The Eleventh Hour (book) facts for kids
Front cover of the 1997 edition
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| Author | Graeme Base |
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| Illustrator | Graeme Base |
| Cover artist | Graeme Base |
| Country | Australia |
| Language | English |
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Publication date
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1989 |
| Media type | Print (hardcover) |
The Eleventh Hour: A Curious Mystery is a fun children's book by Graeme Base. It's filled with amazing pictures and a puzzling mystery for you to solve! The story is about Horace the Elephant, who throws a big party for his eleventh birthday.
Horace invites his ten best animal friends to celebrate. They play eleven exciting games. Then, they get ready for a huge feast that Horace has prepared. But at exactly 11:00, they discover a shock! Someone has eaten all the delicious food!
Everyone starts to accuse each other. Soon, they are all confused about who the real food thief could be. That's where you come in! The book challenges you to solve the mystery. You need to look very closely at the pictures and read the words carefully.
This book was so popular that it won an award. It was a joint-winner of the "Picture Book of the Year" award from The Children's Book Council of Australia.
Solving the Mystery
This book is written in fun rhyme. It has huge, detailed pictures of Horace's fancy house and the party. These pictures are packed with hidden clues! The author wants you to figure out who the thief is. You do this by studying the illustrations and making smart guesses.
Hidden Clues and Codes
The pictures hide many secrets. You can find hidden messages, secret codes, and ciphers. These are great for anyone who loves puzzles! For example, one page has a border made of Morse code. Morse code uses dots and dashes to spell out words. Another page shows a ballroom. It has musical clues that point to the guilty guest.
The biggest clue is a secret message at the end of the book. This message is written in ciphertext. Ciphertext looks like jumbled letters. You need to decode it to find the answer. To do this, you use a Caesar cipher. This is a simple code where each letter is shifted. You shift 'A' to the first letter of the guilty animal's name.
Once you decode the message, it confirms who the thief is. It also gives you another challenge to solve!
Finding the Answers
The very last part of the book has all the answers. It shows you how to solve almost all the clues. This section is usually sealed together. This is so you can try to solve the puzzles on your own first.
In older versions of the book, this sealed section was not included. You had to send away for the answers by mail! You can solve the mystery in a few ways. You can use the secret coded messages. You can also look closely at the pictures. Or, you can find clues in the story's words themselves.
