Posted on by TracyC

Tomorrow’s Wizard

TomorrowsWizardTomorrow’s Wizard by Patricia MacLachlan, 1982.

In a way, this story is a collection of shorter stories, but they are all tied together. In the beginning, Tomorrow’s Wizard (that’s actually his name, he’s also called Tomorrow) has just been given an apprentice wizard named Murdoch. Their job is to listen for important wishes to grant. Each of the shorter stories in the book involves a different wish and how Tomorrow and Murdoch grant it.

The First Important Wish – Rozelle is a pretty girl but wild and given to fits of temper. Her parents had her later in life and never disciplined her, so she has never had a reason to learn to control herself. However, her tantrums drive everyone else crazy. Rozelle’s father, acknowledging how difficult it is to deal with Rozelle, wishes that he could find a man who was willing to marry her. Tomorrow hears the wish and sends a variety of suitors to meet Rozelle, but she doesn’t like them, and none of them really like her, either. Then, another possibility occurs to the wizards: the villagers have been complaining that they are afraid of a nearby giant. Tomorrow knows that he giant is really harmless and gentle, just lonely. Could it be possible that Rozelle is the company that he needs?

Three-D – Miller Few and his wife, Mona, are nasty people, two of a kind. Because he’s the only miller in town, Miller Few (known to his neighbors as Three-D for Dreadful Dastardly Demon) freely cheats his customers. He and his wife have no friends because they’re so awful. Then, one day, Three-D saves Murdoch’s life. To reward the miller, Murdoch agrees to grant him a wish. The miller and his wife decide that they want a nice, sweet child who would do their work for them. The child Murdoch grants them is indeed sweet. A little too sweet. Not only does little Primrose look pretty and do the housework, but she helpfully reminds the miller about his debts and the other things her parents do wrong. The miller and his wife become more careful and agreeable and gain new friends because of Primrose, but they aren’t very happy. They aren’t really being themselves, and they’re tired of being on their best behavior all the time. But, perhaps there is one thing that can stop Primrose from being overly sweet: the miller’s old cat, Clifford.

The Comely Lady and the Clay Nose – Geneva is a very beautiful young woman and has many admirers, but she knows that they are more in love with the way she looks than with who she is. It worries her, and she wishes for someone who would love her for the person she is. To help solve her problem, Tomorrow makes an ugly clay nose for Geneva to wear, telling her that it will help her to find the person she is looking for. When she puts it on, her former admirers flee, and for awhile, Geneva is very lonely, but she perseveres and ends up finding the love that she is looking for.

The Perfect Fiddle – Bliss, the fiddle-maker, is ironically an unhappy man. The reason is that, no matter how good his fiddles are, he can never make one that’s completely perfect. After Bliss tries several crazy schemes to capture perfection in his fiddles, Tomorrow goes to visit Bliss’s wife, Maude. Like Tomorrow, Maude has seen the problem with Bliss’s approach to his fiddles and finally asks Bliss the question that makes him reconsider whether perfection should be his goal.

The Last Important Wish – Although Tomorrow is impatient with his apprentice, Murdoch, he does like having him live with him, and he has also grown attached to the horse that lives with them both. However, he has come to see that the life of a wizard isn’t the one that Murdoch is really suited for. More than anything, Murdoch wants the experience of being born and living among humans. The horse, too, wishes for a kind master and a family. Tomorrow sees that it’s time to grant both of their wishes, giving the horse and Murdoch (as a baby) to a kind farmer with a wife and other children.

The book is currently available online through Internet Archive.

Posted on by TracyC · 1 Comment

The Whipping Boy

The Whipping Boy by Sid Fleischman, 1986.

Jemmy is an orphan who lives in the royal castle as the prince’s new whipping boy.  Prince Horace, or Prince Brat, as the prince is commonly called, is known for constantly misbehaving, playing mean pranks, and refusing to do his lessons (he tells his tutor that he doesn’t need to learn how to read because he could always get someone else to do his reading for him).  However, in their land, it is illegal for anyone to use any kind of physical force or punishment on a prince.  Instead, the royal family employs a whipping boy to take the prince’s punishments for him.  As you can imagine, seeing someone else whipped in his place does little to correct the prince’s bad behavior.  In fact, the prince usually likes the spectacle of the whipping boy yelling.  He doesn’t like it that, unlike the others, Jemmy never yells when he’s whipped.

Jemmy was recruited for the role of whipping boy off the streets, where he survived by being a mudlark and rat catcher.  There are benefits to living in the palace, even if his purpose in being there is to take the prince’s punishments.  Jemmy gets food to eat and nice clothes to wear and attends the prince’s lessons with him, where he pays attention when the prince does not.  Jemmy actually loves the books and learning he receives.

