Posted on by TracyC

The Silver Crown

The Silver Crown by Robert C. O’Brien, 1968.

Ellen Carroll has always known, deep down, that she was a queen. Of course, everybody else sees this as a game of pretend, and it kind of is, but on her 10th birthday, her life changes forever, and there may be more behind Ellen’s feeling of being a queen than even she knows.

When Ellen wakes up on her 10th birthday, she finds a letter from her Aunt Sarah and a beautiful silver crown next to her on her pillow. Ellen loves the crown because Aunt Sarah is the only adult who seems to really believe Ellen when she says she’s a queen. Ellen takes the crown and goes for an early walk in the park, daydreaming about being a queen. When Ellen gets back to her house, she gets a real shock. In the brief period that she was gone, the house has completely burned down, and apparently no one else in her family survived!

Ellen, in shock, tries to talk to the firefighters and police about the fire and what happened to her family. She discovers that the fire was surprisingly sudden and fierce, there’s no indication that anyone survived, and they might only find bones when they finish their investigation. Ellen explains that this was her family’s house, but since her family hasn’t lived there very long. Nobody really knew her family, and nobody really knows her, and even the police seem to doubt her identity. However, a policeman says that he will take her to the station.

On the way to the police station, something else shocking happens. Ellen and the police officer witness a murder! A robber shoots a store manager, and when the policeman chases the robber, he is also shot. Alone and forgotten, Ellen watches more police come and investigate the situation, trying to figure out what to do. Ellen realizes that, with her family gone, what she really needs is a guardian or a next of kin. That would be Aunt Sarah. However, Aunt Sarah lives in Kentucky, and that’s hundreds of miles away. Ellen could write to Aunt Sarah, but it would take days for her to get the letter, and in the meantime, Ellen has nowhere else to stay. Then, Ellen decides that the thing to do is to go to Kentucky herself. She writes a letter to her aunt to tell her that she’s coming, and sets out to find a ride.

She accepts a ride from a nice man called Mr. Gates who says he’s a teacher and that he’s going to Kentucky, too. She considers it good luck until, during the ride, she begins to notice that there’s something weird about this man. He seems weirdly happy, all the time, and he sometimes repeats certain stock phrases at inappropriate moments. When Ellen gets a look inside in the glove compartment and sees something disturbing – a gun! Suddenly, something clicks in her mind, and she realizes that Mr. Gates was the man in the green hood who shot the store manager and the policeman! She escapes from Mr. Gates and runs into the woods.

While she hides from him in the dark woods, she hears Mr. Gates searching and calling for her. As she listens to him, he grows more disturbed and more disturbing. First, he tries to tell her that he’s going to take her straight to her Aunt Sarah, and Ellen realizes that she never told him her aunt’s name. Then, he begins raving, trying to command her to come out because “the king” has demanded that he bring her to him, and he will punish them if they don’t come. Ellen doesn’t know what he’s talking about, but in the woods that night, she has a strange vision where a man wearing a black crown that looks like hers seems to be commanding other people.

The next day, Ellen befriends a boy named Otto. Otto lives with his elderly mother in the woods, and they survive partly on things they salvage after trucks wreck on a dangerous section of road nearby. Otto and his mother invite Ellen to stay with them a little while to eat and get some sleep.

Ellen explains everything that’s happened to her to Otto’s mother, Mrs. Fitzpatrick. Mrs. Fitzpatrick is a wise woman, and she and Otto both sense that there’s something odd about Ellen’s crown. They sense that it has a power of some kind, but it’s the kind of power that only particular people can use. Whatever the crown does, Mrs. Fitzpatrick is sure that it will only work for Ellen. She questions Ellen about who gave her the crown, but she admits that she doesn’t really know. All she knows is that it was there when she woke up. Since it was her birthday, she just assumed that it was a birthday present. She talks her Mrs. Fitzpatrick about having this sense that she’s a queen and that her Aunt Sarah thinks so, too. Mrs. Fitzpatrick agrees, but she says the question, is what or where is Ellen the queen of? Ellen will need to figure that out before she can understand what the silver crown really is and what it does.

During the night, Mrs. Fitzpatrick shoots at someone who’s lurking outside their cabin, and they realize that someone is still hunting for Ellen. Ellen can’t stay there, and Mrs. Fitzpatrick points out a road that Ellen can take, and she insists that Otto go with her because he knows how to manage in the woods and can help Ellen. Mrs. Fitzpatrick admits that it’s also best for Otto to leave the area because he’s also in trouble.

At first, she’s vague about what trouble Otto is in, but gradually, Mrs. Fitzpatrick explains that Otto and his past aren’t what he believes or has chosen to believe. Mrs. Fitzpatrick found him as a very small child, abandoned on the nearby highway, and she has no idea who his birth parents are or what happened to them. Mrs. Fitzpatrick says she doesn’t really need the things that Otto has salvaged from the wrecked trucks, but for some reason, Otto believes that she does, so he’s been causing these accidents by using branches to hide the sign warning people of the dangerous curve ahead. It doesn’t seem to affect smaller cars, but bigger trucks can’t make it without warning. Ellen is horrified, but Mrs. Fitzpatrick says that she thinks that Otto needs to leave this place and the dangerous fantasies about himself and his life that he’s build, living alone in the woods.

Mrs. Fitzpatrick lets the children go with a warning to Ellen to keep the crown hidden and not to tell anybody about it. She also warns her to beware of any people or group who use the name Hieronymus. The first Hieronymus was a saint, but others have appropriated the name to study the occult and esoteric knowledge, and not for any holy purpose. Mrs. Fitzpatrick says that she has read about a crown like Ellen’s which is associated with these people, and she thinks this secret society is after Ellen now.

Ellen and Otto set out on a cross-country journey to reach Ellen’s Aunt Sarah, but they eventually find themselves trapped in a disturbing boarding school, run by the secret society they are trying to escape. The students in this school are controlled by the mysterious Hieronymus Machine, and they are being trained as soldiers in the service of “the king” to sow chaos in society. Ellen is close to learning the purpose of her crown, but she and Otto will need their wits to escape and put an end to this secret society’s evil plans!

Robert C. O’Brien is known for Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH, but The Silver Crown was his first book.

My Reaction and Some Spoilers

I was intrigued by this story from the very beginning. Strange things start happening very quickly – the appearance of the silver crown on Ellen’s birthday, the destruction of her house, the murder she witnesses, Ellen setting out on her journey to her aunt, and the strange and disturbing Mr. Gates attempting to kidnap her – all of these events, while confusing for Ellen, are related and part of a much larger story.

The parts of the book where Ellen and Otto are traveling cross-country, meeting people who help them escape from the people chasing them and continue their journey, seem almost like part of a fantasy book or fairy tale. This story is both fantasy and science fiction. (Spoiler) The Hieronymus Machine is an invention more than a thousand years old that controls minds by broadcasting feelings like radio waves. The school run by the society uses the Hieronymus Machine to control the minds of the “students”, and the students are all part of a larger experiment to test the powers of the machine and the ability of the black crown to control it. There is a pseudo-scientific explanation of how the machine works, which is the science fiction element, but the black and silver crowns that control the machine and the roles of “king” and “queen” associated with the crowns add the fantasy element. When Ellen meets the king, he explains to her how he discovered the machine and that the people who built it, although they called themselves monks, were actually sorcerers. I enjoy stories that are cross-genre, and I thought that this combination of fantasy and science fiction worked well.

Actually, I was surprised when Ellen and Otto ended up at the boarding school and started learning what the Hieronymus Machine is and what it does because it struck me as very similar to the plot of The Mysterious Benedict Society. This book is 40 years older than The Mysterious Benedict Society, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it inspired that later series. Both of them are based around the concept of mind control machines that work like radio waves and strange boarding schools that are used both for mind control experiments and for training/brain-washing people to serve a dark purpose. Both stories feature children who are orphans and/or separated from their parents and people whose identities are uncertain and whose memories are corrupted by the machine. (Spoiler) It turns out that Ellen’s family is still alive but being held captive by the secret society, but we never learn who Otto’s parents were or if they had any connection to the secret society themselves.

