Who Took the Pumpkin?

A printable Halloween activity book with a mystery running through it. On Halloween night, somebody took Mrs Marrow's prize pumpkin, Big Barnaby, from her porch. Six children in costume were out on Hollow Lane. Your children follow the trail, solve a puzzle at each of eight stops, collect a clue from every one, and cross suspects off until only one is left.

Every puzzle comes in two levels

Each stop has two pages: one for Little Detectives (about ages 4 to 6) and one for Big Detectives (about ages 7 to 10). Both pages at a stop lead to the same clue, so a 5-year-old and an 8-year-old can solve the case together, each on their own page.

• Little Detectives pages use pictures, counting, big mazes and large dot-to-dots. No reading is needed: a grown-up reads the short story line and the clue out loud.
• Big Detectives pages use reading, a word search with a hidden message, a picture code, a 37-dot dot-to-dot, a 6 by 6 picture sudoku and a bigger maze.

The eight stops

1. Spot what changed at the porch: two photos ten minutes apart (5 differences, or 10).
2. Follow the tracks through the hedge maze. It has more than one way out, but only one joins up to the start.
3. Find the party guest: a hidden-picture party scene. Find Pip and 6 hidden things (or 12) and check the clock.
4. Count the cakes on Wren's bake-sale stall, or find 11 bakes in a word search whose leftover letters spell a message.
5. Shadow show: match things to their shadows and pick out Vik's, or crack a picture code to read the talent show programme.
6. Whose shadow? Join the dots (21 or 37) to see the shadow on the fence.
7. Color the clue: a color-by-number that reveals a footprint.
8. Where is Barnaby? A picture sudoku (4 by 4, or 6 by 6). The star square says where to look.

Some puzzles show the clue straight away. Others give a number or a picture, which children look up in the Clue Book: 22 envelopes, where only the right answer opens the real clue and the others say "not quite, try again". Each clue rules somebody out on the printable Suspect Board. After Stop 8, one suspect is left, and Case Closed tells what happened. The ending is a kind one, and nothing in the book is scary: everyone in it is a child in a costume.

Also inside

• For grown-ups: what to print, how to choose a level, what pens you need, and how long each stop takes (about 10 to 20 minutes). Do it in one afternoon, or one stop a night for the eight nights before Halloween.
• A map of Hollow Lane, a page introducing the six suspects, and a detective certificate to fill in.
• More fun on Hollow Lane: 13 bonus pages. Trick-or-treat bingo for the real walk (a picture card and a word card), two more mazes, odd one out, a costume word search, a dot-to-dot, a logic grid, a joke code, pumpkin faces to draw, a costume to design and two coloring pages.
• Answers to every puzzle, on six pages at the back.

What you get

Two PDFs of the same 47-page book: one for US Letter and one for A4. Open the one that matches your paper and print the pages you need, single-sided, at 100% ("actual size"). Every activity page is black line art with small color headings, so it prints well on a home printer; the story pages at the front are in full color and look best on screen or printed in color. The puzzles need a pencil, and crayons or markers (green, brown and black for Stop 7, plus red and orange for the Big level).

This is a digital download: nothing is posted. Print as many copies as you like for the children in your own home.

Safety on the night: the bingo cards are for a trick-or-treat walk with a grown-up.