Nate the Great


Nate the Great is a series of more than two dozen children's detective stories written by Marjorie Weinman Sharmat featuring the eponymous boy detective, Nate the Great. Sharmat and illustrator Marc Simont inaugurated the series in 1972 with Nate the Great, a 60-page book published by Coward, McCann & Geoghegan, and Simont illustrated the first twenty books, to 1998. Some numbers were jointly written with Sharmat's sister Rosalind Weinman, husband Mitchell Sharmat or sons Craig Sharmat and Andrew Sharmat, and the last six were illustrated by Martha Weston or Jody Wheeler "in the style of Marc Simont". Several of the books have been adapted as television programs, one of which won the Los Angeles International Children's Film Festival Award. The New York Public Library named Nate the Great Saves the King of Sweden one of its "100 Titles for Reading and Sharing".
Nate is a detective, a child version of Sam Spade. He solves crimes with his dog, Sludge, introduced in the second case, Nate the Great goes Undercover.
Regarding the series Marjorie Sharmat calls husband Mitchell "always my first editor, and it's been a very happy collaboration". Regarding all of their writing, Mitchell Sharmat once told Something About the Author :

Characters

The character Nate was "inspired" by Nathan Weinman, father of Marjorie Sharmat, who had previously "featured" her mother and sister in a novel. She "named the other characters in the book after" other relatives: Annie, Rosamond, and Harry after mother Anne, sister Rosalind, and uncle Harry. It was the writer's third book published, five years after her first.
There are several continuing characters beside Nate and his dog Sludge.
Rosamond is featured in the third episode, Nate the Great and the Lost List. She has long black hair and a short black dress, white mary jane shoes, four black cats of different sizes, and she is frequently described as "strange". In particular, she is introduced thus in the first book: "Rosamond did not look hungry or sleepy. She looked like she always looks. Strange." That text and Simont's illustration allegedly inspired the creation of Emily the Strange.
The 2002 volume Nate the Great, San Francisco Detective establishes that Nate the Great and the girl detective Olivia Sharp are cousins. She is the heroine of a 1989–1991 series of four books sometimes called Olivia Sharp, Agent for Secrets, written by Marjorie and Mitchell Sharmat and illustrated by Denise Brunkus.

Series

The first twenty volumes were illustrated by Marc Simont.
  1. Nate the Great
  2. Nate the Great goes Undercover
  3. Nate the Great and the Lost List
  4. Nate the Great and the Phony Clue
  5. Nate the Great and the Sticky Case
  6. Nate the Great and the Missing Key
  7. Nate the Great and the Snowy Trail
  8. Nate the Great and the Fishy Prize
  9. Nate the Great Stalks Stupidweed
  10. Nate the Great and the Boring Beach Bag
  11. Nate the Great Goes Down in the Dumps
  12. Nate the Great and the Halloween Hunt
  13. Nate the Great and the Musical Note, written with son Craig Sharmat
  14. Nate the Great and the Stolen Base
  15. Nate the Great and the Pillowcase, with sister Rosalind Weinman
  16. Nate the Great and the Mushy Valentine
  17. Nate the Great and the Tardy Tortoise, with Craig Sharmat
  18. Nate the Great and the Crunchy Christmas, with Craig Sharmat
  19. Nate the Great Saves the King of Sweden
  20. Nate the Great and Me: The Case of the Fleeing Fang
The latest nine volumes were chapter books "in the style of Marc Simont".
  1. Nate the Great and the Monster Mess, illustrated by Martha Weston†
  2. Nate the Great, San Francisco Detective, with husband Mitchell Sharmat, illus. Weston†
  3. Nate the Great and the Big Sniff, with Mitchell Sharmat, illus. Weston†
  4. Nate the Great on the Owl Express, with Mitchell Sharmat, illus. Weston†
  5. Nate the Great Talks Turkey, with Mitchell Sharmat, illus. Jody Wheeler‡
  6. Nate the Great and the Hungry Book Club, with Mitchell Sharmat, illus. Wheeler‡
  7. Nate the Great, Where Are You?, with Mitchell Sharmat, illus. Wheeler‡
  8. Nate the Great and the Missing Birthday Snake, with son Andrew Sharmat, illus. Wheeler‡
  9. Nate the Great and the Wandering Word, with son Andrew Sharmat, illus. Wheeler‡

    Olivia Sharp

Olivia Sharp is a girl detective and Nate's cousin. Her four stories were written by the husband-and-wife team Mitchell and Marjorie Sharmat, illustrated by Denise Brunkus, and published by Delacorte Press. The titles are sometimes styled Olivia Sharp: The Pizza Monster, and so on.
In 2008 and 2009 Ravensburger Buchverlag published German-language editions of the first three Olivia Sharp books with new illustrations by Franziska Harvey. All three titles begin with the name of the German heroine, "Bella Bond", and the 2011 omnibus edition of three stories is Bella Bond – Agentin für Geheimnisse; literally "Agent for Secrets".

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