As part of my work, I’m searching for resources for my next post with the idea of relating chocolates and UK private investigators. In the process, I ended up using the keywords – chocolates and detective, chocolate and investigators. The results that Google has for me are varied (I’m surprised that there are really chocolate detectives). Nonetheless, what really caught my attention is The Chocolate Detective founded by Chantal Coady and Chocolate Pocus, a book series for children aged 7 and over.
You have to see The Chocolate Detective website. I specifically like the sketch of a woman holding a magnifying glass examining what I presume to be chocolate in her hand. The sketch alone is unique and it really raises the child in me. The Chocolate detective is Chantal Coady, founder of Rococo Chocolates. She is known as the sustainable chocolate expert.
In this post, I’m going to focus more on Chocolate Pocus as it meets the demands of my research – chocolate and investigators.
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The Chocolate Pocus (Schokuspokus) – Investigating The Lucky Cocoa
Children love chocolate. And children love adventure stories. As soon as they can read the first words and sentences themselves shortly after starting school, many children suddenly develop into proud bookworms. New reading material is in great demand and parents are looking for new, child-friendly books.
Can parents spontaneously fall in love with a children’s book? Yes, that’s actually possible. If you’re obsessed with chocolate and books, as a mom of three, you just can’t go past the “Chocolate Pocus” books. The series for children aged 7 and over consists of 7 volumes. In the story, 7 orphans are looking for the 7 secret ingredients (mysterious, always the darn 7…) of the legendary lucky cocoa. These children live in very strange circumstances. In the orphanage, the chocolate villa, Amanda, Oskar, and their friends have to toil for the nasty, Cruella de Vil-like obsessed director Agathe Hellebore to make the famous “Chocolate Pocus” chocolate. Agathe is determined to find out the recipe for the lucky cocoa. But then the children discover a strange vessel with an old inscription and might be able to forestall her. An adventurous search begins…
With the large font and short chapters, the “Schokuspokus” books are already suitable for first-time readers. The design with many colorful pictures and beautiful illustrations is loving and contains cute details. The extremely tongue-in-cheek allusions to a real chocolate bar on the cover are great: the seal on the cover with cocoa fruit and the slogan “100% finest cocoa adventure”, the funny list of ingredients, instructions for use, and the best-before date on the back. In addition, each chapter has its own symbol that illustrates the content and is reminiscent of typical Mayan iconography. Finally, there are great extras: excerpts from the next volume, information about the Maya and cocoa, decryption puzzles in secret code, and volume 1 contains the recipe for real Maya cocoa.
Final Thoughts
The idea of connecting chocolates and investigation or investigators is a challenge but it was fun in the process. I got to know about a sustainable chocolate website, The Chocolate Detective that has a good cause behind the business. Aside from that, I also had fun with the children’s book series by Maja von Vogel. Although the book is written in German, you can still enjoy the book using a translator. This is worth reading as you follow the adventure of 7 children in their investigative work on chocolates.