Kiki’s Delivery Service by Eiko Kadono, English translation by Lynne E. Riggs, 1985, 2003.
More Americans would probably recognize the title as the title of a Studio Ghibli animated film for children than as a book title, but the book came before the movie, and it is actually the first in a series, which continues the story about Kiki’s life and adventures, although I don’t think the later books in the series have been translated into English (at least, I haven’t found them in English). The original Japanese version of this book was written in 1985, and I read the English translation from 2003.
Kiki is a young witch, and in keeping with the traditions of young witches, she is expected to leave home at age 13 and live for a year in a city with no other witches. It will be a test of her developing skills and a coming-of-age experience, helping her to recognize her talents and find her place in the world.
When Kiki sets out for her journey with her cat, Jiji, she doesn’t know exactly where she is going to go or what she will find when she gets there. Some young witches know early on what their talents are and how they plan to support themselves during their year away from home, but Kiki is less sure (like so many of us who “don’t know what we want to be when we grow up”). The term “witch” just refers to a person’s ability to do magic. It’s not a job title by itself, and witches are expected to develop a specialization, such as brewing potions or telling the future. Kiki’s mother has tried to teach Kiki her trade, growing herbs and making medicines from them, but Kiki hasn’t had much patience with it. The only major ability Kiki has is flying, which is something that witches are expected to do anyway. Still, she has an adventurous spirit and is eager to set out and see what life has to offer.
Once Kiki locates a city with no other witches, she has to find a place to stay and a job to earn money. She finds a city by the sea, which seems exciting to her. As she explores the city, she meets Osono, a woman who owns a bakery with her husband. When she helps deliver a baby’s pacifier to a bakery customer who left it behind, flying to the customer’s house on her on her broom, Osono offers to let her stay in a small apartment attached to the bakery. Kiki feels a little overwhelmed by the big city at first, but she realizes that, in a large city like this, there are probably a lot of people who have small delivery errands that wouldn’t be covered by ordinary parcel delivery services.
Kiki opens a delivery service, delivering small packages and running errands for people around the city. At first, business is slow, and some people are afraid of her as a witch. During a trip to the beach, a curious boy borrows her broom and breaks it. Kiki is distressed, and the boy apologizes. The boy’s name is Tombo, and he is part of a club of other kids who are interested in flying. He has made a study of flight and had hoped to learn more about how witches fly by trying Kiki’s broom, but Kiki expains that only witches can fly with brooms and that the ability is inherited. Kiki has to make a new broom, and it takes her a while to break it in, but it actually works to her benefit. People who were initially afraid of her for being a witch become less afraid of her and more concerned about her when they see that she is just a young girl, clumsily trying to master a new broom. Kiki gets some additional support and business from people who feel moved to help a struggling young witch. Tombo also makes it up to her and becomes a friend when he helps Kiki to figure out a way to carry a difficult object on her broom.
During her very first delivery assignment, Kiki was supposed to carry a toy cat to a boy who was having a birthday, but she accidentally dropped it. When she searched for it, she met a young artist, who was enchanted by Kiki as a young witch and painted a portrait of Kiki with Jiji. When the artist asks Kiki to take the painting to the place where it will be on exhibit, Kiki isn’t sure how to carry it at first. It’s kind of a bulky object to carry on her broom. Remembering that Tombo has made a study of flying, she asks him for help. Tombo ties balloons onto the painting to make it float and tells Kiki that she can now pull the painting along on a leash, as if it were a dog. The idea works, and when people see Kiki pulling a painting of herself along through the sky with balloons tied to it, it acts as advertising, bringing her more business.
Some of Kiki’s new jobs are difficult or awkward, and some customers are more difficult to deal with than others. There are times when Kiki finds herself missing home or trying to remember how her mother did certain things, wishing that she had been better at watching and remembering what her mother did. Still, Kiki learns many new things from her experiences and acquires new skills.
Kiki’s experiences also help her to realize a few things about herself and life in general. Like other girls, Kiki worries about how boys see her. When Tombo makes a comment that he can talk to her when he can’t talk to other girls, Kiki worries that he doesn’t see her as a girl at all. A job delivering a surprise present to a boy from another girl her age helps Kiki to realize that everyone is a little shy and uncertain about romance and even people who act confident feel a little awkward about first relationships.
As her first year away from home comes to an end, Kiki wonders how much she’s really changed over the year. Although she has successfully started a new business and done well living away from her parents, she still experiences a sense of imposter syndrome, where she doesn’t quite feel like she’s really done all of the things she’s done. Her first visit home to her parents reminds her that her new town has really become her new home. She has become a part of the place, and she feels her new business and friends calling her to return.
In 2018, the author, Eiko Kadono, was awarded the Hans Christian Anderson for her contributions to children’s literature.
My Reaction
I think of this story as one of those stories that takes on more meaning the older you get. Young adults can recognize Kiki’s struggles to make her own way in the world and establish herself in life as ones that we all go through when we start our working lives and gain our first independence. It can be a scary, uncertain time, when we often wonder if we really know what we’re doing. (Life Spoiler: No, we don’t, but no one else completely does, either, so it’s normal and manageable. Some things just have to be lived to be really understood, and that’s kind of the point of Kiki spending a year on her own, to see something of life and how she can fit into it.) However, it’s also a time of fun and adventure as we try new things, build new confidence, make new friends, and learn new things about ourselves. Like so many of us, Kiki doesn’t always do everything right, but she learns a lot and endears herself to the people of her new town.
The Miyazaki movie captures the feel of the story well, although the plot isn’t completely the same. There are incidents and characters that are different between the book and the movie. Tombo appears in both the book and the movie, but there are other characters who appear in the book who weren’t in the movie. In the book, Kiki makes friends with a girl named Mimi, who is her age, and the two of them discuss crushes on boys and how each of them was a little envious of the other because, while each of them is struggling with their own uncertainties in life, they each thought that the other acted more confident. The movie version developed the character of the young artist more. Kiki also didn’t lose her powers during the book, although that might be a part of one of the other books in the series, since I haven’t had the chance to read the others yet.
A group of friends in Summary, Indiana has had a club together for years, and they’ve always thought that their club would last forever. They call themselves the Silly Stuff Club because they collect all kinds of weird and silly things that they find at sales. However, when one of the girls, Sarah, finds out that her family is planning to move to another state, it looks like their club might come to an end. The club meets in the old carriage house on Sarah’s family’s property. If their family moves, where will the club go, and where will they store their collection of silly stuff? The other girls in the club aren’t just losing a friend but also losing their club’s home and maybe even the club itself.
Then, Lily gets an idea. Down the road, there is an old mansion that’s been abandoned for years. The Winston estate is the property of Melva Winston, who is something of a legend in their town. According to the story, the Winston heiress rode out of town on her motorcycle about 50 years earlier, and she hasn’t been seen since. Lily reasons that the Winston estate is huge and has outbuildings, and somewhere on the estate property, there is probably a place that they can claim for the club. Since nobody lives there or goes there anymore, who is to know or care if they move in?
Some of the other girls in the club don’t like that idea because they’ve been warned to stay away from the old Winston estate. An empty old house can be dangerous, and they might get in trouble for trespassing. Still, nobody has any better ideas, so they decide to sneak onto the property and have a look around.
When they do, they discover that the house isn’t quite as empty as they thought. After all these years, Melva Winston has returned to town. She now calls herself Annie, after one of her middle names, Anastasia. The girls’ sudden arrival startles her, but when she overhears them talking about needing space for their club, she becomes sympathetic. She also realizes that she could use their help. There’s plenty of space in her big house, and she agrees to give them some space in the attic for their club, and in exchange, she asks them to look after her cat while she goes out of town for a few days. She’s hired a local woman, Ms. O’Leary, to do some cleaning for her, but the woman is allergic to cats. The girls are eager to accept because the old mansion would be a fantastic place to have their club, and it would solve their problems … except missing Sarah when her family moves.