After about a year, though, the prince suddenly comes to Jemmy in the middle of the night and tells him that he’s running away from home and wants Jemmy to come with him as a manservant.  When Jemmy asks him why he wants to leave, the prince says that he’s bored.  Jemmy wonders why Prince Brat wants him to come along instead of a friend, but then he realizes that, as nasty as he is, Prince Brat doesn’t have any real friends.

When the two of them are outside of the palace, Jemmy is tempted to run off and leave Prince Brat to fend for himself, but before he can make up his mind about it, the two boys are taken prisoner by bandits, Cutwater and Hold-Your-Nose Billy (named for all the garlic he eats).

Prince Horace tries to pull rank on the bandits, telling them who he is and ordering them to go away.  It’s a mistake.  When the bandits see the royal crest on the saddle of the horse that the boys are riding, they decide that they can probably get a good ransom for the prince.  Since neither of the bandits can write, they try to make the prince write his own ransom note, but of course, Prince Brat can’t write because he’s refused to learn. 

Jemmy, seeing an opportunity to turn the situation around, offers to write the note instead.  As Jemmy suspected, when the bandits realize that he can write and Horace can’t, they start assuming that he’s actually the prince and that the two boys have switched places.  After writing the note, Jemmy suggests that they let the “whipping boy” (Horace) take it to the castle, thinking that not only will Horace get safely away but that he’ll be rid of Horace after that.

To Jemmy’s surprise, Prince Horace ruins the whole scheme by refusing to return to the castle.  Jemmy tries to reason with him, but Horace says that he won’t go home until he’s ready.  The boys to manage to slip away on the bandits, and Horace insists on following Jemmy even though Jemmy wants to be rid of him.

Although Jemmy can’t understand why, Horace says that he’s having the time of his life.  For once in his life, he doesn’t have people fussing over him and telling him to keep his clothes clean.  Horace has found palace life stifling and boring, and he feels like his father hardly notices him or cares.  Part of the reason why Horace acts up is to get his father’s attention.  Jemmy is surprised by these insights into the prince’s life and character, and he is also surprised that, when he finally gets the chance to slip away and leave Horace behind, he can’t do it.  He knows that Horace isn’t used to life outside the palace, and Jemmy worries about what might happen to him if he’s left alone, although he tells himself that Horace could always return to the castle.

Before their adventures are over, Horace gets to experience what it’s like to do chores for himself and even to be whipped by the bandits, when they think he’s the whipping boy.  Being whipped himself shows Horace what he has subjected others to on his account.  Jemmy is surprised that Horace bears the punishment without crying or complaining, something which Horace says that he learned from watching Jemmy, who made it a point to take whippings with quiet dignity.  Horace also learns what other people really think of him when a woman at a fair comments on the prince’s disappearance, using the “Prince Brat” nickname and saying that the young prince is a “terror” and bound to be a terrible king when he’s older.  Usually, people are careful about what they say in front of the prince, and Horace is shocked to find out how disliked he is because of his bad behavior.  However, Horace’s new experiences and realizations bring a change in his outlook and personality that make him more sympathetic and likeable.  There is also the realization that what Horace really needs in his life isn’t a whipping boy to take his punishments for him but someone who can be a real, honest friend with him, like Jemmy.

In the end, Jemmy becomes the prince’s companion, not his whipping boy, so that the prince will be less lonely and stop acting out to get attention.  The king promises that Horace can keep Jemmy as his companion and his responsibility as long as Horace himself can behave responsibly and do his lessons as he should.

Although the country and characters in the story are fictional, the practice of keeping a whipping boy so that princes wouldn’t have direct physical punishment was a real practice.  Even today, the term “whipping boy” can stand for a person who takes blame or punishment in the place of someone with higher rank or authority, even when the person of higher rank is the one at fault.  For example, if a business manager or CEO makes a bad decision and orders one of his employees to do something they shouldn’t and the employee gets the blame for it as if what they did was their idea and not the boss’s, that employee can be considered the “whipping boy.” Another example would be if a stepchild in a family was given blame or punishment in place of a biological child because of favoritism on the part of the punishing parent (similar to the crude saying “beaten like a red-headed stepchild“). In fact, depending on the circumstances, a “whipping boy” might not even be a person, but a thing or a concept that is blamed instead of the person or thing that is the true cause of a problem, such as blaming “modern society” or “kids these days” for an individual’s bad habits or behavior, “the government” or “the system” for a business’s bad decisions or policies, or “millenials” for practically everything they’ve been blamed for by older people. It is similar to the concept of the “scapegoat” or “fall guy” but with the connotation that the person who is really at fault, the one who is trying to avoid blame or punishment, succeeds because of higher rank, authority, seniority, or some other form of favoritism among those who will assign blame or punishment.

