Posted on by TracyC

Double Trouble

DoubleTrouble

Double Trouble by Michael J. Pellowski, 1986.

Sandi and Randi Daniels are identical twins with a younger brother, Teddy, who is in his Terrible Twos. Although Sandi and Randi look alike, they are still very different people. Sandi loves to read and is a good student, and Randi is loves sports, especially soccer. The problem is that Randi’s place on the soccer team is in danger because of her poor grades. Their father has told her that if she doesn’t improve her spelling, she won’t be able to play soccer anymore, and the championship game is coming up!

The two girls come up with a possible solution to the problem when Teddy accidentally mistakes Sandi for Randi one day because Sandi is wearing her sister’s favorite shirt. Since Sandi is much better at spelling than Randi is, Sandi will dress as Randi and meet her teacher for her special tutoring in spelling while Randi goes to play soccer with her sports team.

DoubleTroublePicBut, everything goes wrong when Randi’s coach talks to her teacher about the championship game, and it turns out that her teacher is secretly a soccer fan. When Sandi arrives for the tutoring session and the teacher and coach tell her the happy news that “Randi” can play in the championship game, Sandi has no time to tell Randi about it and switch places with her again. Will their hoax be exposed? Will the girls be able to switch places again in time to save the championship?

There are black-and-white drawings throughout the book.  This is the first book in a series.

It is currently available through Internet Archive.

Posted on by TracyC

The Case of the Lost Lookalike

LostLookalike

The Case of the Lost Lookalike by Carol Farley, 1988.

“I want to swoop in and spout out the answers to baffling mysteries while everyone around me blinks in befuddlement.  I want to reveal the amazing solutions to puzzles while everyone gasps in admiration.  Except the criminal, of course, who gasps for other reasons.”
— Flee Jay Saylor

This is the second book in the the Flee Jay and Clarice Mysteries.

In The Case of the Lost Lookalike, Flee Jay and Clarice are spending the summer at a lake with their aunt, and someone there says that Clarice is the very image of a little girl named Caroline who was apparently kidnapped 40 years ago.  Little Caroline disappeared from her own bedroom one night after her mother died under rather suspicious circumstances.  Most people assume that Caroline is dead, too.  The girl’s father is now a strange recluse who lives on an island in the middle of the lake.

LostLookalikePic

But, as the girls puzzle over this old mystery, other mysterious things begin to happen.  A woman produces pictures of the missing girl which look nothing like Clarice.  Then, her shop is broken into, and the pictures of Caroline disappear.

When someone persuades their aunt to let the girls visit the old recluse on the island, the man’s reaction is surprising, and they come to realize that Caroline’s disappearance might not be the real issue at all.  Clarice takes some frightening risks to get to the bottom of the mystery!

My Reaction

In a way, this story is two mysteries in one because Clarice figures out what really happened to Caroline when she disappeared years ago at the same time that the girls unravel the mystery that is affecting people who live in the small town by the lake now.  The mystery of what happened to Caroline would not have resurfaced at this particular time if someone else hadn’t brought up the issue as a distraction from something else.

What I like best about this series is the sense of humor and the way that Flee Jay says things as she narrates the story: “I mean, new cottages and magic lakes are terrific and all that, but nothing can ever take the place of a peanut-butter, brown sugar, and banana sandwich.”

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The Case of the Vanishing Villain

The Case of the Vanishing Villain by Carol Farley, 1986

As you can see, my copy of this book has been … well-loved.

This is the first book in a series about two sisters, Flee Jay (short for Felice Jennifer) and Clarice Saylor. Twelve-year-old Flee Jay wants to be a detective, just like in the books she’s read, but her pretty younger sister is a child genius who has more aptitude for it. Clarice is somewhat eccentric for a ten-year-old, but she is also intelligent and logical and has a memory for details and obscure facts. Throughout the series, the two of them kind of compete to solve mysteries. Although Clarice usually comes up with the solution before Flee Jay, it usually takes the two of them together to get to the bottom of things because Flee Jay is an average kid who behaves like an average kid and helps Clarice understand how average people behave.

The story begins with an explanation and a request for help from Flee Jay. She and her genius younger sister, Clarice, were taking an early morning ferry from Michigan to Wisconsin to visit their grandparents when a series of strange events connected with an escaped convict took place. Clarice managed to solve the mystery, but Flee Jay wants readers to go through the events as they happened to see whether any normal person could have solved the mystery like Clarice did.

From that point on, Flee Jay describes what took place from the moment they arrived at the ferry until just before the ferry docked at its destination. She introduces all of the strange passengers on the ferry, including a family of three women who may have unwittingly brought the convict on board, a woman with an annoying barking dog, a bearded man with a guilty secret, and the overly-attentive ship’s steward, Mr. Woolsey, who is keeping an eye on the girls during the trip.

VanishingVillainPic

From the moment that Flee Jay learns about the escaped convict from Clarice, who “accidentally” overhears the police and Mr. Woolsey talking about him through a vent while standing in the sink in the ladies’ room next to Mr. Woolsey’s office, Flee Jay wants to be the one to find him. At first, they don’t really know whether he’s on the boat or not, but when the boat is underway, a woman screams that there was a strange man in her stateroom, and then, they’re pretty sure. Flee Jay and Clarice take it upon themselves to consider all the hiding places and to question the other passengers. Of course, Clarice produces the solution to the puzzle, but she does credit Flee Jay with inspiring her. According to Flee Jay, she just figured things out because she’s nosy, but that’s left to the readers to decide.

Join eccentric 10-year-old genius Clarice and her long-suffering sister as they try to put the pieces together to keep the convict from getting away right under the noses of the authorities!

The book is written with humor and is fun to read. The clues fit together neatly, and the black-and-white pictures, list of characters, and map of the inside of the ferry help readers understand the action.

The book is currently available through Internet Archive.