There are some differences between The Mysterious Benedict Society and The Silver Crown. Ellen discovers that the king, although seeming to be in control of everything initially, is also controlled by the machine. The machine controls everyone around it, to some extent. The king somewhat controls the machine through the black crown, but at the same time, he’s also carrying out the goals of the machine. Although he seems in command, he’s really just a tool of the machine itself and needs to be freed from it as badly as everyone else. This is a somewhat different scenario from The Mysterious Benedict Society, where there is one person who is definitely in control. Some people, like Ellen, have a natural resistance to the mind control effects because their minds work differently from other people’s, and that’s how Ellen is able to resist the mind control and use the silver crown. The silver crown is the one that actually controls the machine while the black crown allows the machine to control the wearer while giving him the illusion of control, which is why the king wants to control the silver crown and Ellen. On some level, the machine realizes that it needs Ellen and the silver crown to function. Ellen needs to learn how to use the crown and the knowledge it gives her about what to do to establish control over the machine and ensure that it can’t control anyone else again.

There are actually two different endings to this book, depending on whether you read the British version or the American version, and if you listen to Kent Kently’s reading on Youtube, he reads both of them at the end of the book. In the original British version, Ellen’s Aunt Sarah says that she sent Ellen the crown after finding it in a curio shop in Spain, where the shop owner seemed to think it was an old theatrical prop. This ending isn’t very detailed and leaves some things to the imagination. The American version has far more detail, and in that version, they conclude that the secret society had someone break into Ellen’s house and leave the crown for her because they were actively searching for someone who could use it. If you read other reviews of this story, some of them will differ from each other, depending on which version the reviewer read. Personally, I like the American version with its more detailed explanations better, but Kent Kently prefers the shorter, original version.

Posted on by TracyC

Amelia Bedelia

Amelia Bedelia by Peggy Parish, 1963.

Amelia Bedelia is just starting her new job as a maid with Mr. and Mrs. Rogers! Mr. and Mrs. Rogers can’t be there to supervise her on her first day, but Mrs. Rogers leaves her a list of things to do and tells her to do exactly what the list says. Little does Mrs. Rogers know just how literal Amelia Bedelia can be!

When Amelia Bedelia reads that she’s suppose to “change the towels”, she thinks that she’s supposed to change the way they look instead of replacing them with new ones. To Amelia Bedelia “dust the furniture” means to add dust to the furniture instead of removing it. The instruction to “draw the drapes” sounds like she should draw a picture of them instead of closing them.

When Mr. and Mrs. Rogers return to see how Amelia Bedelia is doing, they are shocked at what she’s done!

There is only one thing that can save Amelia Bedelia’s job: her ability to make an amazing lemon meringue pie!

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

My Reaction

This is the very first book in the Amelia Bedelia series, and I remember reading it when I was a kid. The point of the Amelia Bedelia books is to introduce kids to expressions and words that have multiple meanings. They’re pretty funny to read, although even as a kid, I had trouble believing some of the phrases that Amelia Bedelia takes literally. For example, when she “dusts” the furniture, she thinks that Mrs. Rogers should have told her to “undust” the furniture instead. I see what the author is saying, that it’s funny that we say “dust” the furniture when we’re actually removing dust instead of adding it, but I’ve never heard anybody in real life use the term “undust” the furniture. Amelia Bedelia is funny, but sometimes, it seems like it’s reaching a little to find terms she can credibly misinterpret.

I also don’t think I fully understood the parts about trimming the fat on the steak and dressing the chicken as a kid because I wasn’t used to cooking. I think I got the concept that she was supposed to cut the fat off the steak rather than decorate it as one might trim a Christmas tree (a concept that Amelia Bedelia interprets the opposite way in her Christmas story). What she was supposed to do with the chicken she ended up “dressing” in clothes was a little more confusing. When I was a kid, I knew that people make stuffing or dressing to put in poultry, like chicken or turkey, when they cook it, or they can rub herbs and spices under the skin for flavoring, and I think that’s what Amelia Bedelia was supposed to do here. Even so, there are different types of stuffing or dressing to make and different mixtures of herbs and spices to use, and Mrs. Rogers doesn’t say what kind she wants. Of course, if she was more specific, Amelia Bedelia couldn’t have gotten so confused, and that’s really the point of the story.

I don’t know whether any teachers still use Amelia Bedelia books as examples of words and phrases with multiple meanings, but they are fun in that fashion. A good accompanying activity for these books is a project that I had when I was in school and that I’ve heard students still do – explain how to make a peanut butter sandwich (or any other kind of sandwich) to someone from another planet, who has no idea what a sandwich is or how to make one. Students doing this activity need to be as careful and detailed as they can because some phrases are easy to misinterpret if you assume that the person you’re talking to has no idea how anything works. I remember my old teacher would act out our instructions literally, almost like Amelia Bedelia. For example, if you said, “Put peanut butter on bread” without saying that you need to open the jar first and remove the peanut butter from the jar with a knife, the teacher would set the whole jar of peanut butter on top of the bread and just stare at it. If you explain the peanut butter sandwich instructions well enough that there’s no room for misinterpretation, you may have a future in technical writing!

The pattern established in this first book continues through other books in the series. In many other Amelia Bedelia stories, Amelia Bedelia misinterprets instructions she’s given by taking things too literally or misunderstanding words with multiple meanings, but she always manages to keep her job because she’s really good at baking and makes cakes, pies, and other treats that Mr. and Mrs. Rogers love.

If you read the 50th Anniversary edition of the book, there’s a section in the back about the Amelia Bedelia series and how it’s changed over the years!

Posted on by TracyC

The Mystery of the Laughing Shadow

The Three Investigators

#12 The Mystery of the Laughing Shadow by William Arden, 1969.

The mystery begins when Bob and Pete are bicycling by the old Sandow estate and they hear a call for help. Although it’s dark they can’t see who yelled for help, they can tell that the person threw something small that lands near them. They pick it up and discover that it is a small gold amulet. Then, Bob and Pete have to hide when a dark, shadowy figure comes looking for the amulet. The figure appears humpbacked and has a weird laugh that Bob and Pete have trouble describing.

They tell Jupiter what happened, and he joins them in searching for the person who called for help and figuring out the significance of the amulet. Someone steals the amulet from Jupiter, although Jupiter manages to save a message that was hidden inside the amulet. Then, they consult an expert in Native American languages and antiquities and learn that the amulet may be part of the Chumash treasure hoard, a treasure stolen from the Spanish settlers of the area many years ago by Chumash Indians (Native Americans) who once lived in the area. People have searched for the treasure for many years, but no one has found it. However, the message that was hidden inside the amulet is written in a language that belongs to the Yaquali Indians of Mexico (this is a fictional group, not the Yaqui), a remote tribe mostly living in isolation but known for their climbing skills. The expert is puzzled because he can’t figure out what the connection can be between the Chumash and the Yaqualis. The two group don’t live in the same area, their languages aren’t related, and the Yaqualis had nothing to do with the lost Chumash treasure hoard.

Jupiter says that their next move should be to investigate the Sandow estate. At first, they plan to make an excuse that they’re researching the Sandow estate for a school project, but to their surprise, Ted Sandow, grandnephew of Sarah Sandow, who owns the Sandow estate, shows up at Jupiter’s uncle salvage yard. Ted is just a few years older than the Three Investigators, and he explains that he came from England to visit his Great-Aunt Sarah after his father died. He says that his aunt wants to clean out a bunch of old things that have been in storage on the estate and that someone recommended the salvage yard to him. He invites the boys to the estate so he can show them some antiques that Jupiter’s uncle might want to buy. It seems like quite a coincidence that Ted Sandow would just come looking for them and give them an invitation to the Sandow estate just when they were planning to investigate the place, but the boys can’t pass up the invitation.

At the Sandow estate, the boys are amazed at the antiques that Sarah Sandow is offering to sell, and they’re sure that Jupiter’s uncle will be interested. They spend some time chatting with Ted, Great-Aunt Sarah, and Mr. Harris, a friend of the Sandows who has started a Vegetarian League with the help of Sarah Sandow. Sarah tells the boys that the reason she wants to clean out some of the clutter around the estate is that they recently had a burglary. They all explain to the boys that a small gold statue (the amulet) was stolen from the estate by an unknown boy. It was one of a pair that used to belong to Sarah’s brother, who was Ted’s grandfather. The boys explain that they are investigators and that they would be happy to help them recover the little statue, without telling them that they had it in their possession at one point or about the message they found with it. The Sandows hire boys to find it, promising them a reward if they’re successful, but some things about their offer don’t ring true.