Then, one night, a couple of the girls see someone sneaking around the old mansion when no one is supposed to be there. Ms. O’Leary tells them that there were rumors that one of Annie’s ancestors, who made the family fortune in veterinary pharmaceuticals, became an eccentric toward the end of his life, and rumor has it that he hid a great deal of money somewhere on the property. Are the rumors true, and is someone looking for the hidden money?
My Reaction
This book is something of a mystery to me, even after reading it. It is clearly intended to be park of a series because it’s marked as being part of the Creative Girls Club Mystery Book Series, but when I looked up this series, there was only one other book in it. From the descriptions I’ve seen online, it might not even really be that there are two books in the series so much as one book with two different titles because the plots given for the two books sound alike. I’ve only ever seen one of the books, so I can’t be sure.
The book is clearly set up to introduce the set of six girls in the club and establish a basis for the rest of the series. Each of the girls in the club has her own section at the beginning of the book, providing her backstory. So, what happened?
The series had a web page that was given on the inside cover, so I looked it up. It still exists, after a fashion, but the Creative Girls Club is now a subscription box service with craft kits for girls ages 7 to 12. I think what probably happened is that the book series was meant to be a vehicle for marketing the craft kits, but they changed their minds and decided to just move forward with the craft kits in a subscription service without the associated books and characters. There are no actual crafts included in this book for readers to do, although that might have been planned for later books.
The craft kits are by Annie’s Attic, and Annie’s Attic published this book. The book incorporates Annie’s Attic by having the girls move their club to the attic of Annie’s mansion. Ha, ha. At the end of the book, Annie decides to open a craft store and studio in the old mansion, and the girls decide to reinvent their club as a crafting club in Annie’s attic, calling it the Creative Girls Club, and thus setting up the premise for the subscription box service.
Overall, I thought that it was a pretty nice mystery for kids. It kind of worked its way around to Annie’s Attic and the Creative Girls Club in a somewhat contrived way, but still, there are plenty of things in the stories for kids to like, from the club in the attic of an old mansion to a secret room and hidden treasure.
The Summer Camp Mystery by Gertrude Chandler Warner, 2001.
Grandfather Alden is taking the Boxcar Children to Maine to go to summer camp. Henry and Jessie are going to be junior counselors. Violet will be an overnight camper, and because he’s younger, Benny will be a day camper, staying with Grandfather Alden at a nearby inn overnight. The camp is located on an island and can only be reached by boat. It used to be owned by the Pines family, but the family lost of a lot of money trying to keep the camp going and had to sell the camp to Ginny and Rich, who run things differently. The camp activities used to be mostly sports, but Rich and Ginny have added other activities and special awards for other things because not all the campers are good at sport. They want more variety, and they want to give every camper to have a chance to participate in activities that they really enjoy.
However, things go wrong from the beginning. Kim, one of the other counselors, is mean. She stops the Aldens from loading their own trunks on the boat to go to the island, saying that she’ll take care of it, but she doesn’t. She leaves their trunks behind on the dock and makes a big deal about the Aldens being incompetent and not even taking care of their own belongings. The Aldens are embarrassed, and they don’t even call attention to the fact that Kim stopped them from handling their own trunks.
The missing trunks create more problems because the camp has a running competition between different teams of campers. When the Pines family owned the camp, the competition was entirely based on sports, but the new owners offer points to teams for different projects and events, even incorporating being neat and responsible into the contest, so the Aldens have lost points for their teams by leaving their trunks behind.
Because the teams are randomly assigned, three of the Aldens are on one team, and Violet is by herself on Kim’s team. Kim makes no secret of the fact that she doesn’t like Violet, and because there is a rule that different teams can’t talk to each other about what they’re doing for different parts of the contest, Violet feels even more isolated from her siblings. Also, the Pines children, Zack and Lizzie, who still attend the camp, aren’t happy with their team. Lizzie really wanted to be on Kim’s team because she looks up to Kim. She was on Kim’s team the previous year, when the camp was all sports stuff, and they won every event. Violet thinks that the best solution is for her and Lizzie to switch teams, so Lizzie can be with Kim, and she can be with her siblings, but Ginny says that switching teams is against the rules.
Meanwhile, Zack is resentful of Henry because Henry has been given his usual job of flag raising at the camp. Ginny and Rich say that they’ve reduced the number of things that Zack does at the camp because they want him to experience and enjoy the activities at the camp instead of working and doing all the little jobs he used to do when his family owned the camp. Also, Henry can play the bugle, providing a live bugle performance instead of just using the old bugle recording the camp has been using.
However, besides the incident with the Aldens’ trunks being left behind, someone steals the camp’s flags before the flag raising. Henry looks incompetent when he can’t find them, although Jessie’s cabin comes to the rescue by quickly drawing some new ones as emergency replacements. Then, the missing flags later appear on Henry’s bed, and he has no idea how they got there. The Aldens lose points for this incidents, and Kim’s team also steals Jessie’s cabin’s idea for a good deed event, even submitting it to Rich and Ginny before Jessie does. Jessie isn’t sure how she knew what her cabin was planning, but Kim even gave her event idea the same name. It can’t be a coincidence.
The Aldens are having a frustrating time at camp, and they have to figure out exactly what’s going on and prove that they’re not the ones messing things up.
The book is available to borrow and read for free online through Internet Archive (multiple copies).
My Reaction
Not Much of A Mystery
This mystery story isn’t really a “whodunit” kind of mystery so much as “howdunit” and “how are our heroes going to prove it?” The culprits were really obvious from the very beginning and every step of the way. There are no other suspects. It’s definitely Kim, Lizzie, and Zack, and the rest of the story is how the Aldens prove what they’re doing. There is a slight element of “whydunit” because the Aldens don’t really understand why the three of them are doing all these things, although I thought at least part of that was obvious, too.
I understand that Kim, Lizzie, and Zack weren’t happy about how the camp changed after the Pines family had to sell it, but that’s no excuse for treating other people the way they do. To me, at least at first, it looked like they weren’t so much sad about change as angry that they weren’t the favored, “special” campers anymore. Lizzie and Zack were no longer special for being the owner’s kids and getting to perform special duties the other campers couldn’t do, and Kim was no longer special for winning everything all the time because she’s good at sports. The new owners of the camp got Henry and Jessie to be junior counselors and help with some of the chores around the camp, like the flag raising, because they thought that Lizzie and Zack could use more time to enjoy the fun activities, but instead of having fun, they’re just angry that they lost another status symbol. I didn’t like or feel sorry for Kim, Lizzie, and Zack at all. To me, they were just mean, selfish, and entitled. Because I hate one-upmanship so much, it just made me angry.
There were a couple of points that softened my feelings a bit, but not by a lot. I felt a little less angry when Zack talked about how the flag-raising ceremony had special, sentimental value to him because members of his family have always done that job at camp, and the bugle recording the camp always used for the flag-raising ceremony was made by his uncle. He misses the feeling that he’s following in his family’s footsteps. In the end, he acknowledges that Henry’s live bugle playing is better than his uncle’s recording, but his uncle’s recording was always good enough for them before, and that he’s still attached to it because it’s his uncle on the recording, giving it that personal connection. Emotional attachment and that sense of family and tradition are more understandable and easier to sympathize with than just selfishness and status-seeking.
Lizzie also says that they were resentful of the Aldens because three of them got to be overnight campers, something she’s always wanted to do but was too young to do before. The Pines kids were angry that Rich and Ginny somehow managed to find room in the cabins for three of the Aldens but told them that the overnight slots were full, and they would have to be day campers instead, like Benny. The story doesn’t make it clear whether the camp owners actually bumped the Pines kids to make room for the Aldens as overnight campers or if the Aldens just submitted their request before the Pines kids. If Rich and Ginny canceled the Pines kids’ overnight reservations just to give the Aldens special treatment, that would be bad, and the Pines kids would have a genuine complaint. However, I think that the Pines kids’ father, who runs the ferry to the island where the camp is, probably just didn’t settle their overnight reservations in time because he took it for granted that they would be given places, forgetting that they don’t own the camp anymore and would have to register, just like everyone else.
