Posted on by TracyC

Trapped in Time

TrappedTimeTrapped in Time by Ruth Chew, 1986.

Audrey (called Andy) and her younger brother Nathan are having a picnic in Prospect Park in Brooklyn, New York, when Nathan falls and knocks over an old tree stump. They spot something shiny in the deep hole under the old stump, and Nathan climbs down to get it.  It turns out to be an old pocket watch, the kind that needs to be wound with a key.  Nathan has a small key in his pocket, made for a toy, and decides to try it on the watch.  He manages to wind it, but suddenly, the hands of the watch move backwards, the children feel strange, and everything around them seems different.  Although it takes the children a little while to realize it, they’ve traveled back in time about 200 years, back to the Revolutionary War.

They meet a boy named Franz and become friends with him.  Franz is a drummer boy for the Hessian soldiers, Germans hired by the British to help them fight against the rebelling colonists.  Franz’s superior orders his men to commandeer food and supplies from the people living in the area.  Franz is supposed to take a family’s cow, but the family desperately beg him not to because they have nothing left and will need the cow to support themselves.  Andy persuades Franz to leave the family and their cow alone.  However, disobeying the order means that Franz will be in trouble with his superior.  He decides that the only thing to do is to desert the army.

TrappedTimePicFranz had only joined the army in the first place because his parents were dead, and he didn’t know what else to do.  Now, he has to find a new place to live, somewhere where there won’t be other Hessians who would recognize him as a deserter.  Andy and Nathan also have problems because they’ve now realized what time they’re in, and they don’t know how to get home.  The watch no longer seems to work.

The children travel together, meeting others who help them and seeing the effects that all of the armies, British, Hessian, and American, have on the ordinary people as the war continues around them.

When they finally find a place where Franz can stay safely and someone he can call family, who can also use Franz’s help, Andy and Nathan realize who the watch really belongs to and how they can return to their own time.

The watch’s real owner is the person I thought it would be, and it took the kids unexpectedly long to realize it.  There is a hint of what happened to Franz when the kids finally return to their own time, but I kind of wished that they learned more about what Franz’s life turned out to be like.  From what the kids see, it seems that things went well for Franz and that he continued living in the house where they left him.

The book is currently available online through Internet Archive.

Posted on by TracyC · 1 Comment

Animalia

Animalia

Animalia by Graeme Base, 1986.

The best part about this book is the pictures.  They are absolutely beautiful and contain many small details for readers to spot.

On the surface, the book is about the alphabet, each page featuring a single sentence with every or almost every word starting with the same letter, and all of the pages are in alphabetical order.  (If you’re wondering what the author used for ‘X’, it’s a fox.  ‘X’ is an exception because all of the letters in that sentence end with ‘X’ instead of starting with it.)  The sentences and pictures are about animals, some real and some mythical.

AnimaliaGorillas

However, there is also a game that you can play with the book which is explained in a poem on the title page:

“Within the pages of this book
You may discover, if you look
Beyond the spell of written words,
A hidden land of beasts and birds.
For many things are ‘of a kind’,
And those with keenest eyes will find
A thousand things, or maybe more–
It’s up to you to keep the score.
A final word before we go;
There’s one more thing you ought to know:
In Animalia, you see,
It’s possible you might find me.”

Readers are invited to notice all of the other things in the pictures which start with the designated letter, and the author himself appears throughout the book, hiding in the pictures. There is a picture of him on the title page so you know who to look for.

The book is currently available online through Internet Archive.

AnimaliaLions

AnimaliaPeacocks

Posted on by TracyC

ColSec Rebellion

ColSecRebellionColSec Rebellion by Douglas Hill, 1985.

This is the final book in the ColSec Trilogy, a sci-fi series.

In a future where Earth is controlled by an oppressive government, dissidents are exiled to distant planets to start colonies whose resources can be exploited by the government.  However, the colonists have been plotting to take their destinies into their own hands.

Cord MaKiy and his friends, once exiled colonists on the planet Klydor, have joined up with the resistance movement.  They hijack a ColSec ship and return to Earth to gather allies for the rebellion against Earth’s government, called The Organization.

Once on Earth, they turn to the societies that they came from, little groups of outcasts on the fringes of Earth’s society. Cord’s people, the Highlanders who live in the wild areas of Scotland without modern technology, welcome them, and many of the young people are interested in joining the colonies, seeing other worlds, and living in freedom. Similarly, the rebels find more friends among the Vampires, the youth gang that lives in the Bunkers (what’s left of the old subway system under London).