For one thing, Ted Sandow asks the boys about the meaning of the question marks on their business card before he even looks at the card, indicating that he already knew about their investigation business and that he sought them out for that purpose rather than just to sell things to the salvage yard. It’s also strange that he stresses that they will reward the boys for the return of the amulet with “no questions asked” about how they found it. What are the Sandows hiding, and what is the meaning of the message that was with the amulet? Do they know the location of the Chumash hoard, or do they have it themselves? Who was the mysterious shadow with the weird laugh? Lives may hang in the balance as the boys struggle to learn the identity of the laughing shadow.

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

My Reaction

I like books that reference history, but this book bothers me a little because of the introduction of the Yaquali. The Chumash are real, but the Yaquali are a fictional group, and it just feels strange to have the book start with a real group of Native Americans and then incorporate a fictional group. It also makes the story feel a little contrived that the villain needs the Yaquali for their excellent climbing skills to reach the treasure when it doesn’t seem like the Yaquali had anything to do with placing the treasure where it’s hidden.

The explanation behind the laughing shadow also feels a little contrived. There’s a logical explanation but at the same time, it depends on the villain having a pet that makes a sound that sounds like a laugh, and this pet’s origins point to the villain’s origins.

The part of the story that I thought was most interesting was that, while the Three Investigators are suspicious of the Sandows, it’s implied that the suspicious is mutual. The Sandows offer the Three Investigators the job of finding the amulet with “no questions asked” about how they found it, and there is an implication that they suspect that the boys stole it. The implication that the “no questions asked” is actually an invitation to the boys to return what they took with a promised reward and no repercussions. However, at the same time as the boys accept the job from the Sandows, they have their own suspicions about what the Sandows are doing and what the meaning of the message in the amulet is. They see the investigation job as a way to learn more about what’s going on. The interesting part is that, while each of them has some reason to suspect each other, the real culprit in this situation isn’t either of them.

Spoilers

Although the boys suspect Ted at first, the real villain is Harris.  Years ago, Sarah Sandow’s brother, Ted’s grandfather, learned that the Chumash hoard was located on their property, but for reasons that no one seems to know, he killed the only person who could tell him where it was and had to leave the country.  Ted was born in England, and he has been visiting his Great-Aunt Sarah.  He met Mr. Harris on the way here, and Harris introduced himself to Sarah on the pretext of getting a donation to help set up a society for vegetarians in the area.  He had already figured out where the hoard was located on her property, and he had convinced some young Yaqualis from Mexico to come to the United States to help him get it. 

The treasure is hidden in a cave which can only be reached by experienced climbers, and the Yaqualis are known for their climbing skills.  One of the Yaqualis realized that what Harris wanted them to do was illegal and that he was planning to do away with them when it was all over.  He managed to get word to his family, and he put the message in the amulet in the hopes that someone would find it later and help him and the others. 

Jupiter figures out that Harris is the villain when he realizes that the mysterious laugh isn’t human; it was caused by a kookaburra, a pet of Harris’s from Australia.  His shadow only looked humpbacked because the bird was sitting on him at the time.  Jupiter gets the police to check with the Australian authorities, and they learn about Harris’s criminal past.  By then Harris has taken Bob and Pete hostage, and they must stage a daring rescue to save them.  For a while, Bob and the young Yaqualis are trapped in the cave with the treasure, but a couple of other Yaqualis who have been searching for them help to rescue them.  At the end of the book, the ownership of the treasure still has to be determined, but many museums are hoping to acquire pieces for their collections.

Posted on by TracyC · 3 Comments

The Mystery of the Talking Skull

The Three Investigators

#11 The Mystery of the Talking Skull by Robert Arthur, 1969.

Jupiter reads in the newspaper about a public auction of luggage abandoned at hotels. He is curious about the auction and persuades Bob and Pete to come with him. On a whim, Jupiter bids on an old trunk at the auction and gets it for a dollar. Even the auctioneers don’t know what’s in the trunk because it’s locked. However, shortly after Jupiter buys the trunk, others show up offering to buy it from him.

It turns out that the trunk used to belong to a magician called the Great Gulliver, who disappeared about a year earlier. His signature trick was a talking skull called Socrates, which is still inside the trunk. The Three Investigators study the skull because Jupiter is curious to see how the trick works, but he can’t find anything about the skull that would explain how the trick was done. However, when the skull begins to speak to the boys, it suggests an even more puzzling mystery.

In the middle of the night, the skull tells Jupiter to go to a certain address and use the skull’s name, Socrates, as the password. When Jupiter goes there, he meets a gypsy fortune teller called Zelda, who tells him that Gulliver isn’t dead but he’s no longer among the living. She also tells him that there are people who want money, but the money they want is hidden. Zelda says that maybe Jupiter can help, and she tells him to protect the trunk and listen to anything else the skull might say.

When the Three Investigators look through the trunk again, they find a letter hidden inside, under the lining. The letter is from a man Gulliver once knew in prison, Spike Neely. The man was dying, and he wanted to tell Gulliver where he hid some money he stole years before. Because he knew the authorities would read any letter he sent, he could only hint at the location. The letter was short, and it doesn’t seem to say much, but The Three Investigators are sure that there’s a clue to where Spike hid the money somewhere in the letter.

However, The Three Investigators find themselves questioning how much they want to investigate this particular mystery. Jupiter was followed by a strange car on the way home from Zelda’s, probably the men Zelda spoke of who are looking for the money. Then, Jupiter’s Aunt Mathilda gets spooked by the skull when it says “boo” to her, and she tells Jupiter to get rid of it. The boys decide to sell the trunk to Maximilian, a magician who was interested in buying it for the sake of the talking skull and other tricks inside. When Maximilian takes the trunk, they think that’s going to be the end of the matter for them, but the next day, Police Chief Reynolds comes to see them because Maximilian was in a car accident. He says that another car forced him off the road and a couple of men stole the trunk!

Chief Reynolds tries to see Zelda, since she seemed to know something about the hidden money, but when he goes to the address where Jupiter met her, Zelda and the other gypsies are gone. Then, somebody mails the trunk back to Jupiter! When the boys open the trunk again, Socrates the skull says, “Hurry! Find–the clue.” It looks like they’re on a hunt for stolen money whether they like it or not!

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

My Reaction

The idea of a mysterious talking skull that used to belong to a vanished magician is exciting by itself, and I remember liking this story the first time I read it. As an adult, the parts about the gypsies seem a little cringey, the stereotypical stuff of vintage children’s books. A mysterious fortune teller is compelling and reminds me of similar type characters that appeared in the original Scooby-Doo cartoons, but The Three Investigators aren’t really big on accuracy when it comes to cultural representations. That sort of thing never occurred to me as a kid. All I cared about was an interesting story, and this book does have that. It’s just that, when you’re an adult and you know more about the world, you can tell when a character or culture is really just a cardboard cutout with no depth to it, more of a stock element pulled out of an old bag of tricks, and it hits you differently.

The talking skull element was cool, and I loved the idea of buying a mystery trunk cheaply and finding an amazing mystery in side. It’s the sort of thing I would have loved to do or envision doing as a kid, although in real life, the contents of the trunk would probably have turned out to be far less exciting, like a bunch of rusty hardware or somebody’s collection of water-damaged magazines. It’s that sense that, when you open it, there could be anything inside that’s compelling, and the best books have that sense of anticipation, too.

The solution to this mystery involves the Three Investigators examining the letter to figure out where Spike hid the clue to finding his loot. There is one part of his letter that seems to hint at something personal, a person who doesn’t really seem to exist, but that’s only half of the clue. The other part lies in the stamps he used and also in Spike’s distinctive trait of having trouble pronouncing words with the letter ‘L’ in them. It’s the sort of multi-layered clue that might appear in a Sherlock Holmes story. From there, the Three Investigators have to track down the house that Spike’s sister owned, where he was apprehended after the robbery, which proves more difficult than they anticipated because all of the houses from that neighborhood have been moved to a new location and were given new numbers. There were parts of the treasure hunt that were exciting and others that seemed to drag a little, but there are definitely some violent characters looking for the money, too.

