Belly Up: Volume 1

Stuart Gibbs

May 2010 · Simon and Schuster

About this ebook

When a beloved hippo dies at a Texas theme park, a twelve-year-old boy suspects foul play—and sets out to solve the mystery in this children’s series debut.

Twelve-year-old Theodore “Teddy” Roosevelt Fitzroy believes that Henry, the hippopotamus at the brand-new FunJungle, has been murdered. The zoo’s top brass claim the hippo went belly up the natural way, but Teddy and his feisty friend Summer McCraken have other ideas.

Could the culprit be FunJungle’s animal-hating head of operations? Or is it FunJungle’s owner—Summer’s dad—a man who is much more concerned about money than animal welfare? The deeper Teddy and Summer dig, the more danger they’re in—because when it comes to hippo homicide, the truth can’t be caged!

Ratings and reviews

I love it! The only thing that buggs me is all the errors! Im in 6th grade honors english and I'm only on chapter 12 and I have already spotted multiple wording errors that made a sentence so confusing that I couldn't even read it. Also, there are quite a few words that younger children may be offended or freaked out by. Including the "D word" Other than that, its amazing!

I had it in class and read half of it because I didn't get to finish! :'( it is a REALLY good book so far... read it. And another good one is Smells Like Dog and Boys, Girls, And Other Hazardous Material :DD loved them! :D ooooo and Keeper

A great adventure book. I don't like adventure but this book just sucks you in. This story's about a boy and his mothers bosses daughter. They try finding out who is the killer of Henry the Hippo. Read to find out the rest!!

About the author

Stuart Gibbs is the New York Times bestselling author of the Charlie Thorne series, FunJungle series, Moon Base Alpha series, Once Upon a Tim series, and Spy School series. He has written screenplays, worked on a whole bunch of animated films, developed TV shows, been a newspaper columnist, and researched capybaras (the world’s largest rodents). Stuart lives with his family in Los Angeles. You can learn more about what he’s up to at StuartGibbs.com.