Competitiveness
Kim is a major part of the reason why I didn’t feel sorry for the culprits. She’s not a member of the Pines family, so she doesn’t really have sentimental reasons behind her behavior. She’s just all about winning, and she’s sore because she used to win all of the camp’s sports events. Now that the camp isn’t just all about sports, sports, sports, she can’t take it for granted that she’s going to win everything, and that makes her angry. She feels entitled to the activities that she’s good at and resentful that she now has to take part in activities where other people are better than she is and where she might lose. She says that leaving the Aldens’ trunks behind was an honest mistake because she was just so busy on the dock, but once she realized the mistake, she didn’t do anything to correct it, just using it to her advantage in the competition. She also encouraged Lizzie to slip away from Jessie and come talk to her, both getting Jessie in trouble for losing track of one of her campers and pumping Lizzie for information about what their team was doing, so she could steal their ideas. She complains that she had to do it because she knows that she’s only good at sports, not the creative things that the Aldens do, and that she had no chance of winning if she didn’t cheat. I think that comment points to what was wrong with the camp under the Pines’ leadership, and probably, why the camp was failing and losing money.
I think the Pines’ camp was probably losing popularity with campers because it mainly catered to the Pines’ interests and those of a select group of sports nuts, like Kim. As Rich and Ginny observed, the camp was all about sports. People who were good at sports won everything, all the time. Kim got used to what she thought of as her guaranteed victories because all the activities were geared to her interests and talents, but most of the other campers felt left out and possibly resentful of the favored ones. To me, it sounded like the Pines’ camp had become like this little clique where certain, favored campers won everything and had everything their way, and nobody else could do much of anything. It was like most of the camp was just along for the ride while certain people did the things they liked and continually won at everything. It was getting to be the same every year. People who were very sportsy and competitive might still have enjoyed the camp, but it was just so niche in its focus that a lot of other campers probably just lost interest. Enrollment in the camp fell because it wasn’t fun anymore for a lot of campers. That’s probably why Rich and Ginny wanted to change things, because they could see how people were feeling left out and tired of the same old things with the same “winners” every time.
What Kim really resents is other people being given the chance to win something and show what they’re good at. She doesn’t care if other people are frustrated at being made to do only activities that she’s good at so she can always “win” against them because she hates being made to do things where someone else is better and she’s less likely to win. In other words, what she really hates and fears is being treated exactly how she treats other people. That’s why she feels compelled to “fix” things, so she gets put in what she views as her rightful place as the eternal winner. I didn’t like her or sympathize with her as a character at all. She’s extremely self-centered and controlling, not even trying the new activities. Because she’s not a creative or thoughtful person, it never even occurs to her that she has an entire cabin full of campers who may be more creative and thoughtful than she is. She shuts down her own teams’ ideas as not being good enough so she can just use her stolen idea. She never even gives her own team a chance because she feels like she, personally, has to be the winner who does everything, and nobody else should even be allowed to contribute. She refuses to even help her campers in their efforts in activities and actively ignores them to focus on what she wants to do.
Kim reminds me of Kate in Color War in the Camp Sunnyside Friends series, although perhaps it’s more accurate to compare her to her rival in that book because of the cheating. When I reviewed that book, I was frustrated with the way Kate was declared the winner of the camp contest. It’s true that she didn’t cheat, like her rival, but they both behaved badly and were terrible sports. (Not terrible at sports, just really bad sports in the sense of being bad teammates, bad attitudes, and bad winners and bad losers.) It’s just really hard to like anybody whose biggest fear is other people treating them the way they treat others. However, I like the way this Boxcar Children book treats the contest better than the way the Camp Sunnyside Friends did. When I reviewed the other book, I wished that the camp counselors had just declared the contest a tie, both because that would have been fair and would have pleased most of the other campers while blowing the little win-monsters’ minds. This book takes a completely different approach, but I still appreciated it.
Spoilers
We never learn who wins the overall contest at camp. The book ends before the contest is finished. Once the Aldens realize how Kim is getting her information and stealing their ideas, they set a trap for her. They let her and Lizzie think that they’re going to do a particular theme for the camp’s costume contest when they’re actually doing something else. They write a letter to Rich and Ginny before the contest, telling them what they’re doing, to prove that Kim is cheating and stealing ideas.
Once the cheating is exposed, Kim, Zack, and Lizzie talk about their motivations. Rich and Ginny point out to the kids that they haven’t changed all the old camp traditions. They used to go to this camp when they were kids, and they preserved parts of the camp that they and other campers always liked, such as the camp legends about a monster on the island and offering points for campers who don’t scream during scary stories, events, and pranks. They also decide to allow Zack to retain some of the jobs he loves so much since that’s part of what makes camp fun for him, and they promise Lizzie that she can be an overnight camper next year.
When they have to decide who wins the costume contest, they don’t want to immediately declare Kim’s team the loser for her cheating because none of the other campers on her team were aware that she stole the idea for their costume theme and they honestly made their costumes themselves (without Kim’s help because she was too busy with her own costume and made Violet help the other campers instead). Since Kim’s team was competing honestly even though Kim wasn’t, Rich and Ginny think they deserve to be judged on their efforts and not on Kim’s. The Aldens agree that’s fair, and they suggest that the audience of camp visitors who came to see the event should be the judges of the contest since they’re only seeing the kids’ costumes and don’t know about the other things that have happened. They decide to let the audience vote for the team with the best costumes, and the story ends there, without saying what the results of the vote were.
I liked it that they found a fair, impartial way of settling the contest and that we never find out who won. If the story ended with a known winner, it would feel like the author was using who “wins” to declare who was on the side of right in the story. To declare the Aldens’ team the winners would reward hard work and not cheating, which is good, but Rich and Ginny have a point that Kim’s teammates aren’t responsible for Kim’s cheating. To not let them have their own, honest chance would be to punish them for having a bad leader, which isn’t fair. On the other hand, if it ended with Kim’s team winning, it would suggest that it doesn’t matter if you cheat or not as long as people let you win anyway to keep your teammates from being hurt, which would also be a bad lesson. Personally, I would still favor not having a “winner” at all because, in this type of situation, it’s just really awkward whichever way it goes. Not knowing who won or lost or if it turns out that the audience declared a tie also works. The focus of the story is kept where it should be: not on who won but how they each played the game.
This is the story of Fannie Farmer and her famous and popular cookbook! When I first heard of the Fannie Farmer Cookbook (originally The Boston Cooking-School Cook Book (1896)), I wasn’t sure whether Fannie Farmer was a real person or if that was just a pseudonym or a marketing name for the cookbook, but Fannie Farmer was a real person in the late 19th century, and that was her real name. The story in this picture book is based on her real life, although details may be fictionalized, and the pictures give the story humorous twists.
In the beginning of the story, a little girl named Marcia Shaw prides herself on how many things she can do around the house and how much help she can give to her mother. However, she’s still a little girl, and there are some things she doesn’t know how to do well. In particular, Marcia doesn’t know how to cook. Now that her mother is expecting another baby, Marcia’s mother decides that she needs to hire some extra household help, especially with the cooking.
Marcia is a little offended that her mother considers her inadequate to help by herself, but when the new help arrives, a young woman named Fannie Farmer, Marcia has to admit that she’s a good cook. Even better for Marcia, Fannie doesn’t consider her cooking techniques trade secrets. She enjoys letting Marcia help in the kitchen and teaching her cooking tips.