Someone is obviously using the Three Investigators to try to find the money on their behalf, urging them on by using the talking skull, and that adds layers to the mystery. Who is trying to use them to solve the mystery, or is it more than one person or group of people? When people approach them with information or ask for their help, who can they trust? By the end of the story, we do learn where Gulliver is (if you haven’t guess it already) and the full story behind Spike hiding the money and what led to Gulliver’s disappearance.

Posted on by TracyC

Madeline in London

Madeline in London by Lugwig Bemelmans, 1961.

This book is part of the Madeline series about a little girl at a small boarding school in Paris. The son of a Spanish Ambassador, Pepito, lives next door to the girls. He’s a menace to them at first, but the girls make friends with him. However, in this book, Pepito moves to London because his father has been relocated for his job.

When Pepito and his parents go to London, Pepito is unhappy there because he’s lonely for Madeline and the other girls from the boarding school. With Pepito growing thin and depressed from his unhappiness, Pepito’s father arranges for the girls from the boarding school to visit for Pepito’s birthday to cheer him up.

When Miss Clavel and the girls arrive in London, there’s a happy reunion, but then, they remember that they didn’t bring Pepito a present for his birthday. Madeline remembers that Pepito has always wanted a horse, and they find an old, retired army horse who is still healthy and gentle.

However, when they give the horse to Pepito, they quickly discover that there are complications to owning a horse as a pet. The horse hears a trumpet, and reacting to his army training, he runs off with Pepito and Madeline on his back to join a parade.

Then, they forget to feed him, so he eats everything in the garden, making himself sick. It seems like the embassy in London is no place for a horse, but Madeline and her friends may have room for one at their school!

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

My Reaction

Giving someone a horse for a present without checking with their parents or making sure that they have what they need to take care of a horse isn’t something that people realistically do, but the Madeline books rarely worry about the practicalities of a situation. It’s all fun and adventure!

I was seriously worried about the horse after they forget to feed him and he helps himself to random plants in the garden, especially when they find him with his feet up in the air. Fortunately, everything works out okay, which is characteristic of Madeline books, too. How the trustees of Madeline’s school will react when they find out that the girls now have a pet horse, since they raised a fuss earlier about the girls having a dog, is anyone’s guess, but the story doesn’t worry about that, either.

Like other books in this series, the pictures in the book alternate between limited color images, mostly in black and yellow, and full color images.

Posted on by TracyC

Schoolhouse Mystery

The Boxcar Children

#10 Schoolhouse Mystery by Gertrude Chandler Warner, 1965.

It’s June, and the Aldens are trying to decide what to do for the summer. Benny says that his friend Max remarked that the Aldens always seem to find something exciting everywhere they go, but Max doesn’t think anybody could find anything exciting about the little village where his father likes to go fishing. Max says that it’s a tiny and isolated village on an island with little to do, and he doubts even the Aldens would find anything interesting or exciting there. The only people who usually go there are summer visitors going fishing, like Max’s dad. Mr. Alden has been thinking over other plans for the summer, but he says that, if the children want to take a short visit to his village, called Port Elizabeth, to test out Max’s theory of how boring the place is and see if they can find something exciting about the place, it’s fine with him. The Aldens think that purposely visiting a dull town and seeing what they can find there sounds interesting by itself, so they decide to go.

When they arrive, they find that the place is as small as Max described. It doesn’t take them long to explore the town. There is a small store, but it’s well-stocked with all the food they need. There’s a big old house that seems to be abandoned, and there’s a quaint little schoolhouse with a bell and an odd-shaped chimney.

The people of the town seem suspicious of them at first. They don’t get many outsiders coming to their town, and they can tell immediately that the Aldens are rich because of their car and their clothes. However, because the Aldens are friendly and polite visitors, people gradually begin warming up to them.

The Aldens learn that most people in town work for the local sardine factory. There aren’t many other job prospects in the area, and they don’t have access to higher education or even outside sources of information, like television, so the local kids don’t aspire to much more. Local kids work, too.

One day, a pair of twins approach Violent while she’s painting a picture and start talking to her about painting. They’ve never really owned any proper art supplies themselves, only some crayons, but they’ve been interested in learning to paint since a professional artist came to town to paint the seaside. They also tell Violet and her siblings that the town has had trouble keeping teachers. Most people don’t want to stay in the town very long because it’s so small, and there’s so little to do. Because they change teachers so often, the kids never really advance much in their classes. Every teacher basically keeps starting over in their lessons. The last one told them to study this summer to make progress and prevent themselves from forgetting what they’ve learned, but the local kids don’t really know how to study or what to study, and they’ve never had a teacher who taught any of the really fun subjects, like art.

The local kids ask the Aldens if they could help them study this summer, and the Aldens get the idea to set up their own summer school in the local schoolhouse. They speak to the lady who owns the schoolhouse, Miss Gray, and she gives her permission. The Aldens recognize her as a famous author, but now, she lives like she’s a recluse in her big, old house. She also asks the Aldens whether or not they know a blond man who smiles a lot, but the Aldens don’t know who she’s talking about.

The people in town don’t have much money, and they save what they can in cash rather than using a bank. However, something odd has happened recently because a man has bought a couple of coins from some of the locals for more than the face value of the coins. The locals don’t know why he was willing to do this, but they’re always grateful for anything extra they can get. The locals have started calling this blond man “the money man” because he not only buys coins but also various other odd, old things that most of the locals think of as junk. They don’t know why he wants these things, but they’re just glad he’s willing to pay something fro them. Mr. Alden is very interested in this man and wants to know more about him.

The Alden kids buy some art supplies and school supplies so they can get started with lessons for their summer school. Even though they provide some supplies and have some textbooks in the schoolhouse, they find that there are things they need because previous teachers in town haven’t left some of the things they need, like easy reading books. They improvise as best they can, with Benny helping the kids in class write simple stories about themselves and their lives to use for reading lessons. The local children talk more about the “money man” and how he trades them new toys for old ones they’ve had. The children think that’s great, but the Aldens are suspicious about the “money man’s” apparent generosity.

It isn’t long before Mr. Alden and the children have an encounter with the blond “money man.” The man, called Freddie, notices that Mr. Alden has a rare penny on his watch chain and offers to buy it. He explains that he deals in coins and antiques. Mr. Alden can tell that Freddie is knowledgeable but slick when it comes to buying collectible items. Mr. Alden refuses to sell the man his coin or his watch, and after he leaves, the children tell their grandfather what they know about his dealings with the local people.

It has become apparent that Freddie is cheating the locals, buying antiques and collectibles from them while either paying them much less than what they’re really worth or trading them for newer but cheaper items. Because this town is relatively isolated and the people don’t have much money, they’ve spent generations keeping and reusing antique items without knowing how valuable they’ve become. The local children are thrilled when he lives them newer and more colorful toys in exchange for their old ones, because they don’t know how much their antique toys are worth. Technically, Freddie hasn’t done anything illegal because the people he’s been buying from and trading with have agreed to the deals so far and been satisfied with what they’ve gotten, but that’s only because they don’t know that they could have gotten much better deals from someone else. Freddie’s dealings aren’t really fair or ethical, and Mr. Alden and the local author have become concerned that he may take even bigger advantages of the local people than he already has.

When some valuable collectors’ books disappear from the little village’s neglected library, the author, Miss Gray is convinced that Freddie is responsible. How can they catch him and prove to everyone what he’s been doing?

My Reaction

As with many of the earlier Boxcar Children books, there is an element of mystery but more emphasis on the adventure and the kids’ summer experiences than on the mystery. We have an obviously suspicious right at the beginning, and we have a sense of what he’s doing that’s a problem pretty quickly. This is one of those mysteries where the protagonists have an obvious villain and a good understanding of what’s going on, but the mystery is about getting the evidence and proving it. Part of the issue at first is that duping people into trading things with him or selling them to him for less than what they’re really worth is more unethical than illegal because, as long as the participants are satisfied with the trade and willingly agree to it, it’s difficult to prove that they were deceived. It’s when the villain crosses the lines and actually steals something nobody agreed to give him or sell him that they can really start to nail him for what he’s been doing.

