Is It Real?: The Loch Ness Monster
by Candace Fleming
Intermediate, Middle School    Focus/Scholastic    160 pp.
3/25    9781546110286    $26.99
Paper ed.  9781339037936    $8.99
e-book ed.  9781546110293    $8.99

A prehistoric monster was sighted in Loch Ness! People say they have seen it. Newspapers have reported it. But does it really exist? Fleming involves readers in the hunt: “You are an investigator for the Black Swan Scientific Investigation (BSSI) team. Your job is to unravel—if you can—the natural world’s greatest mysteries. Ghosts. Sea serpents. Aliens from outer space. You’ve tackled them all by asking the right questions and looking for evidence.” In the untangling of this famous mystery, Fleming lets readers in on the tools of historical detection and narrative nonfiction writing, of which she is a master. Reader-sleuths learn the difference between direct and circumstantial evidence, and between evidence and proof. It turns out there’s plenty of evidence, but is there proof? In the years since the first sightings almost a century ago, people have tried many ways to locate the monster: submarines, sonar, underwater cameras, infrared cameras, and even a gigantic comb raked through the water. But “no definitive evidence has been found.” Sightings continue today, and “Nessie swims on, swift and elusive, in the imagination of millions.” Back matter includes an extensive bibliography and source notes.

From the ">May/June 2025 issue of The Horn Book Magazine.