This book is a Newbery Medal Winner and is available online through Internet Archive (multiple copies).

There is also a movie version of the book, sometimes called Prince Brat and the Whipping Boy.  The movie follows the concept of the original story pretty well, but it elaborates more on Jemmy’s life before he became the whipping boy and on how Horace feels neglected by his father.  In the movie, Jemmy is pressed into service as whipping boy by the king’s soldiers, who don’t bother to find out if he has any other family.  Although Jemmy is an orphan in both the book and movie, in the movie, he also has a younger sister he looks after, and part of what he wants to do when he leaves the palace is to find her.  The boys together learn that the younger sister was arrested for attempting to steal a handkerchief in Jemmy’s absence, and they have to rescue her from prison, a side adventure that didn’t occur in the book.  In the movie, Horace also explains to Jemmy that his mother died in a riding accident when he was young and that his father pays more attention to affairs of state than he does to him.  Horace is shown multiple times trying to get his father’s attention, only to be brushed off because his father is too busy.  In the movie, the king almost declares war on another country, thinking that Horace was kidnapped over a border dispute, something that didn’t happen in the book.  In both the book and the movie, Jemmy’s new friendship with Horace brings about a change in the prince.  At the end of the movie, both Jemmy and his sister are taken in to the palace as companions for Horace. Sometimes you can find this movie or clips of it on YouTube. Although it was originally released on VHS, it is currently available on DVD.

Posted on by TracyC

King Bidgood’s in the Bathtub

King Bidgood’s in the Bathtub by Audrey Wood, 1985.

King Bidgood loves being in his bath, but one day, he just doesn’t want to get out!  When the young page realizes that the king is refusing to leave the bath, he calls out to the courtiers, asking what to do about it.

One by one, they try to interest the king in other activities, but each time, he keeps inviting them to join him (fully clothed, although he apparently isn’t, just mostly hidden by bubbles) in order to prove that absolutely everything can be done in the bath.

When the knight says it’s time for battle, they end up having a battle with toy ships in the tub.  When the queen tells him that it’s time to eat, they have a fancy feast right there in the tub.  The king’s activities eventually include a fishing trip and a dance.

In the end, the page is the one who figures out how to put an end to this never-ending bath.

I love the pictures in this book, and the repetition as each person steps forward with a suggestion should appeal to young children.  This book is a Caldecott Honor Book. It is currently available online through Internet Archive.

Posted on by TracyC

Talking to Dragons

Talking to Dragons by Patricia C. Wrede, 1985.

This is both the fourth book in the Enchanted Forest Chronicles and the first book in the series that was written.  The author wrote this story before the others and then wrote the other three to explain how the characters got to this point.  The first three books in the series focus on Princess Cimorene and her adventures, but this book focuses on her son, Prince Daystar.

Partly because this series is kind of backwards, with the last book being the first written, I’m going to start with a spoiler.  When the book begins, Daystar is unaware that he is a prince and that his father is the king of the Enchanted Forest.  He grew up in an ordinary cottage on the edge of the forest, so he is accustomed to the presence of all kinds of fantasy creatures and fairy tale characters.  He thinks of himself and his mother as ordinary poor folk.  However, his mother has taught him not only reading and writing but other skills that are more unusual for peasants, like music, fighting, and even a little magic.

When Daystar is 16 years old, a wizard named Antorell comes to their house.  Daystar’s mother, Cimorene, seemed to know him, and he knows her.  Antorell demands “the sword” and the boy, and Cimorene casts a spell to melt him.  (“’No! Not again!’ he screamed.”  If you’ve read the other books, you already know why.  But, again, this book was written first.)

The next day, Cimorene gives Daystar a sword that he’s never seen before but which seems to draw him to it, and she starts giving him instructions.  The instructions are vague, but Cimorene insists that Daystar is to go into the Enchanted Forest and not to come back until he can explain why he had to go in there in the first place.  Also, he is not allowed to draw the sword from its scabbard unless he really needs to use it.  Cimorene says that she can’t explain more because it might “ruin everything.”  Not knowing what else to do, Daystar starts into the Enchanted Forest.  When he glances back, Cimorene and the cottage have suddenly disappeared.  Daystar has no idea why, but he has no choice but to keep going.

