There's nothing like an eternal puzzle to pique kids' curiosity

When I was a kid growing up on the prairie in Walnut Grove, MN, a group of nuns came down from the Twin Cities every summer to teach the children the basics of Catholicism. To us, the sisters were exotic creatures. One of them made a lifelong impression on me when she declared that upon our arrival in heaven, God would answer all of our questions.

I had a long list for Him. I had recently purchased a paperback detailing the world's greatest historical mysteries and devoured it with gusto. Who was the man in the iron mask? Who killed the little princes in the tower? And what happened to the Roanoke colony? I was dying to know.

It turns out I was not alone. Kids still love unsolved mysteries. Here are a few classic puzzlers to try booktalking with your third- through fifth-grade audiences.

Start with Roanoke. Jean Fritz, in The Lost Colony of Roanoke (Putnam, 2004), sums up the attraction of this mystery beautifully. "It is still hard for Americans to look at the country's history and see that hole right at the very beginning. And after more than four hundred years that hole is still there." In 1587, a group of 90 colonists led by John White arrived in what is now North Carolina. A company of fellow Englishmen, stationed at a fort on Roanoke Island, were supposed to greet the newcomers. Instead, White's group found a skeleton. All 108 soldiers had disappeared.

The new colonists were supposed to travel 50 miles further north, but the ship's pilot abandoned them at Roanoke. Relations with Native Americans, who had been treated badly by an earlier colony, were uneasy at best. The colony needed help, and White sailed back to England to get it. When he returned three years later, everyone—including his granddaughter, the first English child to be born in North America—had vanished. Not a button, scrap of paper, or bone had been left behind. A single, mysterious word, "Croatan," was carved into a tree. What had happened?

Jane Yolen and Heidi Elisabet Yolen Stemple's Roanoke: The Lost Colony (S & S, 2003) tells the same story in a slightly simpler text. It also includes clear outlines of the various solutions to Roanoke's puzzle. And, as in Fritz's book, the wonderful illustrations will entice young minds.

The Salem Witchcraft Trials (2004) and The Mary Celeste (1999, both S & S), also by Yolen and Stemple, are two other engrossing entries in the "Unsolved Mystery from History" series.

In 1692 in Salem, MA, the minister's daughter and niece started having convulsions. Jerking around and shouting strange words, the girls hid behind chairs, cowering with fear. The cousins claimed that three local women had bewitched them. Soon other girls began acting possessed. More and more women, as well as men, were accused of being witches. The town went crazy with fear. Suspected witches were arrested, jailed, and executed. Even a five-year-old girl was put in chains. She confessed to being a witch so she could stay with her mother, who was one of the accused.

Salem had a population of 550; 141 people were arrested, and 19 were hanged. One man was pressed to death under a pile of rocks, and four people died in prison. Slowly, the fear drained away; neighbors came to their senses. But what had caused the girls' bizarre behavior?

The tale of the Mary Celeste has never lost its power to tantalize listeners. In December 1872, the American ship Dei Gratia was in the middle of the Atlantic when its crew spotted something in the distance. Drawing closer, they recognized another American ship, the Mary Celeste. Sailors boarded her and found that the vessel was sound, but the crew had disappeared. A few tools were missing, but there was a six-month supply of food and water, and the money box was intact. Piracy seemed unlikely. But why would people abandon a ship in the middle of a calm sea?

More than 130 years have passed, and we still don't know what happened. Your audience will offer boatloads of creative theories as they eagerly try to solve the riddle.

Who needs ghosts and monsters when you can just take a look at the past? Keep those historical mysteries coming, publishers and writers! Kids love them as much as adults do.