Desmond Cole Ghost Patrol

Goofy monster fun for early readers

Hey Team Snarf,

I missed last week after getting caught in a time vortex. It was a whole thing. Sounds like a case for…

The Series: Desmond Cole Ghost Patrol
The Author: Andres Miedoso
The Illustrator: Victor Rivas
Length/Picture Density: 120ish pages, pictures on every spread.

This is another series that I like more than I probably should. I don’t love it, but I also like it a little more than your standard breezy chapter book with lots of chapters.

The stories are narrated by a nice and kind of jumpy eight-year-old kid named Andres Miedoso, whose best friend, Desmond Cole, loves looking for and confronting ghosts and monsters. Desmond is the dominant one in their relationship — he’s the one making the plans and nudging Andres to investigate paranormal goings on — but it usually doesn’t feel pushy or uncomfortable. They both seem to like each other and Andres is happy to be in this friendship knowing exactly what he’s going to get.

And what they get is regular encounters with strange beings, who they then spend most of the books investigating.

From the ones I’ve read, it’s basically reverse-Scooby Doo: The monsters they investigate are real monsters but they turn out to be friendly. Andres has some Shaggy energy too. The humor is not full slapstick, but it does revolve around Andres getting spooked repeatedly. He also seems to get covered in something slimy at the end of every book.

There is usually at least one part that doesn’t make a lot of sense, and the ghost patrol tends to discover creatures that are hidden in plain sight but no one seems to notice for no obvious reason, but for some reason I didn’t find myself caring too much. I think it’s because the characters are likable enough, and sometimes there’s just enough mystery to make you want to keep reading to see if you’re right about everything.

The balance between Andres being freaked out the way most people would be, Desmond confidently going straight at the monsters, and the monsters never seeming all that scary provides a workable balance to hit the notes this series is going for.

These books fill a niche that I’ve come to appreciate, in part through writing this newsletter. It’s the type that are designed to go down super easy and work for a range of young ages, up through the early reading-on-your-own years. Pictures on every spread, easy plot to follow, doesn’t bog you down with too many explanations, enough humor and plot to carry you along. The Branches book series, like Dragon Masters, all fall into that category, as does Kingdom of Wrenly. There are others in a similar vein, like Zoey and Sassafras, that are a little more wholesome in a way that can make them not quite as easy reading, relatively speaking.

You’re not going to get anything more than that here, but these are just fine for what they are. If your kid is doing just fine with more substantial material, there’s no real need to bring these in, but if you’re looking for some simple chapter book fun, you could do a lot worse.