Boxcar Children

#118 The Spy Game by Gertrude Chandler Warner, 2009.

Mrs. Dawson, a friend of Mrs. McGregor, the Aldens’ housekeeper, stops by one day for a visit. Mrs. Dawson is also a housekeeper, working for Amanda Penner. She has been with the Penner family for years, although her ambition is to own a book store some day. Mrs. Dawson says that Amanda has injured her ankle falling over some loose stones in a walkway at the house she inherited from her grandfather. The Alden children are sympathetic, and they offer to help fix the walkway so nobody else will get hurt. Mrs. Dawson says that she’s sure Amanda would be grateful for the help, although they notice that she’s oddly evasive when Mrs. McGregor asks her if Amanda still likes writing.

When the Aldens go to see Amanda Penner, she tells them more about the house and her family. The house is over 100 years old, and she says that it was built by an ancestor of hers for his young bride, Pandora, who was called Dora. Amanda has many fond memories of the house because, even though she didn’t grow up there, she used to visit her grandfather there every summer.

When the children start fixing the stone walkway, they notice that there are letters engraved into the stones. They wonder if the stones are meant to spell something, and when they investigate, they find it leads to a riddle. They show it to Amanda, and she says that it looks like they’ve stumbled on her grandfather’s “Spy Game.” Her grandfather was a big fan of mysteries and used to play a kind of treasure hunt game with her. The game always started with a hint in the form of “I spy with my little eye …”, which is why she started calling it the “Spy Game.” Amanda says that, when her grandfather died, he left her one last “Spy Game” that supposedly leads to something gold, but she hasn’t been able to solve it. Naturally, the Aldens offer to help her find the hidden treasure!

However, they might not be the only ones looking for the hidden treasure. Amanda’s friend, Steve, is renting the room over the garage for the summer, and they overhear him talking on the phone about getting a “treasure.” They also hear Mrs. Dawson talking about opening “Pandora’s Box.” Are Steve and Mrs. Dawson also looking for the gold that Amanda’s grandfather left for her? All is not what it seems in this tale of treasure hunts and riddles!

The book is available to borrow and read for free online through Internet Archive.

My Reaction

There is a fun twist to this story that I don’t want to spoil! It’s hinted at throughout the book that the story behind the treasure hunt doesn’t quite add up, but the true purpose behind the treasure hunt makes a fun surprise! Actually, there’s kind of a double surprise, but I don’t want to spoil either one.

The setting of the story is charming, an old house where a grandfather used to play treasure hunt games with his granddaughter. I always loved treasure hunt stories as a kid, and this is the kind of book I would have loved back then. I liked how the clues in the story could have multiple meanings, like the clue about a tree and a “hollow” could refer to a tree in a place called a “hollow” or to a hollow tree. Readers are given enough information that they can try to figure out the clues along with the Aldens, but I thought that the room for interpretation in the clues made it an interesting challenge.