However, the Streeters (a youth gang in the Chicago area) are a different story. Although many of them want to escape their little hideouts in the urban jungle called Limbo, their leader, Tuller, is unwilling to give up his relatively comfortable position of power. When he betrays the rebels to the government, the others have to decide where they stand and if they’re willing to take the risks necessary to gain their freedom.

In a way, the colonists seem to gain their ultimate freedom more easily than expected, but that’s partly a product of the type of repressive government that controls Earth. It isn’t really a military dictatorship, although they do use deadly force against their enemies; it’s more of a greedy corporate structure, designed to bring vast amounts of wealth to the people at the top of the structure, while keeping the lower levels in line to do their bidding.  In the end, as Lathan had guessed in the previous book, The Organization is more concerned with profit and loss than anything else, and the rebels manage to cut them a deal after showing them that fighting would only bring heavy losses with no material gain.

There’s plenty of action in the story as the young rebels struggle to prove themselves to potential allies on Earth and flee the forces of ColSec to return to Klydor, where they issue their ultimatum.  The negotiations with Earth are summed up fairly quickly, and although there are no more books in the series, the ending sets it up for Cord and his friends to continue their life of exploration on other worlds, seeking out new places for people who want to flee the dull repression that still exists on Earth.

Posted on by TracyC

The Caves of Klydor

CavesKlydorThe Caves of Klydor by Douglas Hill, 1984.

This is the second book in a sci-fi series, the ColSec Trilogy.

The five remaining colonists on the planet Klydor have been exploring their new planet and trying to survive and to decide what they will do when the government department that exiled them to this planet, ColSec, sends its ship to check on their progress.  Under Earth’s repressive government, dissents are sent into exile to become colonists on alien planets so that the government can later reap the benefits of anything they find or produce.

They get worried when a ship arrives on their planet earlier than expected.  While searching for the ship to see who it is, the colonists encounter Bren Lathan, the best space explorer that works for ColSec.  It’s his job to seek out new planets for ColSec to colonize.  But, it turns out that he’s not there on an assignment for ColSec.  He’s crash-landed on the planet, apparently frightened of pursuers, who may be the people in the space ship now on the planet.

Unfortunately, it turns out that Lathan is being hunted by CeeDees (Civil Defenders, the harsh law enforcement department that Earth’s government uses to keep the civilian population in line).  Worst still, these ones are Crushers, a group known for using extreme force and not leaving survivors.  They spot Cord and Samella, and they think that the two of them killed one of their people (who was actually killed by an alien creature).  Cord and Samella manage to get awhile, stealing one of the CeeDee’s weapons.

Then, they discover that the reason that the CeeDees are after Lathan is that he is involved with a rebellion against the government of Earth, a rebellion that these colonists would very much like to join.

The themes of the story are still survival and teamwork.  The colonists often have differing opinions about how to solve their problems, but they have to work them out because they only have each other to rely on.  Lathan, who is much older than they are, doesn’t really respect them much at first or want to involve them in his plans, comes to realize that their skills and ideas are valuable and that they may be just the people he needs.

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

Posted on by TracyC

Exiles of Colsec

ExilesColSecExiles of ColSec by Douglas Hill, 1984.

This is the first book in a sci-fi series, the ColSec Trilogy.

In the future, Earth is controlled by a repressive government that sends criminals and dissidents (especially strong youths) into exile on other planets. These exiles are assigned to different planets to form colonies by ColSec (short for Colonization Section). The government then reaps the benefits of whatever resources the colonists find or produce, all while keeping them at a safe distance to prevent them from starting rebellions.

The system works very well as far as the government is concerned, but this time, things don’t go according to plan.  The ship of dissident colonists destined for the planet Klydor crashes, killing most of the people on board.  There are only six survivors, all teenagers:

Cord — A boy from the Scottish Highlands, an area more wild and uncontrolled than most areas of Earth.

Samella — From the area once known as Minnesota (or possibly Manitoba, even the people who live there aren’t sure of the old name).  She lived as part of a commune until a harsh winter brought them to the brink of starvation, and her own family sold her into slavery.  On Klydor, she begins to discover that she has ESP.

Heleth — From the Bunkers, the old Underground tunnels under Old London.  She belonged to a gang called the Vampires, who purposely dye their skin jet black to blend into the darkness of their hidden homes.

Jeko and Rontal — a pair of Free Streeters, gang members from Limbo, in the area of what was once Chicago.

Lamprey — The most dangerous of all, a homicidal maniac who quickly forces the others to do his bidding for fear that he will kill them.

These few survivors are alone on a strange world, where they will have to figure out how to continue to survive and somehow create a life for themselves . . . if Lamprey doesn’t kill them all first.  The other rebels from Earth decide that they will have to stage a rebellion within their own group to get rid of Lamprey, and Cord finds himself appointed to be their leader.

