Graphic · ages 5–8

Detective Stanley and the Green Thumbed Thief

Name: Detective Stanley and the Green Thumbed Thief
Author: Hannah Tunnicliffe
ISBN: 9781838742973

The Green Thumbed Thief

Written by Hannah Tunnicliffe · Illustrated by Erica Harrison

Book 2 in Detective StanleyView the full series

Someone is swiping priceless rare plants from the Narlybone Botanical Gardens, and it is up to Detective Stanley and his pal Parker Pine to root out the culprit. A second funny, twisty case for the pancake-loving dog sleuth.

Best for5–8
FormatGraphic
Length64 pp
Read aloud~30 min

Where to buyPaperback

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The vibe

What it’s like.

Style

Comedic
Conversational

Tone

Funny
Warm
Whimsical

Themes

On the pagedetective, mystery, plants, garden, dogs

Experience meters

Energy3/ 5

Humour4/ 5

Scariness1/ 5

Peril1/ 5

Wonder1/ 5

Cosiness3/ 5

Emotional intensity1/ 5

Conceptual intensity1/ 5

What’s it about?

The story.

The Narlybone Botanical Gardens have a problem: someone is stealing precious, priceless plants, including extremely rare specimens from the wintergarden that are worth a small fortune, and poor Barnaby Moss, the Head of Horticulture, is utterly baffled by the run of botanical burglaries. Enter Detective Stanley, the pancake-loving, Sherlock-style dog detective, and his trusty companion Parker Pine, who must follow a trail curlier than a vine and full of twisty secrets to unmask the green-thumbed thief. Hannah Tunnicliffe and Erica Harrison's second Detective Stanley comic serves up more warm humour, more gorgeous colour and another proper mystery, perfect for young readers moving on from picture books, comic-mad children, and anyone who loves a good whodunit.

Fit check

Right for your child?

Where it lands by age

A gentle mystery comic for 5 to 8s, read aloud to younger listeners and solo for readers of 6 to 8. Safe, warm and funny throughout, and reads perfectly well on its own even if you have not met Stanley before.

Best fit · 5–8
Read aloud · 5–7
Independent · 6–8

Prose load

Light

Visual support

Very high

Reluctant-reader friendly

Very

Read-aloud quality

Strong

Works well for

Reading aloud
Reluctant readers

Low sensitivityNo content warnings

Nothing in the book is likely to concern most parents. Safe to recommend without preview.

Bedtime suitability

2 / 5 · Better outside bedtime

Sensitive-child

5 / 5 · Good fit

Graphic intensity

1 / 5 · None

Best for

Mystery fans
Early graphic novels
Animal lovers
Reluctant readers

Avoid if

Wants high adventure

Why it lands

Why they love it.

Why kids love it

Rare plants keep vanishing from the gardens and nobody can work out how. Stanley and Parker Pine follow a trail of clues to trap the sneaky green-thumbed thief, and it is just as funny and puzzle-packed as their first case, with pictures full of hidden hints.

Being a detective
Trickery and cleverness

Why parents love it

The second Stanley case keeps everything that works: short, funny and satisfyingly logical, with beautiful colour and a mystery a young reader can genuinely try to solve. Ideal for building confidence and a love of comics in an early reader.

Quick to read
Shared humour
Beautiful illustrations

In the series

Detective Stanley.

2 books · open the series →

Detective Stanley and the Mystery at the Museum2025 · Book 1 You are here

Detective Stanley and the Green Thumbed Thief2026 · Book 2

About the creators

About the creators.

Hannah Tunnicliffe

Writer · New Zealand

Hannah Tunnicliffe is a New Zealand author, best known to adult readers for novels including The Colour of Tea, who lives by the sea near Auckland. In our corpus she is the writer of the Detective Stanley comics, created with illustrator and friend Erica Harrison and published by Flying Eye Books. The books follow a pancake-loving, Sherlock-ish retired dog detective coaxed back into service to crack twisty, satisfying whodunits, a museum broken into but nothing stolen, priceless plants vanishing from the botanical gardens. Warmly funny and beautifully coloured, with a loveable sleuth and a proper mystery each time, they are built for children moving on from picture books and for comic-mad young readers. Honesty and a gentle sense of fairness run quietly beneath the jokes.

Erica Harrison

Illustrator · United Kingdom

Erica Harrison is a British illustrator and children's book designer who draws the Detective Stanley series, written by Hannah Tunnicliffe and published by Flying Eye Books. Starring a pancake-loving, Sherlock-style dog coaxed out of retirement to crack cases at the Narlybone Museum and Botanical Gardens, the books are bright, funny, satisfyingly twisty whodunits built for children moving on from picture books. Harrison's warm humour and gorgeous colour do much of the storytelling, tucking clues and jokes into every panel. She spent years as a designer and illustrator at Usborne before working from studios in Brighton, New York and Auckland, and that long grounding in children's publishing shows in the polish of her comic debut, aimed at readers aged 5 to 8.