Part of the solution felt a little contrived because it turns out that the villain has been hiding his ill-gotten gains in a location that is right under the children’s noses, and there is something special about the place that allows them to watch the villain without being observed. It’s an interesting set-up, but I usually prefer a more traditional style mystery where there’s more for the amateur detectives to figure out.

Posted on by TracyC

The Mystery of Castle Croome

The Mystery of Castle Croome by Hilda Boden, 1966.

Molly Stewart, an American college student attending Oxford, is an orphan who is barely scraping by when she suddenly receives word that she has inherited an ancient castle in Scotland from her great-uncle, who has recently died. Molly’s friends, a pair of twins called Pat and Penny Roderick (short for Patricia and Penelope), go with her to have a look at the place, but right from the beginning, it seems like nobody wants her there.

Although the lawyer, Mr. Harding, is aware that Molly has been attending Oxford, he also knows that she is planning to return to the United States when she finishes her degree. He also knows that her great-uncle, Sir Malcolm, disapproved when her father married an American and moved to the United States himself, so he was surprised when Sir Malcolm’s will left his estate to his nephew or his nephew’s heirs. Mr. Harding had expected that Sir Malcolm would leave the estate to Jamie Campbell instead because Jamie has been the caretaker for years. The estate doesn’t come with much of an income, and the farms attached to it don’t have tenants, so they’re not bringing in rent money. It would take a lot of work to restore the estate. Since Mr. Harding would rather deal with Jamie Campbell anyway, he thinks that Molly would find it a better deal to just sell the castle to Jamie and use the money to finish her degree and go back to the United States. Molly asks why Jamie Campbell would want to buy the castle if it’s not worth much and needs so much work to restore. Mr. Harding says he might buy it out of sentiment, but Molly wants to have a look at the castle before agreeing to sell it. After seeing it, she might decide that it isn’t the kind of place where she could live, but she won’t know for sure until she sees it herself. Mr. Harding agrees and says that he will tell Jamie Campbell that she’s coming.

When Molly arrives with Pat and Penny, they see that the castle is isolated and rather eerie. Inside, it is run down, and living conditions are primitive. Jamie Campbell, an elderly man, isn’t happy that they’re there. There is no other staff, and while Jamie was happy to serve the old laird and nurse him through his final years, he has no intention of serving this young American grand-niece. Although there is an electrical generator at the castle, Jamie says that it hasn’t worked in years, and he and the old laird used oil lamps and candles. If Molly and her friends think he’s going to go to special efforts for their comfort, they can think again. Molly refuses to be intimidated by his disrespect, and she tells him that, because this castle has been his home for years, he is welcome to continue staying there, although Jamie Campbell thinks that she’s only extending that invitation to get a free caretaker.

Molly is studying engineering at college, and her friends think that she could probably fix the generator, but Molly tells them that she would like to wait to look at it. She hasn’t had much practical experience yet, so she wants to take time to study the situation before she does anything. She also tells her friends not to mention to Jamie Campbell that she has any engineering knowledge. She doesn’t trust Jamie, and she thinks it might be better for him to think that they’re more helpless than they actually are.

Molly sees definite signs that Jamie Campbell hasn’t been honest with them about the real condition of the castle and about even the contents of the castle at the time that her uncle died, and she can tell that he’s deliberately trying to make life harder for them to drive them away from the castle. After Jamie Campbell tells them that there is no running water at the castle, the girls notice that soap next to a sink is still wet, indicating that Jamie has very recently washed his hands there. The girls think that he probably shut off the water right before they got there, and they also think there is probably nothing wrong with the generator, that Jamie probably just turned it off. He tries to keep them from even looking at it, and he’s reluctant to hand over the keys to the castle to Molly. Many pictures are missing from the walls of the castle, and Jamie says Molly’s uncle sold them for money, but another painting disappears during their stay, showing the girls that Jamie is the one looting artwork from the castle. Molly realizes that nobody seems to know exactly what was in the castle at the time her uncle died, making it difficult to prove that Jamie is stealing things. When Molly tries to search her uncle’s desk, she finds that it’s been completely cleared of even routine papers, and Jamie admits in a cagey way that he may have tidied up a little.

Things improve for Molly and her friends when they set out to buy some food and make contact with other people outside the castle. Jamie refuses to even feed them, saying that he barely has enough for himself. He says that he might have been able to provide something for Molly if she was alone, but he can’t be expected to feed her friends, too. Fortunately, the girls have some provisions with them that get them through their first night at the castle. When they set out in the morning to buy more food, they can’t take their care because there’s a large nail in one of the tires. They can’t prove that Jamie sabotaged the car, but they all suspect he did. They decide to set out on foot to find somewhere with a telephone or somewhere they can buy some food. They meet up with a scout troop camping nearby, and they save the girls from stumbling into a bog. They share a meal with the girls, and the girls tell them what’s been happening at the castle.

The scout leaders don’t like the sound of Jamie and the things happening at the castle, and they tell the girls that they will send a mobile shop to the castle to sell them food. There’s a van that travels among the farms in the area, selling groceries, sort of like a food truck, and it carries a surprising variety of goods. The scouts also tell the girls how they forage for wild foods, and they offer their services for changing the car’s tire and other things they might need.

That night, Molly has a frightening encounter with a ghostly white figure, although she believes that it’s just Jamie, trying to frighten her away from the castle. The next day, Molly and her friends confront Jamie about the missing painting, and he tells Molly that her great-uncle sold that painting years ago. He tries to convince her that the only reason why she thought she saw it is that she has “second sight.” He says that it was a favorite painting of her great-uncle’s and that she only saw it because she’s a member of his family and has psychically sensed the memory of the picture. Molly knows that can’t be true because her friends also saw the picture. Molly also asks Jamie about a strange roaring noise that she heard at night that sounded like machinery of some kind, and Jamie tells her that it’s the “Roar of the Stewarts.” He says it’s a bad omen, and that Stewarts hear it before something bad happens. Although none of the girls admits to having seen a “ghost” the night before, Jamie also tells them about the “Specter of the Castle”, and he insists that all of these bad omens are signs that Molly and her friends should leave the castle because it’s dangerous for them.

Molly and her friends know that Jamie badly wants to frighten them away from the castle, and part of that might be that he’s been looting objects from it since Molly’s great-uncle died, but what is the real cause of the machine noises in the night? Then, suddenly, Jamie welcomes a pair of unexpected guests into the castle as paying guests. Mr. and Mrs. Smith claim that they’re traveling tourists who think it would be exciting to stay in a real castle. Molly tries to discourage them from staying by charging them more than anyone might expect from staying in a run-down castle with primitive living conditions, but the Smiths insist that they would enjoy an authentic experience. Molly and her friends are immediately suspicious, especially when they realize that the Smiths don’t seem to have a car, and there’s no obvious way they could have even reached this out-of-the-way castle. Who are they really? Are they confederates of Jamie’s? What has Jamie really been doing at the castle, and what is he so afraid that Molly and her friends will discover if they stay?

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

My Reaction

I found this book recently at a used book sale, but I recognized the title because I tried to find this book when I was a kid. I wanted it because it was on a list of suggested books in the back of another mystery book I read and liked as a kid. Actually, I think I enjoyed it more as an adult than I would have has as a kid. As a kid, I would have liked the notion of a girl inheriting a spooky old castle that might be haunted, but in this story, it’s pretty obvious right away that Jamie is behind all the mysterious things happening.

This story is not like other mysteries where you have to wonder who among the suspects could be responsible for the mysterious happenings because Jamie is the only suspect from the beginning. The real mystery, for both the characters and the readers is why he’s doing it. It’s a “whydunnit” more than a “whodunnit.” Although it would have been fun and atmospheric if Molly and her friends believed that the castle was haunted and were scared, I have to admit that I loved how unimpressed the girls were when Jamie awkwardly makes up his spooky stories and excuses about “second sight”, the “Roar of the Stewarts”, and the “Specter of the Castle.” They know that he’s just making it all up. They just don’t kick him out of the castle immediately because he’s an old man who’s been there for years, and they also want to know that he’s up to.