Under Fannie’s tutelage, Marcia’s cooking skills improve. Fannie teaches her many important pieces of information about cooking, like how to measure ingredients and how to tell when ingredients are fresh or if they’ve gone bad.
Marcia enjoys learning to cook with Fannie, but she thinks that she’ll never be as good as Fannie because there’s just too much to remember. She doubts that she’ll ever be able to memorize it all. Marcia is amazed that Fannie can keep all of that cooking information in her head. To help Marcia, Fannie decides to write out a notebook with recipes and cooking instructions, including all of the specific measurements for ingredients and detailed information about cooking techniques to make the recipes come out just right.
This is what makes Fannie Farmer and her cookbook so unique for their time period. If you’ve ever seen a very old recipe book or even just old family recipes written down, they often don’t have all of the amounts of ingredients written down, or the amounts are written in very vague terms. Old recipes also offer little to no cooking techniques, like how to tell when it’s time to turn a griddle cake over or how to tell if a cake is done baking. The assumption was that girls (usually girls for this time period) would learn to cook by watching their mothers and by learning from their examples. However, that assumes that their mothers knew all of these cooking tips themselves, that the mothers remembered to tell their daughters what they knew and explained it well enough for them to understand (some people don’t have much of a talent for teaching, even when it’s a subject they know themselves), and that the daughters understood or remembered everything their mothers said. Otherwise, the vague directions in cookbooks and family recipes were of little help, and new cooks had to learn through experimentation or trial and error. Fannie’s approach to cooking, as explained in the story, is an art and a science that anybody can learn if someone explains it well enough, so she puts her focus on recording all of the necessary details of her recipes.
Fannie’s recipe book, started for Marcia, turns out to be very popular with both the Shaw family and their friends and neighbors. As word spreads about it, people start coming by to borrow recipes or get cooking advice. Fannie realizes that there is a lot of demand for better teaching of cooking techniques, and she really enjoys teaching cooking, so she decides to accept a job at the Boston Cooking School.
Before Fannie leaves the Shaws, Marcia borrows the cooking notebook and makes a special cake for Fannie to show her what she’s learned. The cake comes out just right because Marcia has followed Fannie’s directions.
There are hints from the Fannie Farmer cookbook throughout the book, and there is a section in the back of the book with historical information about Fannie Farmer. It also includes a sample recipe for Griddle Cakes.
The book is available to borrow and read for free online through Internet Archive (multiple copies). New and used copies are also available on Amazon. You can also buy the original Fannie Farmer Cookbook through Amazon or read it online through Internet Archive (multiple copies).
My Reaction
One of the things I liked about this book is the illustrations. There are eccentric details in the pictures that add humor to the story, like how Marcia stacks a bunch of chairs on top of each other while making candles, so she can make them extra long, and one of her extra long candles appears later, when Fannie shows her how to tell if an egg is fresh by holding it up to a light. For some reason, Marcia’s mother also has a weird habit of licking her dishes when she’s eating one of the yummy recipes, and there is one picture where it looks like she’s lost control of the baby carriage, and it’s rolling away with the baby. I’m sure these aren’t historical details and were just thrown in to be funny.
I think it’s also important to point out that the real-life Fannie Farmer lived an unconventional life for someone of her time period. She was plagued with health problems from a fairly young age. At some points in her life, she was unable to walk, possibly because of a stroke, and when she walked, she had a limp. She never married, but she built a fulfilling career around her talent for cooking. and achieved lasting fame because she wanted to share her knowledge with others. She is credited with establishing exact and level measurements in cooking in the United States, and she was also a strong believer in quality food and proper nutrition, especially for people with health problems.
Revolutionary War on Wednesday by Mary Pope Osborne, 2000.
The story begins with a prologue that explains things that have happened in the series up to this point, saying that Jack and Annie are currently undertaking a series of missions to four special types of writing for the library at Camelot. These missions cover books #21-24 in the series, and in this book, Jack and Annie need to find a piece of writing that represents “something to send.” To find this piece of writing, they’re off to the time of the American Revolutionary War!
When they arrive, it’s winter, and they find a camp of soldiers nearby. At first, they’re not sure which side the soldiers are on, so they sneak up to the camp to get a look at them. The soldiers catch them spying on the camp, but it’s okay because they’re Patriots, not British Redcoats. The soldiers tell the children that they had better go home, thinking that they’re just ordinary children from their time.
After Jack reads a little further in their book about the Revolutionary War, he realizes that this is December 25, 1776, and that they are about to witness the famous crossing of the Delaware River in Pennsylvania. This was a mission carried out in secret by George Washington and his men. The children listen while George Washington delivers an inspirational speech to the soldiers (“These are the times that try men’s souls.”), but a captain tells them that they had better leave because they don’t want children getting in the way of the mission. However, he asks them to do one favor before they leave. He asks them to take a letter to his family back in Frog Creek. He says that it’s a farewell letter, and they should only deliver it if they hear that the mission has failed and many soldiers were lost. Jack accepts the letter, realizing that this letter represents “something to send.”
Since the children know from their book that the mission will be successful, they can safely keep the letter. Jack thinks that their mission is over, but Annie has other thoughts. She climbs into one of the soldiers’ boats because she wants to spend more time with George Washington. George Washington tries to send the children back, but when the snow gets worse and he considers canceling the mission, the children have to persuade him to continue.
At first, the soldiers think that the children might be enemy spies because they seem to know too much about their mission, and one of them saw Jack writing something down earlier. However, Jack convinces them otherwise when he shows that he copied George Washington’s inspirational speech. He reminds George Washington about what he told his men about perseverance. Jack’s words inspire George Washington to take his own advice.
There is a section in the back of the book with more information about the Revolutionary War and places and people mentioned in the story.
The book is available to borrow and read for free online through Internet Archive.
My Reaction
I didn’t often read prologues to books when I was a kid, and I remember skipping over sections that explained the story background and past events in series that I followed regularly, but in this case, I was glad that the prologue explained the children’s mission. I’ve read books in this series out of order, although I don’t really recommend doing that. The books in the Magic Tree House series are very linear, and there are story arcs that extend over multiple books. If you skip around too much, it can spoil some surprises or disrupt the thread of the story.
I liked how this book introduced children both to the historical event of Washington crossing the Delaware and to the famous speech that he made. The lesson about perseverance was good.
This is the third book in the Howl Trilogy. The Howl books are a loose series. Although the wizard Howl, his wife Sophie, and the fire demon Calcifer are the main characters in the first book and appear in all of the other stories, they are not the main characters in the other stories.
When her Great Uncle William, who is a wizard, has to go away for treatment for a health condition with the elves, Charmaine’s Aunt Sempronia volunteer her to house-sit for him. When Aunt Sempronia goes to tell Great Uncle William that Charmaine will be looking after his house, he asks whether Charmaine knows anything about magic. The aunt says that she doesn’t think so. Charmaine spends all of her time reading and doesn’t usually help much with the housework at home. Her aunt thinks this responsibility would do her good. Great Uncle William is a little concerned because his house is not an ordinary house, and he says that he had better take some precautions.
Although Charnaine could be annoyed at being volunteered for this chore without her permission, she is actually grateful for this opportunity to get away from her parents. Her parents are overprotective of her, and they never allow her to do anything that is remotely daring or doesn’t seem completely respectable. She feels stifled, and she wants the chance for a little independence. One of her first acts of independence is to write to the king, telling him that, more than anything, she would like to help catalog his library. She knows that the king is cataloging it himself with the help of his daughter, Princess Hilda (which was established in the previous book in the series), but Charmaine loves books more than anything and she has always dreamed of being an assistant librarian in the royal library. Her parents would think that she was being too cheeky by asking for this position.
In the meantime, Charmaine can prove herself capable and enjoy further independence in Great Uncle William’s house. When she arrives there, Aunt Sempronia tells her that living in a wizard’s house is serious business. Charmaine doesn’t know much about magic because her parents would never let her study it. They didn’t think magic was very respectable.
