Posted on by TracyC · 1 Comment

Who Was That Masked Man, Anyway?

Who Was That Masked Man, Anyway? by Avi, 1992.

World War II is happening, but Frankie Wattleson mostly spends his time thinking about his favorite radio shows, like Captain Midnight, The Shadow, The Lone Ranger, and The Green Hornet. He spends a lot of his time listening to radio shows and daydreaming about them, and his parents and teacher are getting concerned about him. He doesn’t do his homework, just copying his friend Mario’s homework because he’s too busy with his favorite radio shows. He and Mario get caught reading radio fan magazines in class, when they’re supposed to be reading the class reader. Frankie keeps narrating his life like it’s a radio show or talking like a radio advertisement, and even Mario is getting annoyed with him.

Frankie gets Mario into trouble with escapades that he tries to act out like they’re radio shows, like when he sneaks Mario into his family’s house so they can sneak into the bedroom of the medical student who’s renting Frankie’s brother’s room while he’s away in the army. The boys wanted to get a look at the skeleton that the medical student keeps in his room, but the medical student catches them and reports them to Frankie’s mother. Frankie’s parents try to impress on him that his behavior is serious. His father works hard at two jobs and is frequently tired, his brother is away at war, and their boarder provides their family with another source of needed income. They don’t want to lose him as a boarder. Frankie’s mother forbids him to listen to the radio for a week, but he sneaks listening to the radio by visiting Mario and listening to his radio. The boys sneak back and forth between their houses, using a board between their bedroom windows.

Then, Frankie’s parents tell him that his brother, Tom, is coming home from the army. Tom has been wounded, and Frankie is thrilled at Tom coming home as a wounded hero. Frankie’s parents try to explain to him the reality of Tom’s condition. They don’t know how serious his wound is, but they know that he will need peace and to recover. At first, Frankie thinks that his parents will get rid of the medical student boarding with them so Tom can have his room back, but to his horror, his parents tell him that’s not the case. They still need the money from their board badly, so they’re giving Tom Frankie’s room.

Frankie protests that it’s not fair for him to have to give up his room, but his parents say it’s necessary. When Tom comes home, he’ll need quiet and privacy. Frankie asks where he’ll be sleeping, and his father says that they’re going to make up a new bedroom for him in the basement. It sounds terrible to Frankie. The basement is dark and smelly, and if Frankie goes down there, he won’t have his radio or the board for crossing over to Mario’s room. It’s like being sent to a dungeon!

However, when Frankie and Mario look through the stuff in the basement, they find what looks like some kind of old radio! Frankie’s father says that it used to belong to his Uncle Charlie. Frankie doesn’t remember Uncle Charlie, but his father is tired and doesn’t want to talk about him. Frankie isn’t good at fixing things, but he persuades Mario to help him repair the radio. It turns out to be a different kind of radio than Frankie thought, the kind for sending and receiving messages, not the kind of listening to radio shows. Still, Frankie thinks maybe Mario can help him use it to listen to the radio in Mario’s room when his family bans him from using the radio in their house.

When Tom arrives home, he’s different from how Frankie imagined he would be as a returning hero. He is wounded in the leg and uses a crutch to walk. He’s quiet and depressed, and he doesn’t want to go anywhere, do much of anything, or see anyone. Frankie, who is caught up in the ideas of the adventure stories that he listens to on the radio, tries to get Tom to tell him what the war was like and what it was like being wounded, thinking that the stories will be exciting, but Tom tells him he doesn’t want to talk about it.

The idea of having an adventure and being a hero is what keeps Frankie so enthralled with radio shows. His daydreaming and narrating his adventures with Mario as if they were a radio play is all based around his desire to be a hero and escape from the dull or difficult parts of his real life. The problem is that Frankie doesn’t know what it takes to be a real hero or what real-life “adventures” are actually like, and even when he tries to ignore real life, it doesn’t ignore him. His attempts to live out the adventures he imagines go awry, and his teacher makes it clear that, if he doesn’t start paying attention to reality, he’s going to fail the sixth grade.

My Reaction

I didn’t read this when I was a kid, although I loved historical novels and books by Avi. The boy in this story has an obsession with radio plays the way kids of my time sometimes got obsessed with tv shows. His family, his teacher, and even his best friend know that Frankie’s taking his obsession too far, but Frankie uses his love of radio to both hide from difficult things in real life and to imagine that he can be a hero, like the heroes on the radio.