In the forest, Daystar meets a talking lizard called Suz, who claims to know everything about the Enchanted Forest and what goes on there (a tall claim, considering everything that goes on there).  When Daystar asked him if he knows anything about the mysterious, magical sword that his mother gave him, Suz tells him that it’s the Sword of the Sleeping King and that everyone has been looking for it.  Daystar knows nothing about it, which surprises Suz.  To Daystar’s surprise, both the sword and Daystar’s lack of knowledge agitate Suz, who says that he must get Kazul, who will know what to do.  Before he then runs off, leaving Daystar wondering who Kazul is, Suz tells him that he’s going to have to learn about the sword by himself because there are certain rules associated with magic, but that he should follow the sword to find out.

The next person Daystar meets is a red-haired girl who is stuck in a hedge.  She is surprised by how easily Daystar can get into the magical hedge, and at first, she thinks that he is a wizard.  She is relieved when she finds out that he’s not.  The girl, Shiara, tells Daystar that wizards have been chasing her because she burned the Head Wizard’s staff.  Most people could never accomplish that because wizards’ staffs are extremely powerful and have protective spells on them, but Shiara is a fire-witch.

As the two of them talk, Daystar learns that, while fire-witches are extremely rare and powerful come by their powers naturally, Shiara’s abilities are more unpredictable than most.  She has trouble casting spells on purpose, but when she gets mad, she can do some extremely powerful ones without really trying.  Fire-witches tend to have tempers, and Shiara is no exception.  Because of that, she doesn’t have many friends.  Most people are afraid to be around her because they never know when she’ll lose her temper and accidentally set things on fire.  Even worse, for Shiara, is knowing that most fire-witches are able to do very impressive spells and are almost invulnerable, but yet, she can’t even burn her way through a hedge when she tries it.  The wizards are very interested in her because most fire-witches are immune to their spells.  When they learned that she was a fire-witch who couldn’t cast her own spells, they tried to kidnap her in order to study her magic, which she how she ended up setting the Head Wizard’s staff on fire.

Daystar and Shiara finally get out of the magical hedge when Daystar suggests that Shiara try being polite to it instead of losing her temper.  Creatures and objects in the Enchanted Forest tend to respond well to politeness.  When they’re out of the hedge, a wizard shows up and tries to kidnap Shiara again, but Daystar defends her with his sword.  However, Daystar’s hand is injured when he tries to pick up the pieces of the wizard’s staff, and it explodes.

Daystar and Shiara seek help from Morwen, a witch who lives nearby.  It is from Morwen that Daystar begins to get a sense of what his sword is capable of doing.  He also meets up with Suz again, who tells him that he should go to the castle and that Kazul will meet him there.  Daystar still doesn’t know what he’s walking into, but missions in the Enchanted Forest can’t be ignored, and he has a mission to complete that everyone has been waiting for since before he was born.

By the end of the story, Daystar has learned what he needs to do to rescue his father, and Cimorene and Mendanbar are reunited.  Shiara ends up getting what she wants, partially, because she gains the ability to use her powers, but is forced to be polite in order to do so, which really irritates her.  She becomes Kazul’s new princess, where she will learn both the personal skills and magical skills she needs to control both herself and her ability.  Cimorene believes that Shiara will end up marrying Daystar eventually and becoming the next queen of the Enchanted Forest.  However, the series ends here, and the future is left to the imagination.  Morwen also decides to marry Telemain, a character from the previous books.

Like other books in this series, this book contains a lot of humor and parodies on popular fairy tales and fairy-tale creatures. Personally, I like the first two books in the series the best, but this one is also fun. There is a mild touch of romance to it, which is also nice.

The book is currently available online through Internet Archive.

There is one more story after this series, a short story in the collection Book of Enchantments that features Daystar and both of his parents but does not have Shiara.

Posted on by TracyC

Do-It-Yourself Magic

Do-It-Yourself Magic by Ruth Chew, 1987.

Rachel and her younger brother, Scott, stop by the discount store on the way home to admire the model kits.  Most of the model kits are too expensive for them to buy, but one kit has been put on discount, The Build-Anything Kit.  The kids think it’s a good deal because they can use it to build more than one kind of model. 

When they get it home and begin to play with it, they are confused at first.  Scott tries to build a model stock car racer, but all the wheels and other pieces are all different sizes.  Then, Rachel finds a double-headed hammer labeled, “sizer.”  The kids discover that when they hit the model pieces with the hammer, they can make them bigger or smaller.  Besides working on pieces, the sizer can also make people bigger or smaller.  Rachel makes Scott smaller so that he can drive his stock car model around the room.  Then, when he drives outside, she makes both him and the car bigger, so the car is the size of a normal car.  A neighbor spots them in this strange car and calls the police, so the children are forced to shrink the car again quickly. 

When they get home, they discover that they left the door open and that a man is trying to steal their tv set.  Without thinking, Rachel hits him with the sizer and shrinks him.  Now, they have to decide what to do with him before the situation gets worse!