But, it turns out that they aren’t quite as alone on Klydor as they thought, and possibly the most formidable creatures on the planet might be . . . the trees.

This is largely a story of survival as the colonists work together to protect themselves from Lamprey and uncover the secrets of their new world that will allow them to survive.  Samella’s ESP is what allows them to realize the truth about the forest where they have crashed.

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

Posted on by TracyC

The Case of the Cool-Itch Kid

Polka Dot Private Eye

CoolItchKid#5 The Case of the Cool-Itch Kid by Patricia Reilly Giff, 1989.

Dawn heads off to summer camp!  At first, she’s not sure that she really wants to go, even though the idea of riding horses, swimming, and roasting marshmallows sounds appealing.  It turns out that there’s only one other girl from her school going, Jill Simon.  All of the other girls on the bus to camp are people she doesn’t know from another school called Coolidge (which Dawn pronounces “Cool-Itch”).

Before she leaves home, Dawn receives a package of small presents from her grandmother.  Among her grandmother’s gifts are some candy and cookies, a pin, and a small mirror surrounded by seashells that Dawn loves.  Later, after their bus stops at a rest stop, she realizes that some of these things are missing.  She particularly notices that the pin and the beautiful mirror are gone.

Who is the thief?  Could it be one of those kids from Coolidge (“Cool-Itch”)?

Dawn misses her family, especially her grandmother.  She hates the food at camp.  She’s upset about losing her grandmother’s presents.  Worst of all, she realizes that she left her Polka Dot Private Eye box at home!  How is she going to solve this mystery?

Part of the story is about the mistakes people make by jumping to conclusions.  Right from the beginning, Dawn assumes that her only friend at camp is Jill because the other kids are unfamiliar, and she thinks they’re unfriendly.  Also, she assumes that the presents disappeared because they were stolen, but actually, it’s due to a series of accidents and misunderstandings.

The book is currently available online through Internet Archive.

Posted on by TracyC

The Powder Puff Puzzle

The Polka Dot Private Eye

PowderPuff#4 The Powder Puff Puzzle by Patricia Reilly Giff, 1987.

Dawn is on her way to go swimming with her friend Emily Arrow when her cat, Powder Puff, is startled and jumps into a stranger’s car.  Before Dawn can do anything about it, the car drives away with her cat!

Fortunately, Dawn managed to notice a few things about the car and driver. The car is red and dented.  The driver is tall and skinny and has long, gray hair.  She was eating a jelly cookie and carrying a box and a long pole.  Her license plate had a name on it and that started with “PA,” but Dawn didn’t get to read the rest.

Emily’s father is a police officer, but he can’t trace the license plate with just the letters that Dawn was able to give him.  Instead, he has the kids make Lost Cat posters to put up in the neighborhood.  Still, that’s not enough for Dawn.  As The Polka Dot Private Eye, she should be able to figure out where her own lost cat is!

PowderPuffPicWith the help of her friends, especially Jason, Dawn uses what she knows to put together a picture of the person they’re looking for, and they try to retrace her steps through town.  Can they track down Powder Puff and get him back?

Part of the puzzle that Dawn and Jason overlook at first is the woman’s profession, which is one that the kids hadn’t really expected to find a woman doing, although Dawn spots the clues which point to what the woman was doing in the area and allow them to realize where she had to be going.  Whether more modern kids reading this book would feel the same way about the woman’s profession, I’m not sure.

The book is currently available online through Internet Archive.

Posted on by TracyC

The Secret at the Polk Street School

The Polka Dot Private Eye

SecretPolkStreet#3 The Secret at the Polk Street School by Patricia Reilly Giff, 1987.

Dawn’s class is competing against other classes in a contest to see which class does the most for the school.  All of the classes are working on their own special projects, trying hard to keep them a secret until the judging.  Dawn, as the class’s resident detective, suggests that she could solve a mystery on behalf of the class, but unfortunately, there is no mystery for her to solve.  Yet.

Instead, Ms. Rooney’s class decides to put on a play for the rest of the school.  It’s Little Red Riding Hood, and Dawn is playing the starring role.  Jason gets to be the Wolf, borrowing an old wolf costume from his sister without her permission.

At the class’s rehearsal, Dawn gets mad when someone dressed in the wolf costume tries to scare her, and she thinks that it’s Jason, goofing off.  But, it turns out that Jason wasn’t even there, and the wolf costume is missing.  Suddenly, Dawn has a mystery!

