Posted on by TracyC

The Mystery of the Stuttering Parrot

The Three Investigators

The Mystery of the Stuttering Parrot by Robert Arthur, 1964, 1992.

Hector Sebastian, a detective who became a mystery writer, has become a mentor to The Three Investigators, and he has asked them to visit a friend of his, Malcolm Fentriss, who is a Shakespearean actor. Mr. Fentriss has lost his parrot and wants help to find it. That seems simple enough, but there’s far more to it than that. When Jupiter and Pete arrive at his house to talk to him about the case, they hear someone calling for help, and a man wielding an old-fashioned pistol marches them into the house. The boys believe that the man is Mr. Fentriss and tell him that Hector Sebastian sent them to help with his missing parrot. Mr. Fentriss reveals that the pistol is actually a decorative cigarette lighter and says that the whole thing was a test of bravery for them that he dreamed up after Hector Sebastian told him that the boys were coming. Unfortunately, he says that he no longer requires their help to find his parrot because the parrot came back, and that’s who they heard calling for help because he taught his bird to say that.

However, as the boys are leaving, Jupiter suddenly realizes that there’s a problem with the man’s story: there are no telephone wires leading to the house! That means that this house has no telephone, so Hector Sebastian couldn’t have called, that man isn’t the owner of this house, and the real Mr. Fentriss must have been the one who really called for help! (This clue marks this book as being earlier than the late 20th century/early 21st century. When I was a kid, people’s phone landlines were already being buried underground instead of strung overhead, and therefore, wouldn’t be easily seen anyway. In my area in the 1980s and 1990s, only the oldest neighborhoods in town still had overhead wires. With the later advent of cell phones, a person wouldn’t need wires to get phone calls at all.) The boys tell their chauffeur to take them back to the house so they can help Mr. Fentriss, and they see the imposter leaving in his car. They consider trying to follow the imposter, but they decide that they’d better see if Mr. Fentriss is alright instead. They find him tied up, and as they free him, they explain who they are and that Hector Sebastian sent them.

Mr. Fentriss tells them that he still wants their help finding his parrot, who is named Billy Shakespeare, after William Shakespeare. He tried to go to the police, but they didn’t want to help, saying that either his bird just flew away or he was making the whole thing up as a publicity stunt for his acting. According to Mr. Fentriss, his bird quotes from Shakespeare, except that he has a tendency to stutter. Instead of saying, “To be or not to be”, he says, “To-to-to be or not to-to-to be.” Jupiter is intrigued at the idea of a stuttering parrot. Mr. Fentriss tells him that he got the parrot from a mysterious Mexican peddler with a donkey cart because another friend also bought a parrot from the peddler. When this friend hear the other parrot quoting from Shakespeare, she thought the Mr. Fentriss would like him and told the peddler to visit Mr. Fentriss. Mr. Fentriss is also sure that Billy didn’t just fly away because both the bird and his cage are missing. Billy disappeared when he was out for a walk, and there were signs that a car had been at the house while he was gone, so Mr. Fentriss thinks that whoever drove the car took the parrot.

When the boys ask Mr. Fentriss about the man who tied him up, he says that the man called himself Claudius and that he claimed to be from the police at first, asking him questions about the missing parrot. In particular, he wanted to know what the bird said and whether or not he knew of anyone else who had bought a bird from the same peddler. Mr. Fentriss told him the bird’s phrase, leaving out the part about the stutter, and about his friend, also mentioning that the peddler also had another bird, a dark-colored one that didn’t seem well. Claudius seemed familiar with the bird, calling it Blackbeard. Claudius attacked him and tied him up when he started getting suspicious that he wasn’t really from the police and they heard the boys approaching. Jupiter promises that The Three Investigators will do their best to find the parrot.

