Closed for the Season: A Mystery Story

by Mary Downing Hahn

This book is a mystery/detective story.

Subjects you'll come across in Closed for the Season:

"Another well-done, action-packed mystery from Hahn...with just the right amount of frightening and dangerous elements." (School Library Journal, 2010)^[1]

When 13-year-old Logan Forbes and his parents move into a run-down old house in rural Virginia, he discovers that a woman was murdered there three years earlier.  Trying to uncover the killer, Logan and his neighbor Arthur Jenkins become involved in a dangerous investigation that leads them to the abandoned Magic Forest amusement park.

Of Note:

• 182 pages, published in 2009
• The author lives in Columbia, Maryland.  She used to be a librarian!
• Closed for the Season won Best Mystery (Juvenile) in 2010 from the Mystery Writers of America. 
  

Author:  Mary Downing Hahn

• FAQ
• Article about her writing inspirations^[2]  
• Want more mysteries/ghost stories by Mary Downing Hahn?  Try:

          The Old Willis Place

          Wait Till Helen Comes

          Stepping on the Cracks

          The Dead Man in Indian Creek

In this book trailer, Mary Downing Hahn describes Closed for the Season.

The Enchanted Forest  (the real "Magic Forest" park that inspired the setting of Closed for the Season)

• The Enchanted Forest storybook park operated in Ellicott City, Maryland. 
• It was open to the public from the mid-1950s to the 1990s. 
• It's now surrounded by the Enchanted Forest Shopping Center. 
• You can still see Old King Cole over the gates to the former amusement park.
• Many of the nursery rhyme structures behind the gates were moved to Clark's Elioak Farm (click on Enchanted Forest tab), also in Ellicott City.
• Video about the Enchanted Forest (runs 9:51, not accessible at school).