It turns out that part of what he’s up to is obvious and part actually resembles the mystery book that had this listed as a recommended book. Readers can figure out the more obvious part themselves, but there’s a revelation later that Jamie is also involved in another crime that he can’t explain away as any misunderstanding. There’s a suspenseful part of the story where the girls are trapped in the castle with Jamie and his confederates and need to figure out how to escape or summon help. I thought that the ending part wrapped up a little quickly, but overall, I liked the story. I think I enjoyed the book more now than I would have if I’d found it when I was a kid.

Posted on by TracyC · 1 Comment

After the Sun Sets

After the Sun Sets by Miriam Blanton Huber, Frank Seely Salisbury, and Mabel O’Donnell; illustrated by Nellie H. Farnam and Mary Royt; 1938, 1953, 1962.

This was my favorite book of fairy tales when I was a kid! I gave away my copy years ago and regretted it, but I was thrilled to find another copy later at an antique/vintage mall.

The collection includes some popular fairy tales that you can find in other fairy tale collections, like Cinderella, Brier Rose (the Sleeping Beauty story), and Hansel and Gretel. It also has some stories that are less commonly known these days, like Aiken-Drum, the Brownie and Prince Hal and the Giant. When I was young, my favorite stories in the book, the ones I read over and over, were Snow-White and Rose-Red, The Princess on the Glass Hill, and East of the Sun and West of the Moon.

One of the things that makes this collection unique is that it includes a section of poems at the back of the book. I love the one called Cinderella’s Song, and it was one of the reasons why I missed this collection so badly. I don’t think I’ve seen that poem in any other book.

The illustrations in the book are beautiful! I loved them as a child, and I still find them enchanting as an adult. Some are in black-and-white, but some are in full color.

I didn’t realize it when I was a kid, but this book is actually the third book in a series, The Wonder-Story Books, and it was a unit in The Row, Peterson Basic Reading Program. I have the 1962 edition, but the book is actually older than that. Its copyright was renewed multiple times.

The book is available to borrow and read for free online through Internet Archive. There is also an earlier edition of this book available through Internet Archive, and it doesn’t have the section of poetry included, so the poetry might only appear in the 1962 edition.

Stories:

Aiken-Drum, the Brownie

Aiken Drum is a Brownie, a magical little man who likes to do chores for other people for little reward. Reward a Brownie too much, and he will leave.

Pat and the Fairies

Pat joins the fairies in a dance, and they loan him a pair of shoes when his wear out. When he later comes to return the shoes, he gets a wonderful reward. A greedy shoemaker tries to join the fairies in their dance and borrow a pair of shoes to get the same reward, but the fairies punish him when he tries to cheat them.

Change About

A husband grumbles about how little his wife accomplishes in the course of a day while she minds the house and their child and he works out in the fields. The husband and wife decide to switch places for a day to prove which of them works harder, and the husband has a surprise about what really happens at home while he’s away.

Cinderella

A girl who is abused by her stepmother and stepsisters receives magical gifts from her fairy godmother so she is able to attend the prince’s ball.

Snow-White and Rose-Red

A widow and her two daughters let a gentle talking bear spend the winter with them so he won’t freeze, but this bear is under a spell.

Snip, The Tailor

A tailor sets out to make his fortune. He uses his wits to defeat a pair of giants and win a castle and half the kingdom from the king.

Brier Rose

This is the Sleeping Beauty story. A young princess is cursed by a bad fairy. When she hurts her hand on a spindle, she and everyone in her castle falls asleep for a hundred years.

Prince Hal and the Giant

Prince Hal is the youngest of a king’s seven sons. The other six have left home to find brides and have never returned home. No one knows what happened to them. Prince Hal sets out to find what happened to his brothers. He finds out that they and their brides have been turned into stone statues in the house of a giant. Prince Hal must find a way to save them and the princess who has become the giant’s latest captive.

Hansel and Gretel

A pair of children are abandoned in the woods, and they find a strange house made of gingerbread. They are almost eaten by the witch who lives in the house.

The Princess on the Glass Hill

Every year on Midsummer Night, the hay disappears from a farmer’s field. Each of his sons tries to find out why, but each of them is frightened by the strange things that happen, until the youngest son faces the phenomenon and discovers a strange horse with a coat of mail that fits him perfectly. The same thing happens twice more so that the youngest son acquires three fine horses and three sets of mail. He keeps them secret at first, but later, he uses them to perform an amazing feat and ride to the top of a glass hill to win the hand of a princess.

East of the Sun and West of the Moon

A white bear comes to a family with many children and says that he will make them rich if the eldest daughter, Freda, will come with him. At first, she doesn’t want to go, but when she does, he takes her to a magical castle. Unfortunately, she disobeys the bear’s instructions while she’s there. He is under a witch’s spell, and Freda must find a way to undo the damage she’s caused and break his spell, following him to the witch’s castle by riding the winds, east of the sun and west of the moon.

Stories in Poetry:

I Keep Three Wishes Ready by Annette Wynne – It’s good to know what you want to wish for, just in case you get the chance.

At the Zoo by A. A. Milne – There are many fascinating things to see in a zoo!

Some One by Walter de la Mare – Someone knocked at the door. Who?

Little Nut Tree by Mother Goose – A traditional rhyme about a magical tree. One of my favorites!

The Duel by Eugene Field – The gingham dog and the calico cat have a fight.

Queen Mab by Thomas Hood – About the fairy queen and how she gives pleasant dreams to children.

Cinderella’s Song by Elizabeth Madox Roberts – Cinderella confides her secret to her cat.

Trees by Harry Behn – Trees are wonderful things!

The Story of the Baby Squirrel by Dorothy Aldis – A child finds a baby squirrel and raises it. When it grows up, it runs away, but they think he’s probably still living with the other squirrels nearby. They sometimes see a squirrel who seems to be saying hello to them.

The Hens by Elizabeth Madox Roberts – It sounds like the hens are talking, but what are they saying?

Roads by Rachel Field – Roads might lead anywhere and to all sorts of wonderful things!

Washington by Nancy Byrd Turner – About George Washington. This one seems like an odd inclusion to me, adding a poem about a historical figure to a collection that has more fairy tale themes.

Posted on by TracyC · 4 Comments

The Diamond in the Window

The Diamond in the Window by Jane Langton, 1962.

Eleanor and Edward Hall are orphans who live with their Aunt Lily and Uncle Frederick in their family’s big but somewhat shabby old house in Concord, Massachusetts. The family has lived there for generations, and they are intellectuals with a particular interest in the literary history of Concord. Uncle Freddy is obsessed with Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry Thoreau, although he doesn’t share Eleanor’s love of Louisa May Alcott. When a couple of the town leaders threaten to take the family’s house because of unpaid back taxes and to destroy it because they think it’s an eyesore, the children come to learn that their house holds more secrets and history than anyone knows.

As Eleanor and Edward look at the house from the outside, they suddenly realize that there’s an window at the top of the house that’s shaped like a key and made of colored glass. They’ve never seen that window from the inside of the house, so there must be a secret room! The children search the attic and find a trap door that they never realized was there before. When they look into the hidden room, they find a pair of children’s beds and toys.

The children ask Aunt Lily about the room, and she sadly admits that she hadn’t wanted to tell them about it. Then, she begins to explain more about the family’s history and the aunt and uncle the children never knew. Aunt Lily is their father’s sister, and Uncle Freddy is their brother, but there were once two more children in the family, called Ned and Nora. Eleanor and Edward were named after them, but Ned and Nora mysteriously disappeared years ago. Aunt Lily still believes and hopes that, somehow, they will return someday, so she has always kept their room ready for them.

When she shows the children pictures of Ned and Nora in the family’s album, they also see a picture of a young man in a turban and ask about him. Aunt Lily says that the man is Prince Krishna, son of the Maharajah of Mandracore. Their Uncle Freddy has written books about Emerson and Thoreau and was once considered an expert on the Transcendentalists. People who were interested in Transcendentalism, like Prince Krishna, used to come and study with him. Aunt Lily wasn’t really interested in Transcendentalism, but she explains, “I think he said that the Transcendentalists believed that men’s minds were very wonderful, and that they could know all kinds of important things without being taught about them through their eyes and ears –because they were part of something called an Over-Soul.” Eddy approves of this concept because it sounds like it’s about learning without school, and he approves of anything that involves no school.

