News
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Made By Humans #4 - Marijke Friesen, Meet Our Book Designer
Read more →Meet book designer Marijke Friesen. Marijke designs incredible looking books for publishers. When we decided to make a book for our fairy tale-themed mystery, The Enchanted Slumber, Marijke gamely agreed to help us with the project. We didn’t know how to make a book. We had the story, so that was a good start. We knew we wanted the book to be hard-cover and we really wanted details like gold embossing, a ribbon bookmark and envelopes hidden inside so we could enclose messages sealed with wax. A wonderful artist by the name of Joy Broadbent painted the illustrations for us. And Marijke took...
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Why Our Mystery Left One Customer "Shooketh"
Read more →We absolutely LOVE this Instagram post that we saw this week from one of our customers. It perfectly captures the experience we want kids to have with our mysteries. Don't get us wrong, we're not against screens. Our kids have spent plenty of time building fabulous imaginary worlds in Minecraft, coding and going on online adventures. We're actually pretty sure one of our kids would choose to live inside a game if she could. And that's the problem, a lack of balance. We don't mind seeing our kids on screens, but we also want them to read books, play games...
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Made By Humans #3 - Suzanne Matczuk, Meet Our Mystery Writer
Read more →Meet me! I’m Suzanne and I wear a lot of hats here at Mail Order Mystery, by which I mean sometimes I even wear a Bigfoot Costume. I also write pretty much everything here, including all five of our mysteries. I love writing Mail Order Mysteries. Each one has been challenging in its own way. And getting kids excited about reading is a genuine thrill, and one of the most rewarding professional experiences I could ever hope to have.Occasionally we get a review like this one from Samantha B and it makes everything so worthwhile... When I write Mail Order...
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Make This Summer Extraordinary ☀️
Read more →Another lifetime ago, before we had kids, we took a trip to Italy. We rented one of those little European cars that makes you feel like you're driving in a shoebox and we poked around the countryside. Everything was great until we got onto the Autostrada. Even with the gas pedal floored we could not keep up with the traffic, and the cars whizzed past us at ridiculous speeds.It seems like the ideal metaphor for the way so many of us are feeling in this post-COVID world. Back to normal means back to the dizzying speeds of the before times,...
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Made By Humans #2 - Tanya Becker, Our Awesome Designer
Read more →Meet Toronto-based designer Tanya Becker. We have had a blast working with her on our last two mysteries, The Case of the Missing Bigfoot and Escape the Master Loop. The best thing about Tanya, other than being an awesome designer, is that she is up for anything. No matter what we ask her to do, the answer is always yes. Even if it’s “Hey Tanya, can you make us a photo of Bigfoot driving a garbage truck”? We asked Tanya about what it was like working with us and she says: “Doing design for MOM is the best! When else would you get to...
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Mysteries Are the Perfect Gift for Dad and Here’s Why
Read more →Well, look no further. Here are five reasons why Mail Order Mysteries make the best Father’s Day gifts ever. 🔎 Mail Order Mysteries are fun for kids and Dads too! We always say that Mail Order Mysteries are so cool that you will wish you were a kid again, but who says you have to be a kid? 🔎 Mail Order Mysteries are personalized, so Dad’s and kids’ names can appear in the mystery. Dad can be secretly thrilled to see his very own name on the letters. 🔎 Kids and Dad both have an excellent reason...