Our house, not to mention the little free library in front of it, is overflowing with mysteries. My wife reads them nonstop and I do, too, whenever I find time between writing my own.

I got hooked on the genre by Leroy Brown. Not the bad, bad man from the Jim Croce song, but the smartest kid in Idaville. Donald J. Sobol wrote 29 Encyclopedia Brown books, and growing up I couldn’t get enough of them.

Brainy Encyclopedia and nerdy me both lived in small beach towns, although mine was boring and his was filled with crime. Every book featured 10 or more short mysteries. Hidden in each was a single clue, often a slip-up by the culprit, that unlocked the solution. I would scour and reread the pages in search of that mistake, all while resisting the urge to flip to the back, where Sobol revealed the answers. (Checking was for cheaters!)

The books introduced me to deductive reasoning and the idea that mysteries invite you to participate by challenging you to figure it out before the characters. Here are some of my favorite books that ask young readers to do exactly that.

From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler

by E.L. Konigsburg

There are two books that I own at least three copies of, because you can’t be too careful when it comes to sacred texts. One is “The Elements of Style,” which guides my writing brain. The other is “From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler,” which nourishes my writing soul. I was hooked on it from the first line: “Claudia knew that she could never pull off the old-fashioned kind of running away.”

Claudia and her brother, Jamie, run away from their Connecticut home and move into the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where they hide in bathroom stalls at closing time, bathe in the Fountain of the Muses and sleep in a 16th-century bed that was the scene of an alleged murder. Along the way, they stumble into a mystery involving a statue that may have been carved by Michelangelo. Equal parts mystery, adventure and humor, it is entirely unputdownable.

The Bletchley Riddle

by Ruta Sepetys and Steve Sheinkin

During World War II, many of the sharpest minds in Britain came together at Bletchley Park to break Nazi codes. Last year, two of the best writers in kid lit came together to write a novel about it. They divided up alternating chapters from the perspectives of a brother and a sister, embedded at the top-secret facility, who are simultaneously trying to find their missing mother and help win the war. Populated with real-life characters, fascinating historical details and a surplus of laughs, its tense plot will suck in young readers, while its irresistible protagonists will hold them until the satisfying ending.

The Nine Moons of Han Yu and Luli

by Karina Yan Glaser

“The Nine Moons of Han Yu and Luli” expertly weaves a pair of story lines about 11-year-olds trying to save their families 12 centuries apart. When the Tang Dynasty capital, Chang’An, is besieged by an epidemic, introverted, animal-loving Han Yu must fill in for his father and undertake an epic journey along the dangerous Silk Road. Alternately, on the Depression-era streets of New York’s Chinatown, precocious Luli Lee is determined to rescue her family’s restaurant from foreclosure.

Although not a traditional mystery, the plot revolves around wonderful mystery elements that ultimately fuse the stories together. Young readers will be swept up in the scope and touched by the characters’ determination. It’s the best book I’ve read in years.

The Parker Inheritance

by Varian Johnson

Twelve-year-old Candice is reluctantly spending the summer at her late grandmother’s house. She’s miserable and bored until she discovers a letter, hidden in the attic, that tells the story of past injustices and an intricate revenge plot. That’s when she and her new friend, Brandon, start hunting for buried treasure. It’s no surprise that Johnson was once a civil engineer who designed bridges. Here he constructs a taut mystery that on its surface is about solving puzzles, but at heart is a search for social justice.

Belly Up

by Stuart Gibbs

I knew I was in for a clever treat the instant I saw this book’s cover, which features a dead hippo floating on its back above the title “Belly Up.” It’s a humor-filled murder mystery in which the victim is a surly 4,000-pound zoo mascot. Gibbs, who was a researcher at the Philadelphia Zoo during college, uses his insider knowledge to create a fantastic setting. But the best part of the book is its relatable protagonist, 12-year-old Teddy Fitzroy, who grew up in the jungles of Africa and understands animals much better than people.

Flush

by Carl Hiaasen

Hiaasen, best known for hysterical satires that skewer our mutual home state of Florida, leaped onto the kid-lit scene with “Hoot,” winner of a well-deserved Newbery Honor. My favorite of his six middle grade novels is “Flush,” which opens on Father’s Day in a local jail in the Keys. Noah has come to see his dad, who’s just been arrested for sinking a floating casino that was secretly dumping sewage into the ocean. The book features Hiaasen’s signature blend of laugh-out-loud humor and keen environmental observations. Young readers will find it entertaining, insightful and more than a little empowering.

Encyclopedia Brown, Boy Detective

by Donald J. Sobol

I’ll wrap things with the character who got me started. “Encyclopedia Brown, Boy Detective” was the first book in the series. Like many that followed, it begins with 10-year-old Encyclopedia at the dinner table, where his father, Idaville’s chief of police, discusses a case that has him baffled. With help from his friend Sally Kimball, and while evading the local bully Bugs Meany, Encyclopedia solves mysteries like “The Case of the Civil War Sword” and “The Case of the Missing Roller Skates.”

According to the sign on his garage, the Brown Detective Agency charged 25 cents per day. That was a steal even in 1963, when the first book was published. For me, the cases are priceless, as they launched a lifelong love of reading and writing whodunits.