At first, the kids keep the thief in a glass, but then they let him out and allow him to drive around in the stock car model.  While they are trying to decide what to do with him, they take a look in the model box again and notice some pieces that weren’t there before.  They look and feel like stone blocks, so they begin building a castle with them.  To their surprise, the man they shrunk runs into the castle.  They are worried about him, so they hit the castle with the sizer to make it bigger.  Suddenly, the castle is as large as life, and they go inside to discover that they are back in medieval times. What will happen to the thief in the past, and will the kids get back home?

The book is currently available online through Internet Archive.

Posted on by TracyC

The Time of the Forest

The Time of the Forest by Tom McGowen, 1988.

The story takes place in the prehistory of Denmark, among its earliest inhabitants.  It shows the conflict between the hunter-gatherers, who are native to the forests of that land, and the farmers, who have traveled to the area to build a new home on the edge of the forests.

When the two groups learn of each other’s existence, they become frightened of each other. The hunters are afraid that the new people will take over their hunting grounds, and they are offended that the newcomers cut down the trees to build their homes and clear land for farming. The farmers are afraid of the forest, the wild animals inside it, and the hunters, who they fear might start hunting them.

A young hunter, Wolf, watches the farmers to learn more about them, and he is fascinated by what he sees. In some ways, the two groups are alike, and Wolf finds himself wanting to know more about the ways of the farmers and maybe even make friends with the pretty girl, Bright Dawn, who he sees tending the farmers’ goats.

However, the son of Wolf’s chief has decided that the newcomers must be destroyed. When Wolf saves Bright Dawn from the chief’s son, the two of them must learn to work together and combine the skills of their different peoples in order to survive.

In the end, after a bloody clash between their respective peoples, both Wolf and Bright Dawn are each exiled from their tribes.  However, their exile actually gives them the freedom to start their own tribe that combines aspects of both of their societies.

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

My Reaction

This story was somewhat speculative about the early days of Europe, when societies were starting to shift from hunter/gatherer groups to more settled agricultural groups.  The author says that he was theorizing about the cultural clashes that may have taken place during this time.

Something I noticed about the story is that the groups, particularly the hunter/gatherer group, somewhat resembled some Native American groups around the time that they first encountered European settlers.  The author didn’t say anything about using their lifestyles as inspiration or drawing any parallels between them and early Europeans, but it did make me think about the similarities between groups that are living similar lifestyles but in different places.  In other words, it does seem reasonable that hunter/gatherers living in Europe would be living in circumstances that would be very similar to hunter/gatherer groups in the Americas.

Posted on by TracyC

The Quilt Story

The Quilt Story by Tony Johnston and Tomie dePaola, 1985.

A woman (at some point in the 1800s, from the pictures) makes a special quilt for her young daughter, Abigail.  It has Abigail’s name on it and a pattern of falling stars.  Abigail loves it!

Abigail uses the quilt all the time, not just in bed.  She has tea parties with her dolls on the quilt, hides under it when playing hide-and-seek, generally taking it everywhere and playing all kinds of games with it.  The quilt gets worn and torn in the playing, but her mother mends it when necessary.

Eventually, Abigail and her family move to a new home, traveling in a covered wagon.  Everything in their new home seems strange to Abigail, but her old quilt comforts her.

Eventually, when Abigail is older, she puts the quilt away in the attic, and people forget about it.  Still, animals use the quilt.  A mouse makes a nest it in.  A raccoon hides food in it, and a cat naps on it. Then, one day, another girl finds the quilt in the attic.  She loves it and brings it to her mother to be repaired. 

Like Abigail, though, the modern girl’s family soon moves to a new home, where everything seems new and strange.  However, the old, familiar quilt comforts the girl once again.

This is a gentle, comforting story that would make nice bedtime reading or a story that could be read to a young child who is moving or has recently moved, reminding them that, even in a new place, you can bring a sense of home and the familiar with you.

The book is currently available online through Internet Archive.

Posted on by TracyC

When I Was Young in the Mountains

When I Was Young in the Mountains by Cynthia Rylant, illustrated by Diane Goode, 1982.

This nostalgic picture book is based on the author’s experiences living with her grandparents in West Viriginia when she was young.  It paints a vivid picture of Appalachian life in the past. The story doesn’t give any particular years to describe when it takes place, but the author apparently lived with her grandparents during the 1960s, although from the pictures, it would be easy to believe that the story takes place in a much earlier time. Partly, the style of the clothes and stoves give that impression, but for me, it was really the cloth cover over the camera that made me think it was during the first half of the 20th century. You can still get these covers, but they’re not as common in modern times.

