be able to relate. But this really made us think of an old story we read about two parents arguing about which top-tier daycare to put their infant in, stressing about them growing up developmentally delayed or behind everyone else.

Now, we get it... Ryan isn't just some typical kid. Ryan is a bit of a savant. He's extra-intelligent (probably a genius) and curious. He's fixated on/preoccupied with things like how a switchboard works throughout the book.

But that's also another example of how Ryan and this plot come across as hard-to-relate-to. How many people do you personally know who are obsessed with learning how switchboards work? The grand majority of people just take them for granted or treat them like artifacts.

Maybe Ryan is on the spectrum (in fact, he likely is). His behavior and demeanor comes across as strange and almost mechanical for much of this book. And many of the things he wants and needs just don't seem consequential or important to the grand majority of people.

It always seems like this book is... missing something. Call it what you want:
Weight.
Consequences.
Stakes.
Oomph.

It often just seems like it's coasting.

Even in The Noble Adventures of Beryl & Carol by Jeremy Sherr, which also followed young people who were a bit naive, there seemed to be actually stakes. Beryl & Carol stood to lose their homes. One of them might have to live next to the bullies who made her life a living hell. Oh, and there were also some really nasty people who were out to steal the town's legendary hidden treasure.

At no point in Mysteries At School did we say to ourselves, "Gosh, Frank (and/or Carl) is a terrible, bad, evil dude who needs to be stopped at all cost" or "Gosh, if Frank (and/or Carl) isn't stopped, there's going to be an inordinate amount of pain and suffering of characters we know, love and care about."

No, we were half convinced that Frank (and/or Carl) was going to show up at the end of the book with Ryan's next birthday present that he's been saving up for. That's how little emotional investment we had in Frank (or Carl's) potential antagonism. And that's another thing about this book that didn't hit with us. Yes, there are suspects and potential villains, but there doesn't seem to be a clear-cut villain or even a problem that's actually a problem.

A lot of the time, it's just Ryan jumping to conclusions or blowing things out of proportions. Granted, kids do that. One of us thought that our teacher had a bomb in the classroom because there was a black box (which turned out to be a recorder) in the reading area. So, that's somewhat understandable and relatable.

With all that said, this book does have some redeeming qualities. First and foremost, it has some of that childlike wonder, naivety, and innocence that we saw in The Noble Adventures of Beryl & Carol, one of our favorite books to ever come through our contests.

Ryan is clearly a curious and caring person. He's so curious that everyone's problems become his problems since he always wants to figure things out and fix everything.

And Ryan is a good person with a sense of honor. How do we know this? Well, because the book tells us: "I couldn’t ignore what I took as a threat. Was Frank going to harm the school, or someone at the school? He seemed to be mad at everyone."

In other words, his moral compass tells him that he needs to find and stop the culprit not for his own personal gain but because he perceives that person as a threat to the school, classmates, faculty, and staff he loves.

That's admirable and noble.

Another good thing about this book (that you could argue in its favor) is that it's a respectful portrayal of someone on the autism spectrum. Ryan demonstrates a lot of the signs: hyperfocus, flat speech, intense interests, fixations, etc. So, a lot of the things that seem foreign, alien, weird, or strange to the average person are special and important to Ryan—things like his school's finances, getting into his preferred high school, and how switchboards work, for example.

If you want to join a noble teenager on his quest to uncover his school's mysteries...

Check it out on Amazon!