As the boys leave Mr. Fentriss’s house again, they have a strange encounter with a man who has a French accent and asks them if they are friends of Mr. Fentriss and if there’s any news about Billy. The boys say that the bird is still missing, and the man says that he’s a friend of Mr. Fentriss who was just going to visit him to ask about his bird, but if the bird hasn’t been found yet, he won’t bother Mr. Fentriss after all. Jupiter notices that the man driving the Frenchman’s car has a gun holster.

Jupiter and Pete then go to see Mr. Fentriss’s friend, Irma, to ask her about her parrot, Little Bo-Peep, and discover that her bird is missing, too. From a description that Irma gives them of a man who almost knocked her down with his car when she went out to buy birdseed, it sounds like Little Bo-Peep was stolen by the man they know as Claudius. The boys promise Irma that they’ll find her parrot, too.

When Jupiter and Pete meet up with Bob, who wasn’t with them because he had to go to his part time job at the library, they tell him everything that happened. The boys know that they need to track down Claudius, but how are they going to find him again?

This is the book that introduces Jupiter’s idea of the “ghost-to-ghost hookup” (a play on coast-to-coast hookup, which is a term from early radio and television broadcasting). Basically, each of the Three Investigators calls five different friends, asking them to keep an eye out for Claudius and his distinctive car and also asking them to pass on the message to five other friends. It works almost like a chain letter, except that the message is spread by phone. As friends tell other friends, the message spreads across the city, and The Three Investigators promise a reward to the person who can give them the information they seek.

When someone does finally come to them with information, it turns out to be the young nephew of the peddler. The boys learn that the two missing parrots were actually part of a group of seven owned by a mysterious stranger who is now dead. This mysterious stranger, who called himself Mr. Silver, gave the birds colorful names from history and fiction and taught them to talk. Their messages, when combined, lead to something that Mr. Silver hid.

The the newer and older versions of this book are available to borrow and read for free online through Internet Archive.

Posted on by TracyC · 1 Comment

The Berenstain Bears Trick or Treat

The Berenstain Bears

The Berenstain Bears Trick or Treat by Stan and Jan Berenstain, 1989.

“Even little bears
expect a good fright
when they go out for treats
on Halloween night.”

Brother and Sister Bear are looking forward to trick-or-treating on Halloween night with their friends. Sister is going as a ballerina, and Brother is dressed as a monster. When Brother jumps out at Mama in his monster costume, she pretends to be frightened, and when he takes off his mask, Mama comments that “appearances can be deceiving.” Sister asks what that means, and Mama explains that “things aren’t always what they look like.”

This is the first year that Brother and Sister will be allowed to go out trick-or-treating without their parents. They plan to trick-or-treat with friends, and they talk about the houses that they plan to visit. The one house in the neighborhood that they don’t want to visit belongs to Miz McGrizz. Miz McGrizz’s house looks spooky, and the kids think that she might be a witch. Mama tells them that’s nonsense and that Miz McGrizz is a nice person.

As the young bears set out to trick-or-treat with their friends, some of the bigger, tougher cubs in the neighborhood try to talk them into joining them in some pranks. First, they want to decorate Miz McGrizz’s house with toilet paper.

However, before the cubs can do anything, Miz McGrizz comes out of her house, and seeing the cubs, tells them that she’s ready for them. Although the kids are frightened at first, it turns out that Mama really was correct about Miz McGrizz. Miz McGrizz is just a nice old lady who has a special treat for the cubs who are brave enough to visit her house.

In real life, trick-or-treaters shouldn’t go into the houses of people they visit unless they know them very well, but in this case, it’s not so bad because the cubs’ mother approves of Miz McGrizz and would be fine with the children visiting her.

The book is available to borrow and read for free online through Internet Archive (multiple copies).

Posted on by TracyC

Corduroy’s Halloween

Corduroy’s Halloween, based on the character created by Don Freeman, pictures by Lisa McCue, 1995.

I’ve seen this book as both a regular picture book and a lift-the-flap book. The basic story is the same either way, and the illustrations are similar in either copy. I just happen to have the lift-the-flap copy. This is one of the Corduroy books where Corduroy lives on his own with his stuffed animal friends and no humans are present in the story.

