It is spring vaca­tion and Rebec­ca is excit­ed to spend the whole week with her best friend, Ana. But things begin going wrong as soon as Rebec­ca arrives. The weeds in Ana’s new gar­den dis­ap­pear by them­selves, but then so do Ana’s old, worn-out tools. ​“Per­haps there is an ancient sprite at work, tak­ing care of your gar­den for you?” sug­gests Mr. Tana­ka, Ana’s friend­ly neigh­bor. He offers to let the girls help him in the large Japan­ese Gar­den where he works as care­tak­er. The girls jump at the offer and accom­pa­ny him and his wife to the gar­den the very next morn­ing. Rebec­ca mar­vels at the garden’s beau­ty but finds out that all is not as per­fect as it appears to be. Things have been going wrong in the gar­den, giv­ing Mr. Tana­ka, and now the girls, many things to fix. But it seems that every time Rebec­ca and Ana take care of one prob­lem, anoth­er one sur­faces, and this time, the girls are being blamed for the mishaps. Rebec­ca real­izes it is up to her to fig­ure out who is real­ly dam­ag­ing things in the gar­den. To clear their names, Rebec­ca and Ana must uncov­er the real cul­prits before the girls are ban­ished from the gar­den for good. 

A Grow­ing Sus­pi­cion is part of the Amer­i­can Girl™ series. Along with a cap­ti­vat­ing mys­tery, read­ers will find a sprin­kling of Yid­dish and Japan­ese words through­out the sto­ry bring­ing both cul­tures to life, as well as a brief his­to­ry at the end teach­ing about how children’s gar­dens and Japan­ese gar­dens came to the city of Brook­lyn. A Grow­ing Sus­pi­cion is an excel­lent mid­dle-grade mys­tery that girls ages 8 – 12 will enjoy reading.