When Great Uncle William meets her, he seems pleased by her and starts to tell her that he has taken precautions for her stay in the house. Charmaine is about to tell him that she doesn’t know any magic, but they are interrupted by the elves, who come to take Great Uncle William away for his treatment. Charmaine asks the elves how long Great Uncle William will be gone, but they just say “as long as it takes.” Although Charmaine finds herself alone in the house, she hears Great Uncle William’s voice telling her that she will have to tidy the kitchen and apologizing for leaving so much laundry. His voice also says that there are more detailed instructions in the suitcase he left behind.
Before looking at the detailed instructions, Charmaine decides to take a look around the house and get herself unpacked. The kitchen is a horrible mess, and there are enormous bags of laundry. To her astonishment, there are no water taps in the kitchen sink, but there is a water pump outside. This is going to make her job harder. She is tempted to put her nose in a book and forget all her troubles and chores in the house, but she left the job of packing her own bag to her mother, and her mother didn’t include the books she had sitting out. Charmaine realizes that she should have packed her bag herself. This house-sitting job is going to be an education in responsibility as well as independence for Charmaine.
Charmaine also discovers that there’s a dog in the house that nobody told her about. Great Uncle William’s voice tells her that the dog is called Waif, that he used to be a stray, and that he’s afraid of everything. Charmaine was always afraid of dogs because of her mother’s worries about them, but Waif is so timid that she doesn’t worry about him and shares her food with him.
Charmaine realizes that she has led a very sheltered life, partly because of all of the things she was never required to do and also because of the things her parents wouldn’t let her do. It helps that anytime she asks a question out loud, Great Uncle William’s voice gives her the answer.
As Charmaine starts learning her away around the house, she discovers both that she has her work cut out for her and that it’s incredibly easy to get lost in the house. She also discovers that Great Uncle William’s study has many books in it. A note that her uncle left for her in the study says that he could be gone for about two weeks to a month and explaining more about the spoken instructions he left for her as well as the instructions in the suitcase. The note says that she can use the books in the study, but it warns her to be careful of the difficult spells. Charmaine is very appreciative for the books, although she finds them difficult to understand because they are all about magic. There are also many letters in the study written to her uncle by other wizards, including one from the wizard Howl. Many of the letters are from people asking Great Uncle William to take them on as apprentices. Charmaine thinks that her letter to the king probably sounded as pathetic as some of those letters to her great uncle.
Because Charmaine has never been allowed to try any magic before, she can’t resist trying one of the spells from one of her uncle’s books. She chooses one that looks pretty easy, but because the book’s pages turn every time she leaves to get more ingredients, she ends up putting bits and pieces of different spells together. Her spells does what she intends it to do, but the full results take some time.
Things get complicated when Charmaine has a terrifying encounter with a creature called a Lubbock while picking flowers in the mountains near the house. The Lubbock claims that it owns all the land around and everyone in it … including Charmaine. She has a narrow escape, getting away from the creature!
After she returns to the house, she meets a new arrival: Peter, Great Uncle William’s new apprentice. This unexpected guest gives Charmaine an extra responsibility. Peter is still pretty inexperienced with magic and often gets left and right mixed up, but even though he’s almost as inexperienced with everything as Charmaine, he is still company for her in this strange house. He recognizes that the reason why the house is so confusing and rooms seem to move around is that Great Uncle William has cast a spell on the house to bend space and include extra rooms in the house.
When Charmaine tells Peter about her encounter with the Lubbock, he is alarmed. The two of them research Lubbocks in Great Uncle William’s books, and what they learn is horrifying. Lubbocks need human hosts to reproduce, and those hosts die. The Lubbock offspring are also evil. While a full Lubbock looks like a purple insect, a human and Lubbock hybrid will have purple eyes. Charmaine and Peter reassure themselves that neither of them shows any sign of being part Lubbock. However, even with her aunt and mother coming to check on her, Charmaine isn’t prepared to let her fear of the Lubbock ruin her first experience with independence.
To her surprise, the king also accepts her application to work in the royal library! The cataloging work in the library isn’t quite as much fun as she had imagined it would be because much of it is routine documents, but Charmaine learns that the king and his daughter are searching for some very important documents. Before he went away, Great Uncle William was also helping them. Now, the princess has called in an old friend of hers, Sophie Pendragon, wife of the Royal Wizard Howl of Ingary. There is a plot against the royal family which has kept them poor. Not all of the royal family is what they seem to be, and some of the secrets of the past are hidden in Great Uncle William’s unusual house.
The book is available to borrow and read for free online through Internet Archive (multiple copies).
My Reaction
Some of the characters in this book other than Sophie, Howl, and Calcifer were introduced in the previous book in the series. The elderly princess was one of the princesses kidnapped by the djinn, which is how she met Sophie. The king’s cook, Jamal, and his dog were also introduced in Castle in the Air. However, Charmaine is definitely the main character of the story, along with Peter as her sidekick and main helper. The other characters are there for support. Howl and Sophie help Charmaine by providing her with information that she wouldn’t have had otherwise, and Calcifer destroys some of the threats because only a fire demon is powerful enough to do it. Howl is in the castle in disguise because, as one of the royal wizards of another country, it wouldn’t be right for him to seem to be working for the royal family of another country. Unlike in Castle in the Air, though, readers know right away what Howl’s disguise is, and it’s played for comedy. The villains of the story aren’t too difficult to spot once they appear. What is more mysterious is what the king is searching before and what happened to it.
Charmaine’s self-discovery is a major part of the story. Charmaine knows from the beginning that she has lived a very sheltered life because of her mother’s standards for what is “respectable” and proper for a young girl like her. She has already decided that she doesn’t agree with all of her mother’s ideas and that she wants some independence. To her credit, although she does resent some of the routine chores she has to do while taking care of Great Uncle William’s house, she is determined to learn what what she has to learn to achieve some independence and do some of the things she really wants to do. Peter knows more about some things than Charmaine does, like how to do dishes and laundry, so he is some help to her, but he has only recently left home to take up his apprenticeship, so there are things that he doesn’t know, either. Neither one of them knows how to cook, so they turn to Charmaine’s father for advice and recipes. Charmaine’s father is more broad-minded than her mother, so he is willing to help. Charmaine also gradually learns to get along with Peter, and they learn how to consider each other’s feelings and allow each other their own learning opportunities. At one point, Peter tidies up Charmaine’s room as a favor to her, but she is annoyed and tells him not to do that anymore because she wants to take care of her own things for herself.
From her own experimentation and from what her father tells her, Charmaine discovers that she has a natural talent for magic. She inherited her magical talent from her father, who admits to her that he has secretly been using his talent for making things in his bakery. He never tells his wife about his magic because she wouldn’t approve.
How Tia Lola Came to Visit Stay by Julia Alvarez, 2001.
After Miguel Guzman’s parents get divorced, Miguel’s mother moves from New York to a small town in Vermont with Miguel and his sister, Juanita, and invites her favorite aunt from the Dominican Republic, Tia Lola, to come stay with them and help raise the children. Miguel’s mother has gotten a job as a counselor at a small college in the area, and because of the hours she works, she asks her aunt to come and be with the kids. Miguel isn’t enthusiastic about the arrival of this aunt, who has to be called “tia”, the Spanish word for “aunt”, instead of “aunt” because she doesn’t speak English. Miguel and Juanita know some Spanish, but they’re more accustomed to English because they’ve always lived in the US.
The move from New York to Vermont isn’t easy because Miguel misses his father and New York City, and there are no other Latino families in this small town in Vermont, making Miguel feel like he doesn’t fit in. Some of the kids in Vermont don’t even know that Miguel is Latino, mistaking him for being from some other ethnic group or asking him uncomfortable questions about the way he looks and why his skin is darker than everyone else’s. He misses his old friends in New York and still doesn’t understand why his parents couldn’t just stay married instead of turning their lives upside down with this divorce.