In between parts of the story, there are interludes with snippets of radio programs and advertisements, showing readers what Frankie’s listening to and where he gets his ideas. I’m a fan of radio plays myself, so I was already familiar with some of the programs that Frankie listens to and their general style. I could recognize many of the tropes of the radio plays in Frankie’s fantasies from the beginning.

Frankie’s radio-based exploits are amusing, but also cringey because readers as well as Frankie’s family and teacher know that he’s headed for trouble by not paying attention to reality. Even his best friend is losing patience with him. I kept waiting for the moment when he would snap out of it and accept some of the hard realities around him. There is a moment when he does get a dose of reality that shatters some of his illusions, the moment when he meets is Uncle Charlie. Up to that point, Frankie was working his Uncle Charlie into his fantasies, imagining him as some kind of secret hero, but Uncle Charlie’s secrets turn out to be more ordinary and not at all romantic or noble. Uncle Charlie accepts the reality of his own situation for what it is, and he knows things ahead of him will be hard and that he has himself to blame for what his life is now. Frankie finds it hard to hear, and his brother’s confession of what war is really like similarly shatter’s some of Frankie’s illusions. It makes him realize that he’s made some mistakes in his thinking and plotting, and Frankie does try to put an end to a romantic scheme that he’s put in motion. However, Frankie’s scheme, while causing chaos, does actually result in a happy ending, so he is able to maintain some of his fantasies and illusions, even in the end.

This story contrasts with another by the same author, Don’t You Know There’s a War On?, which is also about a boy growing up in the United States during WWII, coming to terms with the effects of the war on daily life and the people around him, and indulging in a little fantasy and adventure based on radio plays and popular entertainment of the time. The difference between these two stories is that the boy in Don’t You Know There’s a War On? is more realistic in his views that Frankie is in this story. Both of them are inspired by radio play adventures, but the boy in Don’t You Know There’s a War On? isn’t living in a fantasy world as much as Frankie is and is more open to accepting the mundane and hard realities of life once he understands some of the situations around him.

Posted on by TracyC

Listen for the Singing

Listen for the Singing by Jean Little, 1977.

This book is the sequel to From Anna. In the previous book, Anna’s family moved from Germany to Canada both to claim an inheritance from a relative and also to escape the Nazis, whose hold has been increasingly tightening on their country. The inheritance isn’t large, mostly just a house and a small grocery store, but it offers the family a chance to start over, away from the Nazis. Anna, the youngest of her siblings was often clumsy and had learning difficulties that her family did not understand. They were often rough, critical, and impatient with her. However, in Canada, Anna has her first thorough physical with a doctor, who reveals to Anna’s startled parents that Anna has an extremely low level of vision, to the point where she is almost blind. For the first time, Anna gets powerful glasses and special classes that help her to cope with her disability and catch up on the learning she’s missed. Anna’s family repents of how hard they were on her when they didn’t understand her problem, and Anna realizes that she is capable of more than she had ever imagined possible.

The sequel begins about 5 years after the previous book, in the fall of 1939. Anna has been wearing glasses for years now, and she’s adjusted to them well. However, changes are coming for her and her family. She is about to leave the special program that she’s been in for students with vision problems and attend a regular high school. She remembers that she used to have problems in regular classes when she lived in Germany, and she worries that she won’t be able to cope with regular classes. Her family, friends, and teacher all remind her, though, that she’s learned things in the last few years that will help her to do much better now. Her teacher says that she’s ready to move on. Anna gets upset when she learns that her friend Isobel from her old school will be going to a different high school, but Anna’s oldest sister, Gretchen, points out that she won’t be alone in high school. Rudi has already graduated from high school, but Gretchen will still be there, and so will the twins. Gretchen says that she will help Anna register on the first day and help her find her way around.

Anna has also begun to worry about her father, who has been distracted by the news they’ve been hearing about the impending war. Her family left Germany partly because they were worried about the direction it was heading under Hitler and the Nazis, and it seems that everything they worried about is now coming true. Then, they hear on the radio that Britain has now declared war on Germany (marking the beginning of the book as September 1939). The onset of war changes things for the family and creates tensions for them among the people in Canada.

When Anna goes to the first day of high school, she learns that her homeroom teacher will be Mr. Lloyd. Her siblings have had Mr. Lloyd as a teacher, and Anna already knows that he’s mean. He plays favorites in class, even though he teaches world history, he doesn’t actually know much about history. Rudi embarrassed him when he was a student, pointing out things he got wrong, and Mr. Lloyd has no love for him or any of the other Solden siblings. Worse still, Mr. Lloyd has a severe prejudice against students with German last names, asking them in class where they were born and if they were proud of their “Fatherland.”

