Oliver and the Museum Mystery — CoverCover

Detective

Oliver and the Museum Mystery

A huge T. rex skeleton arrives at the museum — and by morning it stands without its skull, and the cameras went dark for exactly six minutes.

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Oliver has a detective's badge, a notebook and a magnifying glass, and today Oliver has a new case: a huge T. rex skeleton has just arrived at the museum, and overnight its skull disappears. The cameras went dark for six minutes. Packing dust and trolley marks show the skull is going to be smuggled out inside another exhibition’s crate — and a race through the loading bay begins before the truck leaves. The witnesses all saw something different, there is a clue nobody else has noticed, and the culprit is sure no child could ever catch them. Logic and intuition lead Oliver through the whole case, right up to the moment everything fits and the culprit is caught.

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Next: a photo. You can rewrite any part of the story later.

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  • Best for ages 3 to 8
  • See the cover before you pay
  • 26 pages
  • Drawn from your own photos
  • Add a printed hardcover

From$7.99Digital book. A printed hardcover adds $37.00.

How is the book personalized?

You add your child’s name and a few photos, of them and of anyone joining them in the story.

Size & quality

26 pages. The digital book arrives as a PDF.

The printed book is a hardcover on heavy paper.

Delivery

The PDF arrives as soon as you pay. Printed books ship by post.

What the story is about

A huge T. rex skeleton arrives at the museum — and by morning it stands without its skull, and the cameras went dark for exactly six minutes.

Your child and their grandmother are partners at the detective bureau. Grandma knows everything about dinosaurs and the museum’s history, and the young detective spots what the grown-ups walked past: packing dust and trolley marks.

The skull is about to leave inside another exhibition’s crate — and a race through the loading bay begins before the truck drives off.

Who can be in the book

  • Your child — the detective
  • Grandma or Grandpa — an equal partner who knows the facts

An excerpt

Pages from a real case

Illustration from a personalised Booku book: a boy detective holds a radio to his ear in the detective bureau while his grandmother, by a city map, hands him a magnifying glass

Spread 1

The radio in the Pathfinder bureau crackled just as Oliver took his first bite of a poppy-seed bun.

“Bureau?” it rasped. “This is the museum! Urgent! Our dinosaur… shhhh… has lost a leg!”

Grandma Nadya spun round from the city map so fast that a red pin flew off it.

“A dinosaur without a leg?” Oliver asked with his mouth full.

“Without a bone! The most important one! Gone overnight!”

Oliver swallowed his bun, pressed the radio button and said in his most serious voice:

“On our way.”

Grandma Nadya was already holding out his magnifying glass.

“Well, partner,” she winked. “Looks like we’ve got a case.”

Illustration from a personalised Booku book: a boy detective points at a T. rex skeleton with an empty iron prop where its thigh bone should be; his grandmother studies a photo of the bone and the museum director spreads her hands

Spread 2

The T. rex skeleton stood in the middle of the great hall — tall as a house, with teeth as long as Oliver’s hand. Only its right leg was held up by an iron prop. The biggest bone in it was missing.

“The cameras went dark for exactly six minutes last night,” said the museum director, Vera Pavlovna. “From ten past three to sixteen minutes past. And in the morning — this.”

Grandma Nadya went over to a stand with a large photograph.

“The thigh bone,” she said. “The pride of the whole skeleton. See the three grooves near the top? That’s a bite from another T. rex. They fought, and the bone has kept that bite for seventy million years.”

Three grooves, like the marks of a fork. Oliver remembered them.

Illustration from a personalised Booku book: a boy detective lifts a huge bone with one hand and studies it through a magnifying glass while his grandmother rubs white dust between her fingers and the restorer freezes in the workshop doorway

Spread 8

Oliver took hold of the end of the bone — and lifted it. With one hand.

“Grandma, it’s light! You said it weighed as much as three Olivers!”

He held his magnifying glass to the top end. Smooth. Not a single groove.

“No bite. This isn’t the bone!”

Lev froze in the doorway.

“Of course it isn’t,” he muttered. “It’s a plaster copy for the children’s hall. A surprise for the opening. I spent all night casting and painting it.”

Grandma Nadya rubbed a pinch of white dust from his sleeve between her fingers.

“Plaster dust is soft — it settles and doesn’t stick to glass,” she said. “But the crumbs by the skeleton were light and clung to the magnifier. That’s how foam behaves. People pack crates with it when they send something a long way.”

From “Oliver and the Museum Mystery”. In your book the hero is your child, and we write the text fresh — from your plot, with your family in it.

How to make your own book

  1. 1

    Type a name and choose who comes along

    Right on this page — the story re-tells itself around your child.

  2. 2

    Add a photo

    We draw the hero and their family from photos. One clear picture is enough.

  3. 3

    See the cover free

    No card, no sign-up. You can rewrite the plot before you pay.

  4. 4

    Get the book

    26 pages as a PDF. Add a printed hardcover, delivered, if you like.

Questions about this book

What age is this story for?
The plot suits ages 3 to 8. We match the length and difficulty of the text to the age you give us.
Who can be added to the book?
Your child — the detective. Grandma or Grandpa — an equal partner who knows the facts. People are drawn from their photos.
Can I change the plot?
Yes. The plot on this page is only a starting point: in the builder you can rewrite it in full or in detail, and we write the book from your version.
What does it cost, and what is free?
You see the cover free — no card, no sign-up. The digital book is $7.99; a printed hardcover adds $37.00.
What language will the book be in?
English or Russian — you choose the book’s language in the builder, whatever language you read the site in.

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