When Tia Lola arrives, Miguel can’t think of anything else to say to her in Spanish except “Te quiero mucho” (“I love you a lot”), which is something his parents say to him. He’s a little embarrassed that he can’t think of anything else and that his sister is more bold with her Spanish, but Tia Lola appreciates the message and says that she loves both Miguel and Juanita, too. Miguel isn’t sure at first how long Tia Lola will be staying with them, but he’s astonished at the amount of luggage she’s brought. She says that she didn’t know what she would need in Vermont, so she brought a little of everything. Among her belongings are potions because Tia Lola practices santeria, particularly related to healing. Miguel’s mother explains that Tia Lola is something like a doctor, but with magic. Juanita thinks that sounds exciting, and she can’t wait to tell other kids about her magical aunt when school starts again after the winter break, but Miguel hopes nobody else finds out about Tia Lola.
Miguel thinks that people will think Tia Lola is crazy for thinking that she can do magic and for her other odd habits. The beauty mark on her face tends to change positions because she keeps forgetting where she put it last time. She refuses to even learn English, saying that Spanish is easier, and if Americans are so clever, how come they haven’t realized that? Miguel dreads what the kids at school will say about Tia Lola because they already tease him about other things. They call him “Goose man” because of his last name and quack at him. (Yes, I know geese honk and ducks quack, but the kids apparently don’t.) Miguel knows that the kids are just trying to have fun, but all the teasing makes him feel really uncomfortable, like he’s always going to be an outsider. Tia Lola is a colorful but eccentric character. A couple of boys from the Little League team at school mistake her for a ghost when they drop by the house because she’s dressed oddly and is carrying a brazier for doing one of her spells to rid the house of evil spirits. Apparently, there were already some local rumors about the house being haunted before they moved in, and Miguel lets the other boys believe that they really saw a ghost for awhile because he can’t think how to explain what Tia Lola was actually doing. At first, Miguel hopes that Tia Lola’s visit will just be temporary so no one will find out who Tia Lola really is and tease him about her. However, he gradually becomes fond of her and comes to reconsider himself whether or not Tia Lola’s “magic” really works.
As the family settles into their new home and the children get used to Tia Lola, they have to sort out some problems and learn how to live with each other. When Tia Lola realizes that Miguel seems embarrassed by her, her feelings are hurt, but Miguel finds a way to let her know that he’s glad she came. Miguel loves the stories that Tia Lola tells them about their relatives and legends of the Dominican Republic, like la ciguapa, a story that Miguel puts to his own use. (I love books with references to folklore and legends!) When she finds out that Miguel wants to try out for Little League, she makes special foods for him to help him get stronger. When Miguel turns ten years old, Tia Lola helps to throw a surprise party for Miguel with the boys from Little League. Miguel is relieved when the boys accept Tia Lola and laugh about how they thought she was a ghost.
Tia Lola sometimes gets homesick for the Dominican Republic, but she begins making friends in Vermont, starting with a local restaurant owner who joins her for Spanish lessons and dancing lessons. Tia Lola points out that people can have fun together even when they don’t speak the same language. However, the kids begin giving her English lessons, and she starts to learn some phrases. Her first attempts to speak English in public don’t go well because, while the kids taught her to speak phrases, they didn’t make the meanings of the phrases clear. Tia Lola starts saying the wrong things at the wrong time until they find a way to help her understand what she’s really saying and when to say it.
Through it all, Miguel keeps wishing that, somehow, his parents could magically get back together. In spite of Tia Lola’s “magic”, Miguel’s life and his parents’ marriage don’t return to the way they were before. Everyone’s life changes. Miguel comes to realize that there can be good changes as well as bad, and some of the changes that seemed really bad at first turn out to be better than he thought. Tia Lola is one of the greatest good surprises of them all, and Miguel finds himself hoping that, rather than just staying for a short visit, Tia Lola will stay with them forever.
This book is the first of a series of stories about Tia Lola, and it is available to borrow and read for free online through Internet Archive (multiple copies).
My Reaction and Spoilers
There is an interesting element to this story that I didn’t fully appreciate until the second time around. The first time I read this book, I read it in Spanish, the only other language I know with any fluency besides English. When you read the book in English, there are English translations for the Spanish words and phrases that the children use with their aunt. I didn’t need English translations for these phrases because they were pretty simple, but they’re useful for anyone who doesn’t know Spanish or is just a beginner. (By the way, please excuse the fact that I haven’t placed the proper accent marks in the Spanish words. I know where they’re supposed to go, like the ‘i’ in “tia”, but I’ve been having trouble typing them on this keyboard. I can fix that when I figure out what the problem is.)
Because I grew up in the Southwestern US, I took Spanish classes all through school. It’s the most popular foreign language class in Arizona schools because there are people who commonly speak it around here. It’s a very useful skill to have. My speech has always been weaker than my reading ability because of the way classes are taught, and my speech practice has been irregular. I often read children’s books in Spanish to keep my vocabulary sharp, but when I try to speak, I’m often slow. In some ways, I understand how both Miguel and Tia Lola feel, trying to communicate when you’re still learning and you have an imperfect understanding of another language. One of the things I liked about this story is that it shows how it’s okay to start with an imperfect knowledge. In my experience, if you know some of another language, the other person will try to help you and meet you halfway. Even if you don’t say everything exactly right or you’re slow and clumsy, you can still find a way to get your point across, and the more you practice, the more you improve.
Miguel and Tia Lola go through that same process, starting out with communicating imperfectly and learning to meet each other halfway, not just with language but with learning to live together as family. Miguel’s mother says, “The easiest language to learn but the hardest to speak is mutual understanding.” Tia Lola seems to have a kind of magic about her, not the fairy tale kind, but the kind that comes from having a unique way of looking at things and from understanding people. She doesn’t magically have all of the answers, she makes embarrassing mistakes sometimes, and she can’t fix Miguel’s parents’ marriage, but she makes life better for the family by being there and caring.
When Miguel’s father finds out that Tia Lola is staying with them, he likes the idea because Tia Lola will help the children improve their Spanish, something that he also wants. Miguel confides his initial worries about Tia Lola and what the other kids will say about her to his father over the phone. Miguel’s father tells him that, if he is proud of himself and proud of his family, he shouldn’t care what other people think. It’s easier said than done with the other kids at school teasing Miguel all the time. Miguel’s father says that he’ll understand evenutally and also that accepting other people for who they are helps them become the best versions of themselves they can be. Miguel thinks about what his father has told him before about the harmful effects of stereotypes because people make unfair assumptions about other and the things other people have assumed about him because of his background. One kid at school told him that he was bound to make the Little League because his family is from the Dominican Republic, like his baseball hero Sammy Sosa, and that baseball must be in his blood, but Miguel knows that’s just a stereotype. Miguel’s father tells him that his skills at baseball are his own, not due to being from the Dominican Republic, and if he makes the team, it will be because his skills are good and he worked to develop them. It makes Miguel think about some of the things he’s been assuming unfairly about Tia Lola and what she’s like, and he begins looking at her in a different way.
The book ends at Christmas, one year after Miguel’s parents separated, they moved to Vermont, and Tia Lola came to stay with them. Miguel and his mother and sister accompany Tia Lola on a visit to the Dominican Republic, where he meets his other relatives and sees what Tia Lola’s original home is like. There, he makes it clear to her that he wants her to come stay with his family in Vermont permanently, and she decides that she wants to keep living with them, too.
The Magic Nation Thing by Zilpha Keatley Snyder, 2005.