In the story, the author describes various aspects of Appalachian life, starting each section with “When I was young in the Mountains . . .”  She remembers her grandfather coming home after working in a coal mine and how they would all have cornbread, fried okra, and pinto beans for supper.

For fun, the kids would go swimming in the swimming hole.  They would also use the swimming hole for baptisms. They would also use the schoolhouse as their church.

She describes the general store where her family would go for groceries and how they would have to heat water on the stove for baths.

Sometimes, they had to deal with snakes, and once, when their grandmother killed a particularly big one with a hoe, they took a picture of the children with it.

Overall, the story is about enjoying the simple pleasures in life in a place you love, surrounded by people you care about.

This is a Caldecott Honor Book. It is currently available online through Internet Archive. Sometimes, you can also find people reading this book aloud on YouTube. I particularly like this reading because I think the reader has a good accent for reading this story, and she comments on her own experiences growing up in the country.

Posted on by TracyC

Lauren’s Treasure

Sleepover Friends

#8 Lauren’s Treasure by Susan Saunders, 1988.

The Sleepover Friends have volunteered to take part in an archaeological dig on the site of an old mansion, which is also on land where a Native American tribe once lived.  Other students from their school and a school in a nearby town will also be taking part.  Stephanie isn’t sure that she’s going to like being part of the dig because she doesn’t really like getting her hands dirty and she thinks it would be gross if they uncovered the bones of dead people during the dig.  The others are more excited about the dig, but at first, it doesn’t turn out as well as expected for Lauren.

First, Lauren’s hair is weird on the day of the dig because the other girls tried to give her a perm at a sleepover and it didn’t go well.  Then, she attracts some unexpected attention from Walter, a new neighbor of Stephanie’s.  Walter is in the fourth grade, but only because he skipped a couple of grades to get there.  He’s only eight years old, but he’s something of a child genius.  He’s not really a bad kid, but when he starts following Lauren around and acts like he’s got a crush on her, Lauren is embarrassed because he’s so much younger than she is.

Then Lauren makes an exciting discovery on the dig: a carved rabbit charm.  The archaeologist in charge of the dig is excited because its presence, along with some yellow paint, means that they’ve found a Native American burial spot.  She takes the younger children off the dig and has her grad students continue searching for the grave itself.  Lauren is pleased at being the one to make an exciting find, but the charm mysteriously disappears at the dig.

The archaeologist thinks that, most likely, the charm fell out of the tray Lauren was using to collect things on the dig when everyone started pushing to get a look at the spot where it was found.  She says that she and the grad students will keep an eye out for it as they continue the dig.  For Lauren, it just seems like another piece of bad luck in her bad luck streak.

Walter continues paying too much attention to Lauren at school, and later, writes an anonymous note, asking her to meet him at a local pizza place.  At first, Lauren thinks that the note was writing by Jenny Carlin, a rival at school, because of a series of pranks they were playing on each other earlier.  When Jenny denies being responsible for the note, Lauren goes to the pizza place and sees Walter.  Unfortunately, Jenny and her friend Angela show up there, too, curious to see who was meeting Lauren, and they tease her and Walter.  Lauren is embarrassed at having a kid so much younger than she is (genius or not) chasing after her, and she hates the teasing that she gets at school about it, but she’s not quite sure what to do about it, other than ignoring Walter as best she can.  However, Walter is actually the key to solving the mystery of what happened to the rabbit charm.

You might guess at this point that Walter was the one who took the charm in the first place.  I thought it was pretty obvious myself.  Walter wasn’t trying to cause trouble.  He explains to Lauren that he was trying to get her attention, and his first plan was to pretend that he found the missing charm after a search so that he could look like a hero to her.  He just never got the chance to give it back because he got interrupted, and then Lauren started avoiding him because of the teasing.  It all works out for the best because Lauren gives the charm back to the archaeologist, who doesn’t press her too closely about where she found it, and Walter gets a crush on a different girl who is a little closer to his age. 

Getting a crush on someone who either doesn’t feel the same way or just isn’t available is a normal part of life (if it wasn’t, it wouldn’t appear so often in tv shows, movies, and books – people find this type of situation relatable), and so is being the subject of a crush from someone you don’t love or find unsuitable (again, that’s why this situation comes up often in fiction – it happens often enough in real life that people understand the feeling).  When it comes to getting boyfriends or girlfriends, one of the people involved has to be the first to stick their neck out and say that they’re interested, and there’s no guarantee that the feelings will be returned.  It’s not easy, but this is a part of how relationships start.  When the feelings aren’t returned, which is bound to happen from time to time, there’s always some awkwardness.  The first person is usually disappointed, and there might be a struggle for the other person as they try to find a way to turn the other person down without hurting their feelings.  The situation in this book is especially awkward because precocious young Walter is so young, and it’s likely a first crush for him.  Lauren has also never had to deal with a situation like this before and isn’t quite sure how do handle it. 