Anna is upset when she is one of the students he singles out, and she’s not sure what to say, but a couple of other students in class speak up to shut him down. Paula voluntarily tells him that, while her mother is Scottish, she was born in Austria … the same place where Hitler comes from. Mr. Lloyd is taken aback, and Anna is surprised both at how bold Paula is and that Mr. Lloyd doesn’t punish her for talking about. Paula later tells her that her mother works for the local school board and has a reputation for standing up for kids who are bullied by teachers, and Mr. Lloyd knows who she is. He has to be careful what he says to Paula or in her presence, or her mother will deal with him. The other student who spoke up is the son of the local alderman, so his father also has influence. Mr. Lloyd could be risking his job if he pushes them too far or says too much in front of them that they might report to their parents.

Anna is grateful to Paula for her intervention, and she also appreciates some help she gets from Paula’s best friend, Maggie. The girls and their other friend, Suzy, make it a point to walk with her to their next classes when Anna explains that she’s been having trouble getting around because she can’t see well. The four girls become friends, and Anna is happy that she already has a friend group at school on the first day.

However, Anna is still troubled about Mr. Lloyd and his targeting of kids with German backgrounds. When she gets home from school and tells her oldest brother, Rudi, what happened, Rudi gets so upset that he goes to his room and refuses to talk anybody. When Anna walks down to the store that her parents manage, she sees Gretchen upset and arguing with their parents about her name. One of her new teachers is also targeting students with German names and gave her a hard time about being called “Gretchen” when the English version of her first name is “Margaret.” At first, Gretchen tries to persuade her parents that she should change her name to Margaret, but after she calms down a little, Gretchen realizes that a name change isn’t really going to solve the problem. There isn’t really anything she could do to make this teacher like her because the teacher is severely paranoid about Germans and talks about how there are German spies everywhere.

Dr. Schumacher, Anna’s family’s doctor and friend, has also experienced some of the same sentiment that the children are experiencing at school. He’s lost at least one of his patients, who no longer trusts him because of his German background, and Anna overhears some of his other patients gossiping about him and speculating on whether or not he’ll serve in the armed forces. Dr. Schumacher tells Anna and his wife that he isn’t overly concerned about these gossipy women, and he doesn’t consider the patient who switched doctors to be a big loss. He, like other young men, feels called to do something about the situation happening around them, but he cannot join the army because he has a heart murmur from having had rheumatic fever when he was younger. His wife (who is also Anna’s former teacher) is relieved that the army has rejected him because they are also expecting a baby.

As Anna and her new friends get to know each other better, Maggie and Paula ask Anna questions about her vision problems. At first, Suzy doesn’t think it’s kind to ask too many questions about it, and the talk of disabilities seems to make her uncomfortable, but the others let her know that she’s misread the room. Rather than finding it uncomfortable to talk about who vision problems, Anna is actually relieved that she can open up about it and that having these problems isn’t regarded as a shameful secret, and Maggie and Paula say that they genuinely want to know what Anna is experiencing so they can help her when she needs it. Anna admits that, sometimes, she’s not even entirely sure when she needs help because, not being able to see certain things, she doesn’t always know what she’s missing. When Anna needs to use alternate materials in class because of her vision problems, she is nervous that Mr. Lloyd will yell at her or bully her, knowing how he feels about students with German backgrounds, but to her surprise, he doesn’t. In fact, he proves very helpful and supportive to her. Mr. Lloyd treats Anna with more consideration than other students because he understands the nature of Anna’s visual problems better than most.

When Anna has trouble in algebra, her father suggests that she talk to her brother, Rudi, who is a math whiz. However, Anna hesitates to ask him for help because Rudi always used to tease her about her awkwardness, worse than her other siblings. She finds it hard to admit to him that she needs help with anything else. When she does ask him, though, Rudi enjoys teaching Anna about his favorite subject, and he even helps her with other things to help her fit in at high school, like teaching her how to dance and encouraging her to get her hair done.

As the story continues, the war increasingly becomes a larger part of everyone’s life. Anna’s father is upset because word reaches him that his sister was arrested in Germany for being a housekeeper for an elderly Jewish man, who was also arrested. At school, the principal makes a speech on Armistice Day where he acknowledges that the war is going to have a profound effect on all of the students and that they will have to grow up faster because of it. As part of the speech, he quotes a preacher who said, “Faith is when you hear the bird singing before the egg is hatched.” This phrase is what gives the book its title because the principal urges the students to “listen for the singing”, to look to the potentials of the future and have faith that they will get through the crisis that is enveloping the world and that the world contains better things.