Abigail O’Malley’s life was turned upside down when her parents divorced when she was in kindergarten. They sold the family home, and her father went to live in Los Angeles and pursue his law career while her mother opened a detective agency. Abby isn’t fond of her mother’s detective agency and has no such ambitions herself. In fact, she would be satisfied if she just has a nice, normal family someday. She misses the nice house where her family used to live and doesn’t like the shabby Victorian house where she and her mother now live and use as the office of the detective agency. Abby envies her friend, Paige Borden, whose family has plenty of money and who life a much more “normal” life. Abby’s mother, Dorcas, isn’t too enamored of the Bordens, thinking that the family is boring. She wishes that Abby would become interested in joining her detective agency someday because the truth is that Abby isn’t quite normal herself, although she doesn’t like to think about it much.
Abby’s mother, Dorcas, says that Abby has an ability to notice information that other people miss, but that’s not quite it. Dorcas says that people in her family have had a “gift” for doing unusual things, like reading people’s minds or finding missing objects. Dorcas is convinced that Abby has inherited this “gift.” However, Abby denies having any such “gift.” As far as she’s concerned, she just occasionally gets hunches about things, and once or twice, they’ve turned out to be right. Abby resents the idea of a special gift partly because she thinks that her mother’s crazy desire to be a detective has something to do with her belief that she also has this special gift, and Abby doesn’t think she does. Abby doesn’t like to think about any of her relatives having been that strange. She just wants a normal family, like Paige’s.
However, Abby’s gift is re-awoken when her mother accepts a case involving a missing girl, who is believed to have been kidnapped by her own father because her parents are divorced. When Abby holds a locket belonging to the little girl, she begins to have visions, not unlike visions that she’s had at other times in the past. Mrs. Watson, who owned the day care that Abby used to attend said these vision episodes were just her imagination, which Abby used to think of as her “Magic Nation.” Abby has spent years trying to ignore it, but this is one of those times when it’s impossible to ignore. Abby has a vision of the little girl at Disneyland with her father. At first, Abby doesn’t want to admit the existence of this vision, but thinking about how worried the girl’s mother is, Abby casually suggests to her mother that, if the girl was taken in a custody dispute, her father might have decided to take her somewhere fun, like Disneyland, to try to win the girl’s favor so she’d want to stay with him. Her mother follows up on the hint, and with the help of the police, the girl is found and reunited with her mother.
That’s the end of the kidnapping case, but it’s only the beginning of Abby’s acknowledgement of her “gift.” Dorcas’s success in the kidnapping case brings more business to her detective agency. As Dorcas gets busier, Abby feels neglected, but Paige’s mother offers to look after her after school to help out, helping Dorcas to feel better about Abby’s friendship with the Bordens. Abby enjoys spending more time with Paige after school, and the girls even start getting along better with Paige’s annoying younger brothers, Sky and Woody. The youngest boy, Sky, particularly comes to like Abby when Abby intervenes after he makes the family’s intimidating cook angry by spilling juice in the kitchen. Abby sensed the boy’s fear and went to the kitchen to find out what happened. Although Abby still wonders how much of her “hunches” are really due to some kind of “gift” because they don’t work all the time, she increasingly realizes that what she still thinks of as her “Magic Nation thing” is not something that she can simply ignore.
Paige is fascinated by Abby’s mother’s work, and she particularly idolizes her pretty assistant, nicknamed Tree. When Abby tells her that her mother and Tree are investigating a case of arson, Paige talks her into coming with her on a little stakeout of their own, which messes up Tree’s actual stakeout and Dorcas’s plans. Dorcas is angry with the girls, and Abby finds herself using her “Magic Nation thing” to try to learn something about the arsonist and make up for ruining the stakeout. Abby does discover who the arsonist is, although she still doubts the reality of her “hunches.” When she shares that information with Tree, Tree also becomes aware of what Abby can do. Tree has known that Abby sometimes gets “hunches” about things, and although Abby still isn’t sure what to think about them, Tree says she’s noticed that Abby’s hunches pay off more than her mother’s do. Then, after the arsonist is caught and Paige goes overboard in her idolizing of Tree for catching the arsonist, Abby lets it slip that she was the one who figured out who the arsonist was.
Abby had been trying to keep this weird and questionable “gift” a secret, but once she tells Paige that she was the one who found the arsonist, she has to explain how she did it. To Abby’s surprise, Paige believes her about the “Magic Nation thing” and thinks it’s really cool. She’s noticed before that there are times when Abby seems to know things that other people don’t or learns things more quickly that most, and Paige thinks that’s a product of her “Magic Nation.” Paige is so enthusiastic about Abby’s “gift” that she thinks the two of them should start their own detective agency, and she starts trying to find cases for them to solve. Paige’s efforts to find an exciting mystery for Abby to solve don’t lead to much, and Abby finds herself doubting her “gift” and its usefulness again.
Then, Abby goes on a ski trip with Paige and her family, and young Sky disappears. Abby realizes that, whether or not her “gift” is real or reliable, she has to try again for Sky’s sake.
The book is available to borrow and read for free online through Internet Archive (multiple copies).
My Reaction
I like Zilpha Keatley Snyder books. She’s also the author of The Headless Cupid. This story is well-written and fun to read, and I enjoyed seeing how Abby comes to understand and accept her “gift” and make it work for her. I particularly liked the way that Abby comes to understand her “gift” and accept its limitations. There are points when Paige is disappointed or angry that Abby can’t use it to come up with all of the answers that she wants on demand, but Abby can’t make the “gift” do what her friend wants, and she makes it clear that Paige is going to have to accept that. Sometimes, Abby isn’t even interested in trying to use her gift in the way Paige wants, just like she isn’t really interested in using her gift to follow her mother’s profession. Abby comes to realize that an important part of learning to live with her gift is making it clear that this “Magic Nation thing” belongs to her – it’s her gift, to use or not use, as well as she can, in whatever way she sees fit. It’s her right to create her own boundaries, even refusing to talk about her “gift” when she doesn’t want to. The “Magic Nation thing” can’t be forced, and Abby herself won’t be pushed or bullied, either. This personal development is actually a bigger part of the plot than any of the mysteries that Abby solves or attempts to solve.
We don’t know what will happen with Abby and her “gift” after the story ends. There are hints that Abby might be willing to use her powers again, if the situation is important enough and she’s still able to do it. It seems that her mother no longer gets the visions that she used to get when she was Abby’s age, which is why her “hunches” don’t work out as well as Abby’s do now. Dorcas isn’t going to be able to rely on her “powers” to make her a great detective, but Abby comes to appreciate that her mother still enjoys her work and is pretty good at it, not because she’s relying on psychic powers, but because she works hard and is attentive to details. It’s possible that Abby’s powers will also fade as she grows up, but even if they do, it will be okay because Abby can also have a fulfilling life doing the things she loves and is good at. Dorcas is still more enamored of the idea of their shared “gift” than Abby is, but the reality is that neither of them really needs to rely on it. It might be there in the future, if they need it, but it’s not their only strength.
There are some contemporary cultural references in this story that help set the time of the story. Paige is a Harry Potter fan, Abby says that she has some Lemony Snicket books, and they refer to Jennifer Lopez, the Olsen Twins, Leonardo di Caprio, and Britney Spears.
The Mystery of the Mummy’s Curse by Gertrude Chandler Warner, 2002.
The Alden children are at the museum to get a sneak preview of the new Egyptian exhibit because the man in charge of the exhibit is the son of one of their grandfather’s friends. When he shows them the mummy that will be the centerpiece of the exhibit, one of his assistants accidentally falls off a stepladder and breaks her ankle. The museum personnel joke that it’s the “mummy’s curse,” although they quickly reassure the children that they don’t believe in curses.
With the opening of the exhibit coming soon, there’s a lot of work to do, including cleaning up the exhibit hall where it will be set up. Losing the assistant has left the museum short-handed, so the Aldens volunteer to help with the cleaning and setting up.
