Shandon Ivy League Mystery Series takes off at Hand

Leaman Mosby, dressed as the Spooky character, visits with Ivy, the inspiration for the Shandon Ivy League Mystery Series. The Mystery of the Screecher Creature By Rachel Haynie with Karen Petit

Parts of Karen Petit's series debut, a youth book inspired by her dog, are true. Other parts are pure fiction, although easy for readers to believe, according to the Hand Middle School students who listened as the story unfolded.

Petit said she was motivated to write as a way to share a love of reading. "I hope for all children that they will love to read as I did when I was their age. As they can see, I turned my love for reading into a love for writing."

Petit is a journalist at the University of South Carolina in Media Relations. She lives in Shandon where the book is set.

Petit mentioned she would like to read portions of the book to students to get feedback to her colleague Peggy Binnette. Binnette's son Daniel was in Helen Schell's creative writing class at Hand Middle School. She spoke with Daniel's teacher and the collaboration began. Petit said the second book in the series is complete and due out during Spring 2007.

Karen Petit, author of The book, The Mystery of the Screecher Creature, is about a beautiful dog who nearly lost her life as a puppy. It is the first of Petit's Shandon's Ivy League Mystery Series for children and pet lovers of all ages. It is published by Red Letter Press in Columbia, S.C. The series takes its name from the real-life Ivy, a Labrador Retreiver and Chow mix, who lives in Columbia's Shandon neighborhood.

The Mystery of the Screecher Creature tells the story of Ivy and her pet friends who become unnerved when a magnificent pink diamond named Sugarplum is stolen from their neighbor, Miss Darla. The whodunit continues with the theft of more valuables from their neighborhood: a pirate's dagger, a diamond and pearl tiara, a church's candlesticks, and Ivy's own collar with sparkling jewels.

Angie Guyton (l) reads The dogged determination of Ivy and her friends leads the group to solve the robberies and establishes the pets as a new crime-solving team known as Shandon's Ivy League.

The real-life Ivy, born in rural South Carolina, already had confronted and escaped danger. Unwanted, Ivy was taken to a flea market to be sold with her brothers and sisters. Greg and Jane Evans of Columbia saw the black puppy with fluffy fur and a swooping tail and wondered if they should take her home.

Their decision was hastily made when they were told that Ivy would be thrown into a river and drowned if not sold that day. The couple paid the $5 asking price and took her home. They named her Ivy because she loved to follow them as they worked in their garden.

In 2003, Petit adopted Ivy from the Evans, who were moving to Charleston for jobs at the College of Charleston.

From that moment on, Petit knew that she and Ivy would have a special bond. While watching Law and Order , Petit began wondering what Ivy would do if she were solving the mysteries herself. Petit developed the idea for a book that put Ivy in her own mystery with a group of pets - Ernest, an English pug; Spooky, a homeless cat; Hoover, a hyper Jack Russell Terrier; Lovely, an aging greyhound racing star; and Marigold, a canary. A book involving danger must have a bit of romance, so Petit added Blitz, a handsome police dog, to be Ivy's heartthrob.

"The book tells the story from the pets' perspective. It captures their innocence and the view they have of the people in their lives," Petit said.

But the journalist knew that writing a book and having it accepted by young readers weren't the same thing. So she turned to the expertise of a sixth-grade class of creative writing students at Hand Middle School, just three blocks from her home in Shandon. For 10 weeks, the students and their teacher Helen Schell listened while Petit read the chapters and then gave their "polishes and praises."

"They helped me become a better writer," said Petit, who has continued her partnership with Hand Middle School's creative writing classes.

As she wrote the first book, Petit realized that Ivy and her friends could solve more than one mystery, so she continued writing. The Mystery at Foggy Bottom Lake , scheduled for publication in 2007, will take the Shandon's Ivy League pets to a vacation at a quiet mountain resort that is anything but peaceful.

Petit said. "Ivy was a precious gift when my life had been in chaos. Ivy came along and changed my life. We still have chaos at times, but we also have great fun!"

To learn more about the Shandon's Ivy League Mystery Series, go to www.theivybooks.com,