Everyone was fond of Prince Krishna while he lived and studied with the family, and Aunt Lily said that he used to make up fun games for Ned and Nora, like treasure hunts with real jewels as prizes because the prince was very rich. The children get the sense that Aunt Lily was in love with Prince Krishna, but he also vanished shortly after Ned and Nora did. When they discovered that Ned and Nora were missing from their beds one morning, Prince Krishna dashed around, looking for them, but suddenly, he was also gone, and no one knew where or how.

Eleanor and Eddy return to Ned and Nora’s room upstairs to have another look at it, and they find a mysterious poem called “Transcendentalist Treasure.” From the handwriting, which matches a note that Prince Krishna wrote to Ned and Nora with a present he gave them, Eleanor and Eddy realize that Prince Krishna also wrote the poem. Since the poem seems to be some kind of treasure hunt, the children think that it was probably part of the treasure hunts that Prince Krishna used to make for Ned and Nora. They try to figure out what the clues in the poem mean and what it might lead to, hoping that it might be the jewels that Aunt Lily told them about and which haven’t been seen in the house since Ned, Nora, and Prince Krishna vanished. If they could find those jewels, they could pay the back taxes and save their house!

However, they don’t really begin to grasp the full importance of the poem until they ask Aunt Lily if they can spend the night in Ned and Nora’s room. During the night, they have a bizarre dream, in which they’re climbing an elm tree with Ned and Nora and find a harp, which is something that was mentioned in the poem. A dangerous wind blows them out of the tree, and they wake up. They could have believed that it was only a dream except that they realize that they both dreamed the same thing, Eleanor has bruises and a scratch on her leg that she got from falling out of the dream tree, and Eddy has located the harp in Ned and Nora’s bedroom.

They show the harp to Aunt Lily, and she says that Prince Krishna had given it to Ned and Nora years ago, hanging it in a tree so that they would hear the wind blowing across it. The poem and the dreams that Eleanor and Eddy have seem to be hinting at the treasure hunts that Prince Krishna had with Ned and Nora. Eleanor and Eddy begin to think that solving the riddles in the poem may not only lead them to the jewels but to the truth about what happened to Ned, Nora, and Prince Krishna.

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

My Reaction and Some Spoilers

The book introduces the concept of Transcendentalism. I remember my English and history teachers discussing the Transcendentalists when I was in high school, but for some reason, they didn’t appeal to me back then, even though I went through a kind of phase where I was interested in metaphysical topics. I think my teachers put a lot of emphasize on their interest in nature, and I wasn’t an outdoorsy person. The background information in this story revived old memories of my high school classes and actually clarified a couple of points for me. The kids visit real places in Concord, Massachusetts, including the house where Louisa May Alcott once lived, and the book is full of discussions of literary figures and their lives and quotations from their works.

The children’s surrealist dreams connect to real objects in their lives and in the history of the family and their house. The dreams follow the poem that Prince Krishna left behind, and in each of their dreams, they see Ned and Nora up ahead of them, so the Eleanor and Edward realize that they’re following their path. The poem and the dream reference pieces of Transcendental literature and thought, and the children’s uncle explains the references throughout the story.

Many of the dreams also show the children’s personal and mental growth. In one dream, the children examine different images of their future selves, seeing how different choices they make can lead their lives in different directions, and they make up their minds which version of themselves they want to aim to be. In another dream, the children are trapped in a nautilus shell, and they discover that they have to think their way out of it. The thoughts they have help them work their way through each chamber of the nautilus, but they have to use thoughts with increasing depth and complexity to make progress. At first, remembering nursery rhymes is enough to help them move forward, but as they go further, they have to concentrate on more complex poems and higher-level moral and philosophical thoughts.

Although the dreams the children have are very surreal, and readers have no idea where they might be leading, the children do find Prince Krishna and their missing aunt and uncle. When the three of them return, Prince Krishna does explain where they were the entire time they were missing. He doesn’t offer a detailed explanation because they were trapped in a sort of magical/metaphysical prison, but he does explain who trapped them and why. There is a villain in the story, but it takes a while to grasp who and what the villain is because readers don’t really see it/him in his true form and don’t understand who he is and what his motives are until Prince Krishna explains. Eleanor and Eddy end up understanding more than Aunt Lily and Uncle Freddy do in the end, but finding Ned and Nora, Prince Krishna, and Prince Krishna’s treasure changes everyone’s lives for the better. Throughout the book, Uncle Freddy is mentally unbalanced, eccentric at the best of times and outright crazy at others. Local people want to see him committed to an asylum, but his mind was unbalanced by Ned and Nora’s disappearance. Once they’re back, he regains his senses.

The author wanted to write realistic children as her protagonists to appeal to real children. Eleanor and Eddy have their own insecurities and dreams which play into their characters all through the book and appear in the visions of the futures and choices they have to make in their dreams.

Posted on by TracyC

Emma in Winter

Emma in Winter by Penelope Farmer, 1966.

This is the second book in the Aviary Hall Trilogy. Each of the books in the series could be read independently of each other, but this book in particular makes more sense if you have read both the first book, which is The Summer Birds, and the third book, Charlotte Sometimes before reading this one. People in this book directly reference events in The Summer Birds, something with Charlotte Sometimes does not. Although Charlotte Sometimes was written and published after this book, it actually takes place during the autumn before this story and it does inadvertently contain a spoiler for Charlotte Sometimes because Charlotte appears at the beginning of the book. It’s just my own preference that it’s better to read this book after Charlotte Sometimes because it makes Charlotte Sometimes more suspenseful. Like Charlotte Sometimes, this book also involves time travel, and the characters do some research on the subject of time and how it works.

At the beginning of the story, Emma Makepeace is upset because her older sister, Charlotte, will be leaving early for the new term at her boarding school after Christmas. At this point, Charlotte has already had her first term at boarding school (which is where and when Charlotte Sometimes takes place, although there are no references to the events of that story here), and she has been invited to visit one of her new friends from boarding school before they return to the school together. All through Charlotte’s first term at boarding school, Emma has been lonely without her and has been finding life at their home, Aviary Hall, increasingly difficult. 

The girls are orphans (although the books never explain what happened to their parents) who live with their grandfather and his housekeeper. Between the two of them, Charlotte is the more serious and responsible and Emma is the more mischievous and thoughtless. Up to this point in their lives, Charlotte has acted the part of the caring older sister, trying to teach Emma to behave herself and covering for her when she doesn’t. Charlotte has realized that their grandfather has little patience for misbehaving children and that Emma pushes the limits, so she has frequently intervened and smoothed things over when Emma tries his patience. 

Emma has often thought of Charlotte as a kind of spoilsport for trying to act grown-up and mature, but during Charlotte’s absence at boarding school during the previous term, Emma has suddenly come to see how much Charlotte has been helping her and saving her from the consequences of her own actions and the realities of their home life. Without Charlotte there to be the motherly big sister, providing some warmth and affection and acting as a buffer between Emma and the adults, the grandfather has become more impatient with Emma’s immaturity. Both he and the housekeeper have been more direct with Emma about her behavior and bad habits, and there’s no one there to shield Emma from it. Emma is lonely for Charlotte’s company and feels picked on by the adults, so when Charlotte cuts her time with Emma short after her first visit home to go visit one of her school friends, Emma is angry and resentful. Charlotte is tempted to back out of her friend’s invitation for Emma’s sake, but she feels like she can’t, and their grandfather tells her that she must go ahead with the visit.

Emma is in a state of emotional turmoil through most of the story, adjusting to Charlotte’s absence, the new expectations of the adults in her life for her to mature and improve her behavior, and her own resentment about these things. While all this is happening, something else strange happens. Emma begins having strange dreams about flying. They remind her of the children’s flying adventures from two years previously, as described in The Summer Birds. It has been so long since she last flew that she struggles to remember how in her dreams, and when she wakes up, her muscles feel sore from the effort. However, at first, she can’t remember what happened in her dreams.