Corduroy and his friends are excited because Halloween is coming! There are many things to do, like raking leaves, choosing pumpkins for jack o’lanterns, and entering a window-painting contest.

Corduroy shops for the supplies that he will need for his Halloween party.

By Halloween night, all of the decorations are up, and Corduroy gets his first trick-or-treaters, including some trick-or-treating for UNICEF.

Corduroy and his friends also take part in the Halloween costume parade. In the lift-the-flap copy, you can lift up character’s masks and see their faces. I think that makes this a good book for helping to explain to young children that people in scary costumes are just ordinary people beneath the masks.

Then, they return to Corduroy’s house to have their party and bob for apples. Happy Halloween!

Posted on by TracyC

Clifford's Halloween

Clifford

Clifford’s Halloween by Norman Bridwell, 1986.

Halloween is Emily Elizabeth’s favorite holiday! Emily Elizabeth talks about the various holidays that she and Clifford enjoy, but Halloween is the one they enjoy the most.

Last Halloween, she considered various costumes for Clifford, but Clifford decided that he wanted to be a ghost, covered with a giant sheet. (I love how they say that nobody could guess who the giant ghost is, like there could be someone else in the neighborhood that big.)

When you’ve got a giant dog, bobbing for apples doesn’t go the way you expect.

However, when you’ve got a giant dog, nothing else is very scary, either.

The book ends with Emily Elizabeth considering different costumes for Clifford for this Halloween, inviting the reader to think of other possible costumes.

I like the idea of letting kids consider which Halloween costumes they like the best from the ones that Emily Elizabeth considers. Kids like making choices, and trying to think of costumes that would work on a gigantic dog presents a creative challenge. When Emily considers dressing Clifford as a knight, they don’t consider where she’s going to get a suit of armor that size, but the books in this series don’t worry much about the logistics of caring for a dog the size of Clifford.

When I first read this book back in the 1980s (I was four years old when the book was new, although I can’t remember exactly how old I was when I first read it), I didn’t think too much about the Indian (Native American) costume with a pipe, although I wouldn’t think of suggesting that as a costume for anyone now. It’s partly because there’s something of a stigma against Native American costumes now. It’s not enough of a stigma to get people to stop wearing them and major costume retailers from selling them, but enough that some people raise eyebrows at them because of some of the connotations attached to them. If you read some of the reviews of Native American costumes on Amazon, like I did, it seems that more of them were purchased for school plays and projects or Thanksgiving plays than for Halloween. However, the part about this costume that particularly jumped out at me was the ceremonial pipe. Kids sometimes dressed as American Indians for Halloween when I was young, although the practice is discouraged now, but with all of the anti-smoking campaigns aimed at children when I was young, most of our parents wouldn’t have even considered giving us a peace pipe as part of a costume, even ignoring the social and cultural implications of that. I think that idea shows the age of the book’s creator. I grew up in the American Southwest, but I didn’t grow up on old western shows where peace pipes were a common feature. I didn’t see those shows until I was older, and by then, they looked pretty cheesy. I think that the book’s author was from the generation that was raised on those westerns and had nostalgic associations with them.

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

Posted on by TracyC

Count Draculations!: Monster Riddles

Count Draculations!: Monster Riddles compiled by Charles Keller, 1986.

This is one of those themed joke books for kids that has monster and Halloween-themed jokes.  The jokes are the basic kid-friendly question-and-response type with lots of puns.  There are also some cute black-and-white illustrations.

Some of my favorite jokes:

Why do witches get A’s in school?

Because they are good at spelling.

How do you get into a locked cemetery?

With a skeleton key.

Why did Frankenstein’s monster go to the psychiatrist?

He thought he had a screw loose.

Why did the invisible man go crazy?

Out of sight, out of mind.

Posted on by TracyC

Halloween Cookbook

Halloween Cookbook by Susan Purdy, 1977.

