Posted on by TracyC

Kidnapped on Astarr

KleepKidnappedAstarrKidnapped on Astarr by Joan Lowery Nixon, 1981.

This is part of the Kleep: Space Detective series.

Till’s mother, Falda, has mysteriously disappeared, and Till is sure that someone has abducted her.  The only clue he has is an unfinished note that his mother left for him with the letters “RU” on it.  He takes it to Kleep and her grandfather Arko, and the three of them puzzle over what it could mean.  Arko and the kids decide that the two most likely things the letters could be part of are a kind of metal that Arko and Falda are using in the project they’re currently working on (“ruthenium”) or a group of people who are enemies of theirs, the Ruzenians.  The people of Ruzena lived on Astarr before Kleep’s people arrived from Ruel (another possible “RU” word that they ruled out) and have resented their intrusion.

Arko decides that he will first visit the mine where they get their metal, hoping that Falda has gone there in connection with their project to create a new way to anchor small space ships at outer space docks.  However, Kleep and Till can’t help but think that the Ruzenians have kidnapped Falda.  Arko wants them to stay at the house with the robot Zibbit until he returns, but they feel like they can’t wait and decide to take Zibbit with them to investigate the Ruzenians.

It’s a harrowing journey through Ruzenian territory, through a dark forest with giant worms and singing trees whose music threatens to overtake their minds, but they do discover that is where Falda is being held prisoner.  Unfortunately, Kleep, Till, and Zibbit are also captured.  With the king of Ruzena suspicious of the projects that Arko and Falda are working on (he thinks they’re designing weapons, but they’re not), what can they do to escape or get help?

Posted on by TracyC

Mystery Dolls From Planet Urd

KleepDollsUrdMystery Dolls from Planet Urd by Joan Lowery Nixon, 1981.

This is part of the Kleep: Space Detective series.

Kleep’s grandfather is an inventor, and she loves it when she’s included in the gatherings of other inventors that her grandfather hosts.  They come from many different planets, and she loves to hear them talk about their work.  However, there are some other inventors that Kleep doesn’t like at all.  Slurc, who is from the planet Urd, takes no notice of Kleep until he overhears another inventor telling Kleep about something he has recently learned about that comes from the planet Earth.

Earth is unaware of other planets, like the planet Astarr, where Kleep lives, but people do visit Earth secretly to study the people and their habits.  Kleep’s own parents mysteriously disappeared on a mission to Earth, and Kleep is determined to find them one day.  Pili, an inventor from Ruel, knows that Kleep is interested in anything about Earth, so he gives her an Earth doll.

Children on Astarr do not play with dolls, so Kleep doesn’t really understand what purpose they serve, and it makes her nervous that it looks so much like either a small person or robot but is not alive and does not do anything.  Then, Slurc, listening to their conversation, tells her that children on Urd play with dolls, but theirs are much better, and he promises to send her some that she can share with her friends.  Although Kleep does not really like Slurc, she thanks him for the offer just to be polite.

KleepDollsUrdPic1Sure enough, the dolls from Urd soon arrive, but they make Kleep even more nervous than the doll from Earth.  They seem a little too life-like, and one night, Kleep wakes up, certain that she heard them whispering to each other!

At first, her grandfather and her best friend, Till, think that she’s just imagining it because the dolls make her nervous.  However, when she gives a couple of the dolls to Till, he experiences the same thing!

The dolls from Urd are not normal, and Kleep is sure that they are there for a sinister purpose.  She and her friend must discover what it is and fast!

The setting and inventions on Kleep’s world are imaginative.  I especially like the idea of the learning devices that can send knowledge directly into your mind (maybe a little creepy, but certainly a time-saver).  The plot might seem a little far-fetched, but I liked it when I was a kid, and it’s still entertaining.  It’s my favorite book in the series.  I think of this book every time someone mentions Furbies or any similar sort of electronic toy that is supposed to speak to another.  Furbies especially talk to each other, and they look like they’re from outer space.  Who’s to say what sinister plots might be hatching in their furry little minds?

Posted on by TracyC

The Codebreaker Kids

CodebreakerKidsThe Codebreaker Kids by George Edward Stanley, 1987.

Dinky Lakewood likes living in Washington, D.C. because it’s such an interesting place, and he loves the stories about spies and government intrigue that appear in the local newspaper.  His father, who deals in plumbing supplies, thinks that all this sneaking and spying is awful and threatens to move his family somewhere else when he hears about another spy being caught, but Dinky decides that he’s going to get in on the action because he has a special skill that the spies really need.

The newspapers say that the reason why the latest spy was caught was because he and his associates were so bad at cryptology — they either picked codes that were way too hard or way too easy to decode.  Although Dinky’s parents don’t like spies, they did give him a book about secret codes for his birthday: The Complete and Total Book of All the Secret Codes That Have Ever Been Devised and That Ever Will Be Devised.  Dinky has worked his way through all of the codes in the book, so he feels qualified to open his own Secret Code Service, helping spies to encode and decode their secret messages.

Dinky recruits his best friend Wong and a girl he knows from school named Lulu to be part of his organization.  Lulu is a little strange, but Dinky knows that she’s always wanted to be a spy, so he figures that she would be good for dealing with real spies.  Wong is more interested in the money because he wants to get a new bike.

Their first clients are a little strange.  One of them is an elderly lady, Emma, who wants to stop her younger sister from snooping in her diary.  She turns out to be a repeat visitor because her sister turns out to have a talent for breaking codes.  The next client is Boris, the world’s worst Bulgarian spy.  He admits that he’s horrible with codes because he cheated at spy school, copying off of a cute female spy.  Dinky and his friends help him, although they start to question whether they’re doing the right thing since he is obviously spying on their country and they might be guilty of treason.

They decide that Boris is protected under their pledge of confidentiality, but soon, Dinky is approached by someone from the State Department, who turns out to be tracking Boris the Bulgarian.  Can Dinky and his friends continue their service, helping both sides at the same time?  Also, will they ever figure out a code that Emma’s sister can’t break?

The premise of the story is a little corny, with spies and government agencies going to a kid’s backyard clubhouse for help with some pretty simple codes, but the book is a lot of fun and doesn’t take itself seriously.  It’s a good introduction to cryptology for children, starting out with very simple Caesar ciphers (basic substitution codes) and gradually moving on to more difficult ones, like Trithemius’s Square Table.  There are points in the story where readers are given the chance to decode messages before Dinky does, and in the back, there are some additional secret messages to decode using the codes presented in the book.

The book is currently available online through Internet Archive.  There is a sequel to this book, but unfortunately, I don’t have it and never read it.

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.