At school, when the new term begins, Emma is made head girl because she is the eldest girl in the class. A boy called Bobby Fumpkins is made head boy because he is the eldest boy. Emma is embarrassed and uncomfortable about being the head of the class in partnership with Bobby. She hates Bobby because he is fat, awkward, and spoiled. Before his mother gave birth to Bobby’s younger sister, who is still a baby, she babied Bobby more than she really should have at this age. Their family also has their own tv set, something most of the other children’s families don’t have at this time, and which Bobby bragged about when they got it. For these reasons, most of the other children in the class don’t like Bobby, either, and they’ve teased him mercilessly for years. They think he’s a sissy and a baby because of his mother’s attention and because he’s milder-mannered than they are and never stands up to them. Because of his awkwardness, they like to call him Jemima Puddle-Duck after a character from a children’s book by Beatrix Potter. Bobby tells himself that his classmates mean all this teasing good-naturedly, but they don’t really. Emma is particularly adamant within herself that she genuinely hates Bobby.

However, like it or not, Emma’s life has become intertwined with Bobby’s. Their teacher expects the two of them to work together at school during the day, and at night, she gradually begins to realize that he is sharing in her same dream of flying. Other children at school tease Emma about being friends with Bobby, particularly one girl who really wants to cause trouble for Emma because, as the next eldest, she would be next in line for the head girl position herself. Emma denies being Bobby’s friend, partly because he still gets on her nerves and partly because she’s still lonely without Charlotte and is worried by being shunned by the other children at school. However, she gradually begins to feel guilty about the way she and others have been treating Bobby, and she begins to feel the impulse to try to be nicer to him. 

As her relationship with Bobby improves, Emma begins remembering more of their shared dream, and the two of them talk about the dream together. Bobby was one of the children at school who shared in their flying adventures two years before, and the two of them discuss their past adventures with each other and how they compare to the dream they’re now having. There are a few things that they begin to notice that are different from their past flying adventures. One is that they both have the feeling that someone is watching them. It seems to be a stern or hostile presence, a pair of eyes that belong to some unknown person, but they don’t know who it is. They also begin to notice that it looks like plants are growing backward as they fly over the countryside. That is, grown plants seem to be returning to small plants and seeds. They gradually notice that the land seems to be going back in time. Eventually, they start seeing dinosaurs in their dreams, and it looks like they might be going back to the beginning of the world. What will happen to Emma and Bobby in their dream when they eventually reach the beginning of everything?

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

My Reaction and Spoilers

I’ve already explained my reasoning about the reading order of the books. The Summer Birds is the first book in the trilogy, and you really have to read it before you read this book because the characters directly reference events from that story. Actually, I thought that was a really interesting choice, to have Emma and Bobby talking openly with each other about the summer when they learned to fly. They just accept that event as a common event in their lives that they shared and that everyone who shared it with them openly acknowledges. Sometimes, in children’s fantasy stories, the characters later downplay magical events, feeling like they were dreams they had or games of pretend they played because they seem too strange to have really happened, but no, in this book, the characters all know what happened to them and just accept it as a part of their lives. I thought it was interesting that this book acts as a bridge between the theme of flying and the themed of time travel in Charlotte Sometimes, although I still think that Charlotte Sometimes keeps more of its suspense if you don’t know that Charlotte safely returns to her own time before you read it. 

I still think that Charlotte Sometimes is the best book in the trilogy. It is the best known, and unlike this book, it can be read independently of the others in the trilogy. It doesn’t reference either of the other two books at all. There are no references to Charlotte having participated in any previous magical adventures in that story. That may be partly because she is among strangers at her new boarding school who wouldn’t know anything about her flying adventures, but even her private thoughts don’t give any hint to that. What I think that The Summer Birds and Emma in Winter add to Charlotte Sometimes are some further insights into Charlotte and Emma’s personalities and the relationship between them. I still think that Charlotte Sometimes is the best book in the trilogy. It is the best known, and unlike this book, it can be read independently of the others in the trilogy. It doesn’t reference either of the other two books at all. There are no references to Charlotte having participated in any previous magical adventures in that story. That may be partly because she is among strangers at her new boarding school who wouldn’t know anything about her flying adventures, but even her private thoughts don’t give any hint to that earlier adventure. What I think that The Summer Birds and Emma in Winter add to Charlotte Sometimes are some further insights into Charlotte and Emma’s personalities and the relationship between them. Emma in Winter also adds some thoughts about the nature of time and time travel, which add some further insights into Charlotte’s time travel experiences.

Emma and Bobby do some research about time in her grandfather’s study, a room where Emma is usually forbidden to go. One of the theories they find is that time moves in a coiled pattern, like a spring, and that the coils of the spring can be pushed together so different points on the coils can touch each other. This theory really relates better to Charlotte Sometimes than to Emma in Winter, but what is more relevant to this story is the idea that human thought can be the force that pushes the coils together and makes them touch. This is also a part of Charlotte Sometimes, and I explain in my review of that story about how Charlotte and Clare having many similarities and being in a similar state of mind as well as sharing the same physical space at different times allowed them to switch places with each other. However, the emphasis in Emma in Winter is Emma and Bobby realizing that their own thoughts and feelings influence their dreams and, therefore, their time travel.

This story is rather metaphysical and a little difficult to follow during the dream phases. I noticed that some other reviewers seemed confused about the point of the time traveling. I found it a little confusing, too, but it seems like this is a coming-of-age story, like the other books in the trilogy. The Summer Birds focused on Charlotte and how her more mature outlook helped the other children make an important decision that would alter their lives forever. Charlotte Sometimes raises the question about what defines a person’s identity and how a person’s identity can be tied to someone else’s even when they’re separate people. Emma in Winter focuses on emotional understanding.

Both Emma and Bobby are going through major changes in their lives, particularly ones that require them to become more mature than they once were. Bobby has been somewhat spoiled and coddled by his mother, but he’s no longer the center of attention at home, now that he has a little sister. At first, Bobby finds it hard to cope with his mother no longer giving him the attention she used to give him, but it does give him the opportunity to become more independent and mature. Emma despises Bobby for being babyish because he was spoiled and overprotected by his mother when he was younger, but the truth is that Emma is also babyish. She’s not accustomed to being accountable for her own behavior and bad habits because Charlotte usually takes responsibility for her and shields her from some of the reactions of the adults and other people. 

When Charlotte goes away to boarding school, Emma is left on her own for the first time to deal with the consequences of her actions and other people’s reactions to them. It’s a bit of a shock for her at first, and she realizes that she hasn’t fully appreciated what Charlotte was doing for her for the whole time. She also comes to the disquieting realization that, even thought she feels like the adults are picking on her over her behavior, she doesn’t like the way she behaves, either. She comes to feel guilty about the way she treats Bobby, and when she draws some nasty pictures of her teacher, she is startled to realize how much she has hurt her teacher’s feelings and how badly she feels about doing that. For the first time in her life, Emma has to face her own behavior and see how her behavior truly affects other people. She is shocked and troubled when she realizes that she doesn’t like what she sees and it’s her own fault. Only Emma can decide how nice or how mean she is and who she really wants to be.

The children’s time traveling adventures that they have while dreaming lead them to explore their relationship with each other. Emma realizes that she has to be nice to Bobby and learn to get along with him for them to be able to function with each other in the dream. Their final dream together is confusing and rather surreal, but it also involves the two of them confronting aspects of themselves, their lives with other people, and their own behavior. 

When they move all the way back in time as far as they can go, they’re confronted by a vision of their teacher, not as she actually is, but as Emma drew her in a mean drawing. Emma has to remind herself and tell the figure that it’s only a drawing she made; it’s not reality. They also see visions of other people in their lives and even of themselves at their worst and most frightening, but they have to hold on to the reality of themselves, as they are now, the people they’re becoming, not who they used to be or how other people see them. I took it to mean that neither of them can go backward in their lives anymore, to their old habits and who they were or how they were as younger children, but they have to accept the changes taking place in their lives and in themselves to return to the real world, their own time, and the lives they have ahead of them. They discover that the key to traveling through time is thinking, so they have to think themselves out of their time travel dreams, focusing on their real selves and the real lives, accepting and even loving themselves as they are. Change has been coming for both of them, but they have to make the decision to face it and embrace it and to let go of their past selves to move on in time and in their lives.