I remember getting this book from my school library when I was a kid. I never actually made anything from it because it was a little beyond my cooking skills. Still, I was fascinated by the recipes in the book, especially the stew inside the pumpkin.

Some recipes in the book use specifically Halloween shapes and colors, while others are more general fall and harvest-themed recipes. The recipes are organized by category with section for food that can also be used as Halloween decorations and other sections for brunch and lunch, vegetable dishes, meat dishes/main courses, and snacks and desserts.

Some of the recipes are old, traditional ones from around the world, such as the ones for Fried Pumpkin Blossoms (an Italian recipe) and the Indonesian Corn Fritters. A brief section at the beginning of each recipe explains a little about the recipe’s background.

In the beginning of the book, there are notes about converting between units of measurement, including converting between imperial and metric units. There is also a guide for converting between Celsius and Fahrenheit temperatures. There are other cooking tips for beginners, such as how to separate eggs (I’ve never done it with my hands, like in the book, but it’s useful to know) and how to chop onions and press garlic.

Posted on by TracyC

The Spookster’s Handbook

The Spookster’s Handbook by Peter Eldin, 1989.

This is a fun book of jokes and tricks for Halloween or just having some spooky fun with friends, possibly at a sleepover. The book is divided into the following sections:

Making Monsters – How to make costume pieces and turn yourself into a bug-eyed monster, a warty witch, and more! There are also tricks, like making a ghost image appear on a wall, casting a glowing face on someone else’s shadow, and making Bigfoot footprints.

Screamingly Funny – A chapter of ghost jokes.

Ghostly Tricks – Magic tricks that look somewhat ghostly, like making a friend “float” in the air and making magical symbols appear on blank cardboard.

Monster Pranks & Practical Jokes – Tricks that produce ghostly illusions, like how to take ghostly pictures, produce taps with no obvious source, and cause ghostly flashes of light in a dark room.

Haunting Your Own House – Describes typical do-it-yourself haunted house tricks for producing scary noises.

Monster Laughs – A chapter of monster jokes.

Scare Your Friends – Tricks and pranks for spooking your friends with a finger in a box, strange noises, or a glowing skull.

Terrible Trivia – Fun facts about superstitions and telling the future.

Fang-Tastic! – A chapter of jokes about vampires.

My favorite parts of the book are the superstitions and the ways to make scary haunted house noises. I haven’t actually tried the noise tricks yet, but at some point, I’m planning to try a few!

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

Posted on by TracyC · 5 Comments

We’re Going on a Ghost Hunt

We’re Going on a Ghost Hunt by Marcia Vaughan, illustrated by Ann Schweninger, 2001.

On Halloween night, two kids go out on a ghost hunt. This is a cute picture book, told as a poem, with a lot of repetition of phrases and sound words, like “thump” and “stomp.” The book also encourages children to notice details. The “ghost” appears in the scene where the children pass through the “swamp” and the ghost costume appears again at the end of the book.

As the kids go on their ghost hunt, passing through a swamp and past a haunted house and other scary things, they repeat that they’re not afraid.

The kids are brave, right up to the point where they finally find a ghost.

The kids run home to their mother, who gives them cupcakes and reads them a story.

Three guesses who the red-sneakered ghost was. Happy Halloween!

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

Posted on by TracyC

The Ankle Grabber

The Ankle Grabber by Rose Impey, 1989.

This book is part of the Creepies series, where children have fun imagining monsters. The stories are about the power of imagination and the fun of being a little scared. Sometimes, even though the children know that they made up the monsters themselves, they also get scared of their creations. Books in this series can be good for talking to children about how their imaginations can run away with them and scare them, but I’d use caution when introducing them to very young children because they can make nervous children more nervous by feeding their imaginations. These books would probably be best for ages seven and up. Fortunately, even when the kids’ imaginations run away with them, the stories always end in reality, and the hero of this story is … Dad!