In a way, having Walter simply lose interest in Lauren feels a little like a cop-out for the situation so neither of them really has to confront the situation directly, but there are a couple of things that Walter has come to realize by the end of the story that may be useful.  One good point is that there are limits on the things people should be allowed to do to get someone’s attention and start a relationship with him.  When Walter was just trying to strike up a conversation with Lauren or be helpful to her at the dig, it wasn’t bad.  It didn’t get Lauren’s approval for him, but it wasn’t because his behavior was bad (more about this later because it’s important).  The bad part came when he stole the charm to get her attention.  When Walter’s mother later finds out about his theft of the charm, she grounds him and makes him give the charm back and confess to Lauren what he did.  Learning that life has limits and that some behaviors don’t get you the kind of attention you’re really looking for is a good life lesson.  Some people do come on too strongly when they’re seeking attention, and I’m not just talking about kids who aren’t experienced enough to know how to behave; even adults don’t always know the best way to approach romantic relationships or understand others’ limits and boundaries regarding them.  I’m no relationship expert, but I think that the solution is partly developing a kind of situational awareness and an ability to empathize with other people and read their reactions.

Before the story is over, Walter learns more about reading other people’s reactions and understanding how his actions fit into the larger situation from someone else’s viewpoint.  At first, Walter doesn’t seem to sense Lauren’s discomfort, and her friends criticize him for not taking a hint.  Lauren felt a little awkward about his helpfulness at the dig not because it was a bad thing (he was really trying to be nice and there was nothing objectionable about what he said or did until he took the charm – I want you to understand that she wasn’t rejecting him for being a nice guy or anything like that) but because she had reservations about getting too involved with someone so much younger than herself, and she felt like his attention put her in an awkward position.  Walter is a genius, but he is still physically and socially about three years behind the other kids in the story, and at first, he can’t see why that would create awkwardness in a romantic relationship, especially for kids who are only just starting to get old enough to be interested in romance.  The difficulty for Lauren and the reason why she was so irritable with the situation was that she found it difficult to tell a younger kid who was being so nice to her that she didn’t welcome his attentions when he wasn’t doing anything really wrong and didn’t want to hurt his feelings.  As I said, an awkward situation.  Sometimes, even a person who is trying to be nice can unintentionally create awkwardness if they don’t understand the other person’s circumstances, and that’s something that adults do as well as children.  This is basically what’s at the heart of a situation where “nice guys” get rejected or “friend-zoned.” It’s not about the “nice guy” doing anything wrong so much as a case of the wrong relationship at the wrong time with someone who isn’t quite as compatible with them as they thought.  

In a romantic relationship, both of the people involved have to agree to it equally, one isn’t enough.  When Jenny and her friend start teasing Lauren and Walter after the incident at the pizza place, Walter comes to see why a relationship with him would make things awkward for Lauren because of their age difference and the reactions of the other kids.  If they were in their 20s or 30s, an age difference of two or three years wouldn’t mean anything, but for where they are in their lives now, as kids in elementary school, it means a lot.  At the end of the story, Walter’s new love interest is a little closer to his age, making less of a problem, and he has developed enough social awareness to use his age difference to get a little revenge on Jenny for her teasing by publicly asking her about meeting him at the pizza place later, as if she were interested in dating him.  Walter could have been hurt and insulted about being rejected and teased because of his age (and it would have been understandable), but he has realized that, under the circumstances, it would be better to move on and find someone who is more suitable for him and who might be more open to a relationship with him.  In the end, he feels good enough about the situation to use his age for the joke on Jenny, and his other classmates approve of his humor and the well-deserved jab at Jenny’s teasing.

The one thing that I really wish they had added to the story would be for Lauren to learn how to gracefully turn down an offer of a relationship when she isn’t interested because I think that would be an important life lesson for her and for young readers. Socially awkward situations occur in life, but there are ways of handling them to minimize the embarrassment for everyone involved. In the story, Lauren’s main tactic is trying to ignore Walter and hope that he’ll take it as a hint until he finds someone else, and in real life, that’s not good enough. I’m not sure what she would have said if Jenny and her friend hadn’t interrupted her and Walter at the pizza place, but I would hope that it would have been something like, “I appreciate the help you gave me at the dig, Walter, and you seem pretty nice, but I just don’t think that we have enough in common. I think that there is too much of an age difference between us, and I’m not interested in that kind of relationship.” The rejection still might sting, but some simple honesty would at least be more respectful than ignoring him and hoping that he’ll take that as a hint.