However, the children notice other odd things about the exhibit when they’re helping to clean up. They hear strange noises, as if someone were creeping around the off-limits areas where the artifacts are being stored and the exhibit getting set up. Then, some of the artifacts that they noticed when they were first introduced to the exhibit disappear. When they check to see what else is missing, they realize that some of the artifacts they’ve seen aren’t even listed on the official roster. Jessie tries making her own list of artifacts in the exhibit, since the master list isn’t reliable, but someone steals it.
Who is stealing from the Egyptian exhibit?
The book is available to borrow and read for free online through Internet Archive.
My Reaction
I enjoyed the mystery. I was pretty sure that I knew early on who was responsible for the thefts, but mysteries involving museums, mummies, and stolen artifacts are my cup of tea!
I did think, as I was reading this, that few museums would let random kids help set up an exhibit like this, including valuable artifacts, even if most of what they were doing is just cleaning up. In the story, the eldest of the Alden children is 14, and I’ve done enough volunteer work to know that there are age limits and training requirements for certain volunteer tasks. There are really only two reasons why kids like the Aldens would be doing this. One, the requirements of the story: having the kids help set up an exhibit of Egyptian artifacts is exciting, something that plenty of kids would find fascinating, and it allows them to be in the right place to notice the thefts. Two, Grandfather Alden is rich: if the children’s grandfather wasn’t rich and well-connected, the Aldens wouldn’t be doing most of what they do in the stories. The second reason isn’t as charming as the first, and it never occurred to me when I was younger that the Aldens are actually very privileged to be in the position to do the things they do and meet the people they meet, but they are.
I wouldn’t say that the knowledge spoils the story for me, but it did make me stop and think. Sometimes, when adults, especially older adults, look back on books like the Boxcar children series, they talk about how independent the kids in these stories are and how willing to work, but the truth is that, in most of the stories, the kids’ grandfather sets them up with the opportunities for volunteer work or independence that the children have. The kids didn’t get this volunteer position because it’s an extension of special classes any of them are taking in history or archaeology or because they’ve done lower-level volunteer work for the museum before, working their way up, or because they applied for the position. They got it because of someone their grandfather knows. The Alden children are still willing to take advantage of opportunities that come their way and work hard at them and learn whatever they can, but when you think about it, it’s not quite the same as people who have to prove themselves and their merits first just to get the opportunity to do the same thing. So, I enjoy the story for the fun and mystery, but thinking about it now, as an adult who has done volunteer work for museums as well, I’m not quite so impressed with the way other, older adults compare the characters to real kids of non-rich, non-connected parents.
There are still volunteer opportunities for youths who want to get involved in museum work, but most of them require the kids to be older teens. One of the reasons for the age requirements is that there can be liability issues if someone gets hurt on the job, but people who hire volunteers also want to know about the skills the volunteers have, what kind of training they’ve had or need, and how much they can alreay do unsupervised. Rules can vary by location and position, but in the places I’ve been, kids under 14 are usually required to be supervised by an adult, 18 or over. Often, teens who do those sorts of jobs have already proved their skills or worked their way up in some way, applying for volunteer jobs and discussing their skills, taking related classes, being part of museum programs for younger children before, and/or volunteering in tandem with a parent first. The same is true of other places where I’ve volunteered, like animal shelters. So, the kids who seem more independent are that way because the adults in their lives took them through the preparation and training first and helped them connect with people who could take them further. This is a fun mystery story, but just understand that real children often aren’t like kids in mystery adventure books because they are real people in the real world, where circumstances are different from the ones in fiction. Real life has rules and regulations, and not everybody has a rich grandfather or family friends who are willing to treat them as special exceptions to the rules. If you want to see the kids around you get involved in a cause like this and gain some skills, the best way to go about it is to get involved yourself, both with the cause and with the lives of the kids, and give them the training and knowledge they need to go further on their own. Things like this don’t just happen on their own.
Kathy is spending some time with her mother at the lake while her mother takes care of a friend’s lodge there. Kathy’s great-grandmother and her brother used to live in the area, and her mother used to visit the lake regularly as a little girl. Soon after she arrives, Kathy meets a new friend, Drew, a boy who lives with his older brother and is self-conscious about his asthma. While the two of them are by the lake, Kathy thinks that she keeps seeing a raft that nobody else can spot. Later, she sees the ghost of a young girl in a ragged dress with a blue aura around her.
Drew writes a small local newsletter, and when Kathy accompanies him to interview an elderly woman, she learns that years ago, her great-granduncle, Duncan, was involved in the disappearance of the woman’s older sister. Ruby Faye’s body was never found, but people believe that she must be dead, assuming that she must have drowned in the lake. They believed that Duncan must have somehow caused Ruby Faye to drown because he was with her at the time. Although Duncan had a reputation as being a bit of a hooligan, Kathy can’t believe that he would have harmed the girl, named Ruby Faye, or let her drown in the lake if he could have prevented it. Duncan himself lost the ability to speak because of whatever happened that day, so he could never explain to anyone what really happened, but it must have been something terrible to send him into such a shocked state. About a year later, Duncan died young of an illness without regaining the ability to speak.
Before Ruby Faye died, the water in the cove had been clear, and the place was called Sunny Bay. Since then, the water turned dark and cloudy, giving Black Water Cove its new name. Kathy is sure that the ghost girl she’s been seeing is Ruby Faye, and she thinks the girl’s spirit is trying to tell her the truth behind her mysterious disappearance.
The book is available to borrow and read for free online through Internet Archive.
My Reaction and Spoilers:
I enjoyed this spooky book for the mystery it poses about the disappearance of a young girl many years before. Because Kathy has been seeing her ghost, readers know that she must have died, but there is still the mystery of how it happened and what left Duncan so traumatized. I love mystery stories, and this story was also interesting for me because it turns out that the secret of Ruby Faye’s disappearance relates to a real historical event. Duncan and Kathy’s other relatives lived in the area during the famous 1906 earthquake that struck Northern California. Ruby Faye disappeared the day after it happened.
Spoilers
Ruby Faye and Duncan had been in love. Duncan had a raft that Ruby Faye helped him build, and when she disappeared, most people assumed that he had been goofing off on the raft and caused her to drown. In fact, Ruby Faye did not drown at all; she died from a fall. When Kathy goes to the spot by the lake where Duncan had left his raft years ago, she sees their spirits act out what happened that day.
Like Drew, Duncan had a handicap that made him self-conscious: one of his legs was shorter than the other, and he couldn’t walk without a crutch. On the day after the earthquake, he and Ruby Faye were playing by the lake. She was making a garland of flowers. She decided to go up the nearby mountainside and get some more flowers. Duncan warned her not to go because the place was dangerous, but she just laughed it off. Shortly after she left Duncan, he heard her scream for help. Duncan tried to go to her, but his crutch had fallen off the raft, and he couldn’t find it. He tried to get up the mountainside anyway, but he couldn’t manage it. There was no one else around to help. While Duncan didn’t cause the accident that befell Ruby Faye, Duncan’s guilt and helpless anger at not being able to save Ruby Faye robbed him of his ability to speak.
Kathy ventures up the mountainside herself to see where Ruby Faye went when she screamed and disappeared, and just as Ruby Faye did herself, falls into an open mine shaft. The earthquake opened it up the day before Ruby Faye went there in 1906, but no one thought to look for her there because they were sure she had fallen in the lake. Kathy manages to hang on until her dog alerts people to her danger, and they come to help her. Drew is the first person to see Kathy’s dog, but like Duncan, he is unable to save Kathy himself because he gets upset and brings on an asthma attack. However, he manages to get help from his brother and Kathy’s mother. After Kathy tells Ruby Faye’s sister what really happened, the water in the bay clears, and Kathy sees the spirits of Ruby Faye and Duncan, happily floating together on their raft.
Jestress's Forgotten Books and Stories 