Dawn starts receiving messages from “The Wolf” saying that someone is going to get her and Jason.  Then, someone takes a bite out of the loaf of bread that Dawn has been using as a prop (the food that she’s taking to “Grandma’s House” in the play).  Could “The Wolf” be someone in a rival class, hoping to sabotage their play so they can win the contest?

The book is currently available online through Internet Archive.

Posted on by TracyC

Summer Fun

SummerFunSummer Fun by Carolyn Haywood, 1986.

This is a cute book of short stories featuring favorite Haywood characters, including Betsy and Eddie.  The children spent their summer in different ways, having fun summer adventures.  None of the adventures is particularly scary.  Although a couple of the kids find themselves in semi-dangerous situations, everything is resolved pretty quickly, and the rest of the stories are more slice-of-life style stories about fun and funny things that the kids do or lessons they learn.

The stories are very easy to read and great for children beginning chapter books or for some light bedtime reading for younger kids.

The book is currently available online through Internet Archive.

The stories in this book are:

Bears and Blueberries

Peter is at summer camp, and when he goes on a hike and camp-out with his camp friends, they have encounters with wildlife.

SummerFunPic2The Watermelon Party

Betsy’s father tells her that he used to have watermelon parties with his friends when he was young, and that the person who had the most watermelon seeds at the end of the party would win a prize.  Betsy decides that she wants to have a party like that, but her friend Rodney learns why cheating takes all the fun out of a contest.

A Bell for Jim Dandy

Jim Dandy is a brand of ice cream that comes on a stick.  When the bell on the ice cream truck is broken, Billy gets a job trying to help the driver attract customers in exchange for free ice cream.  But, without a bell himself, how will he get people’s attention?

Betsy’s Property

While Betsy is visiting her aunt and uncle at their summer home by the beach, she discovers a special rock a little ways out from the shore that she likes to think of as all her own.  She likes to sit out on the rock and read with her aunt’s dog, but what will she do when a sudden storm leaves her stranded?

SummerFunPic1Betsy’s Hammock Club

Betsy loves the hammock that her father bought for her, but so does every other kid in the neighborhood!

Eddie and His Hermit Crab

Anna Patricia buys a couple of hermit crabs at the beach as pets.  When she gives one to Eddie, he decides that his crab will win the hermit crab race at the beach!

Eddie and His Money Sheet

Eddie sets out to make some money with sand sculptures and ends up convincing Anna Patricia to adopt a stray cat.

The Picnic

Eddie and Anna Patricia find out that her new cat actually belongs to someone else.  But, they become friends with the cat’s owners, who take them out for a sailing trip and picnic.  When the kids’ parents are late arriving with food for the picnic, Anna Patricia tries to let the kids into the house and discovers how different the Goldilocks story would have been if the bears had a security alarm.

An Afternoon on the Farm

Teddy and Babs visit a farm with their parents and make friends with the grandchildren of the owners, Mark and Sarah.  While the children are playing at being explorers one day, they find a dead animal they’ve never seen before.  When they bring it back to show their parents, they learn why you shouldn’t mess with a skunk, even a dead one. (No mention of disease, just smell, although I’d think that would be a more serious issue.)

End of Summer

It’s time for Mark and Sarah to go home after visiting their grandparents.  With all of the things they have to remember to take with them and all of the things they forget, will they actually make it to the train on time?

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The Case of the Wandering Werewolf

wanderingwerewolfThe Case of the Wandering Werewolf by Drew Stevenson, 1987.

A boy called Chips approaches Raymond with the story that there might be a werewolf in Lost Woods, outside of town. Chips likes animals, and he has been going into the woods to spring animal traps that someone has been leaving there. One evening, Chips thought he saw a man who seemed to turn into a wolf, and the wolf chased Chips away, only stopping when Chips crossed the creek. Chips has heard of Huntley’s monster hunting activities, and he asks Raymond to tell Huntley about the werewolf and see if he will investigate.

To Raymond’s surprise, Huntley says that he has already heard about the werewolf from another source, which he refuses to reveal.  However, he is eager to investigate, on behalf of Chips and his other mysterious source. Verna, who overhears what Chips says about the werewolf, invites herself along on the hunt.

wanderingwerewolfpic1The monster hunt becomes more complicated when Bucky Bovine, a bully at their school, seems determined to stop them from going to Lost Woods to look for the monster. Does Bucky know something about the beast, or could he even be the monster himself?

As always, there are other explanations besides monsters and mysteries that require solving.  Fortunately, Huntley is an excellent detective as well as a Monster Hunter, and he puts the pieces together to explain not only the werewolf but other strange things that have been happening around town.

The book is part of the Monster Hunter series and is currently available online through Internet Archive.