I read this book years ago when I was a kid, although there was only one part that really stayed with me, and for a long time, I thought that I was remembering the incident from one of the Baby-Sitters’ Club books.  The scene that stuck in my memory was from the sleepover at the beginning of the book.  The girls were angry at Jenny for some mean comments that she made, so they requested a song on the radio called “You’re a Jerk” by the Lurkers and dedicated it to her.  When they made the request, they told the radio station that they were “well-meaning friends” instead of giving their names, and the radio DJ made a joke about it when he played the song.  It was this incident that started off the series of pranks that Jenny and the girls play on each other throughout the book.  I think part of the reason this scene stuck with me was the “well-meaning friends” phrase and part of it was because I had always wondered if the song they requested was a real song.  I don’t think it is because I can’t find it on the Internet. The Lurkers are a real band, but I can’t find anything about that song. If that song actually exists and someone can find a video of it, let me know, and I’ll link to it!

The book is currently available online through Internet Archive.

Posted on by TracyC

Kate’s Camp-Out

Sleepover Friends

#6 Kate’s Camp-Out by Susan Saunders, 1988.

Kate’s family is spending the weekend at a cabin at Spirit Lake, and Kate is allowed to bring her Sleepover Friends with her.  However, what promised to be a fun and exciting weekend soon comes with complications.  First, Kate discovers that the Norwood family will be in a cabin nearby.  Dr. Norwood is a colleague of her father’s, but his two sons, Sam and Dave, are pests who like to play practical jokes.  When they arrive at the cabin, there is also no electricity (a problem that they fix the next day), and they learn that the reason the lake is called Spirit Lake is because there are some scary stories about the place.  Kate’s father tells the girls a story before bed about an old fur trapper who murdered another fur trapper for his money.  The ghost story is interrupted by Dr. Norwood, who comes over to see if everything is all right because there have been some break-ins in the area recently.

The girls are spooked by the ghost story, but the next day, they also encounter the Norwood boys and realize that they’re every bit as awful as Kate remembers them.  First, Sam and Dave trick a couple of the girls into wading out into a deeper area of the lake so that they’ll fall in and get wet.  Then, when the families meet for a barbecue, the boys give a couple of the girls worms in a bun instead of sausages.

Because of their bad experiences with the boys, the girls are allowed to go back to their cabin while the others finish the barbecue.  While the girls are at the cabin, they accidentally find a secret hiding place in the fireplace with a pouch of old coins inside!  The girls wonder if that could be the stolen money from the ghost story, but Stephanie, who has been reading a book about ghost stories from the area, says that the dates on the old coins are later than the story took place.  According to the book, a ghost child was once seen around their cabin, but the girls can’t figure out why a child would have hidden so much money.

While the girls wait for the adults to return from the barbecue, they fix dinner for themselves and decide to hold a séance to contact the spirits.  They don’t really believe that the séance will work when they try it, but without any tv or radio, they don’t have anything else to do, and they can’t get their minds off the ghost stories. 

To the girls’ surprise, they actually hear strange knocks in reply to the questions that they ask the spirits.  Then, a child’s giggle convinces them that it’s just the Norwood boys, spying on them and trying to scare them again.  It’s the last straw, and the girl plot how to get even with the Norwood boys!

The book is currently available online through Internet Archive.

My Reaction and Spoilers

This is one of those stories that has a somewhat ambiguous ending. When the girls try to catch the Norwood boys playing ghost, they instead discover the identities of the people behind the recent break-ins at the cabins. Later, they learn that Sam and Dave actually have alibis for the time that they heard the ghost noises, leaving them wondering if the knocking and giggling could have actually been a ghost. The girls do manage to play a prank on the boys before the end of the story, but they never learn the story behind the old coins.

I liked the part where they never firmly establish whether or not there was a ghost because it’s fun to leave people wondering. People who like ghost stories can imagine that the girls did hear a ghost, but if you don’t like the scary explanation, you can imagine that there’s another explanation for the noises. However, I found the lack of resolution behind the presence of the coins a little disappointing. The owner of the cabin they were using lets each of the girls keep a single coin as a souvenir (and the coins really are valuable collectors’ items) and gives the others to a local museum. I think I would have liked the story better if the girls found an explanation for the presence of the coins at the museum, so at least part of the story would be resolved.

There are two main theories that I have behind the events in the story. One is that the thieves in the area hid some stolen coins in the cabin for some reason and they were the ones trying to scare the girls during their seance. The other is that the mystery of the coins ties in with the child ghost in some way, hinting at dark unknown deeds from the past. Alas, there is no confirmation about which of these theories, if any, is true.