Every night, a little girl has her mother check her room for monsters, but no matter how well her mother searches for them, the girl is still terrified of the monster who lives in an invisible swamp under her bed. She calls this monster the Ankle Grabber because she believes that if she isn’t careful, the monster will reach out from under the bed and pull her down into the swamp by her ankles.

But, as is inevitable when you’ve got a monster under your bed, the girl realizes that she has to go to the bathroom. Getting in and out of bed without being caught by the Ankle Grabber is a tricky proposition. The girl tries to get into and out of bed by jumping so that she can avoid the monster.

When she misses her jump back into bed and lands on the floor, her father comes in to see what’s wrong. Her father has scared off monsters for the little girl before, so he sticks his head under the bed to scare off the Ankle Grabber, too.

Nothing is so scary that Dad can’t make it better!

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

Posted on by TracyC

My Sister the Witch

My Sister the Witch by Ellen Conford, 1995.

Norman Newman is convinced that his sister, Elaine, is a witch. When he goes to her room one evening to call her to dinner, he catches her all dressed in black and chanting strange words.

Norman likes to read horror and mystery books, and he uses some of the techniques that he has learned from reading his favorite mystery stories to investigate his sister. Some of these techniques don’t work as well for Norman as they do for the characters in his books, partly because he doesn’t really know how they work (like which end of a glass you’re supposed to put against a door when you’re trying to listen in on someone) and partly because the characters and situations in books are fictional and some of the things they do don’t work that well in real life.

Early in the story, Norman uses one of his scary stories for a book report for school, and his teacher tells him that she wants him to start to read other types of books. She makes him write an extra book report, telling him that he has a week to read something outside of his usual genre and report on it. That incident and some other pieces of bad luck cause Norman to think that maybe Elaine really is a witch and that she put a curse on him, just like a witch in the book he just read.

Norman’s friend, Milo, thinks that Norman’s imagination is just running away with him. It’s happened before because of the scary stories he reads. Once, he thought that their teacher might be an alien.

When Norman has a brief streak of good luck, he starts to think that whatever curse Elaine put on him may be over, but then, he gets sick to his stomach. He goes to the library to get a book for his new book report, and he also gets a non-fiction book about witches. Then, he overhears Elaine talking to her friend, Deirdre, about something being powerful and scaring Deirdre’s sister. The two of them begin chanting together. Norman decides that he was right about Elaine being a witch and that Deirdre must be a witch, too.

After some research, Norman and Milo learn that, to get rid of the effects of a magic spell, they need to learn the words to the spell and say it backwards. Norman doesn’t remember the whole spell from when he heard Elaine say it, so Milo says that he’ll just have to look for a copy of the spell in her room. The book they consult also says that a spell can be neutralized if the person it was cast on duplicates it, which means gathering all the materials used in the spell, but Norman doesn’t know where he would find things like newts’ eyes and frogs’ toes. Either way, it looks like Norman’s going to need a copy of Elaine’s spell. However, even when he gets it and tries to break the curse, things still go wrong. What can Norman do to get rid of this bad luck spell?

I particularly liked the character of Milo in the story. Milo uses a wheelchair because he was hit by a car when he was young and can’t walk. Norman notes that, although Milo can’t use his legs, he gets around very well in his wheelchair and that he has very strong arms. Milo is also more level-headed than Norman, pointing out to him how he has allowed his imagination to run away with him in the past.

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

Spoilers and Other Thoughts

I thought that the secret behind Elaine’s spell was pretty obvious from the beginning because the book repeatedly says that Elaine wants to be an actress. It reminded me of other stories I’ve seen where someone’s playacting was mistaken for some real life danger. Overall, I enjoyed the book, even though I figured out what was going on pretty quickly. Kids might be in suspense for longer.

By the end, Norman still hasn’t learned his lesson because the next scary story he reads leaves him looking at his dog suspiciously. There is at least one sequel to this story called Norman Newman and the Werewolf of Walnut Street.