Anna tries to discuss the idea of imaging how things will be or could be, like hearing the bird sing before the egg hatches, with Rudi, but he doesn’t understand. Rudi seems like he has a promising future ahead of him. He’s already started college and has a talent for mathematics and engineering. He really enjoys college, but at the same time, with so many other young men like himself preparing for war, he feels the pull to join them. When they hear of their aunt’s arrest in Germany, it only makes it worse. Rudi can’t stop thinking about people he knows back in Germany whose lives have already been affected by the Nazis – people who have fled, been arrested, or simply disappeared. He also thinks of the headmaster of their old school back in Germany, who was known to be a Nazi, and how afraid all the children were of him. Rudi decides that he can’t stand back and let people like that win, so he joins the navy against his parents’ wishes.

It turns out to be a disastrous decision. Rudi is still in Canada when he suffers an accident where cleaning fluid is splashed into his eyes, leaving him blind. The doctors don’t believe that Rudi will ever regain his sight. Although Rudi tries to act brave and calm about his new disability, Anna can see that he’s suffering. Having learned to come out of her shell and cope with her own disability, she has a sense of how difficult this is for Rudi, who is usually accustomed to being able to do things pretty easily. Anna realizes how serious Rudi’s mental state is when she hears him crying one night and even praying to die. Anna knows that Rudi needs help, both physically and mentally. He’s suffered a terrible loss, and he feels like his life is over because he can’t see a way forward. Anna has to help him “listen for the singing”, to envision the possibilities.

The book is available to borrow and read for free online through Internet Archive (multiple copies).

My Reaction and Some Spoilers

From Anna told a complete story by itself, but I still enjoyed this new story with Anna and her family. It was nice to see Anna making progress in school and life, finding new friends, and her family treating her better. Because her mother and siblings treated her badly for years before they realized that Anna was slow and clumsy because she couldn’t see, there are some lingering feelings that affect their relationships. Anna’s mother and siblings have repented about their treatment of Anna and have become much more helpful, supportive, and considerate, but Anna still has some lingering fear of Rudi, who was always the one who was the meanest to her. However, even he admits that he regrets his past behavior. Even before he is afflicted with his own disability, he makes it a point to help Anna with her math lessons, learning to dance, and going to her first hair appointment.

Rudi becomes much more thoughtful and mature in this book. He especially comes to appreciate Anna when Anna helps him through the shock and depression after the accident that leaves him blind. When the story ends, it’s still at the beginning of the war, and we don’t know the ultimate fates of many of the characters. The war is just starting to change people’s lives. We know that, like Rudi, many of them will end up marked for life in some way by the things that are about to happen. Some of the other characters in the book see family members going off to war, and we have no idea whether they will come back or not. Mr. Lloyd comes out of his shell a little around Anna because they come to understand one another, thanks to their shared disability. It turns out that Mr. Lloyd’s vision is also very poor, much more than most of his students know, making him sympathetic to Anna. At the end of the story, things are looking brighter for Rudi, as he realizes that his life isn’t over, and there are ways he can cope with his new blindness and continue the studies he initially abandoned to join the navy. We only get to see the beginning of the war, but it’s enough to show us that it’s going to have a profound change on people in many ways before it’s over. Like Anna, readers must also “listen for the singing” to imagine how the characters will continue forward from this point. There will be hard things because of the war, but also hopeful developments in the character’s lives.

I enjoy the literary references in the story. During the story, Anna is reading the book A Girl of the Limberlost, and Anna enjoys studying Emily Dickinson’s poems. Anna also mentions other books she’s reading and bits of poetry or book characters, like Little Lord Fauntleroy. The movie The Wizard of Oz is playing in theaters at the time of the story, and Anna and her friends go to see it.

People With Visual Impairment

As in the first book, there’s information about people coping with forms of visual impairment, based on the author’s own experiences, growing up with low level vision. There’s also a lot about the attitudes the main character witnesses toward people with disabilities and her own feelings about the ways people treat her and how she wants to be treated. Some people, like Suzy, try too hard to shield Anna from public scrutiny by trying to avoid mentioning her disability or shutting down questions about it, but Anna actually prefers to discuss her vision with people who genuinely care and are trying to help her.

Anna is surprised at how much Mr. Lloyd helps her when everyone knows that he has anti-German sentiment. In fact, he goes out of his way to make sure that Anna has what she needs, sometimes even before she asks. Anna realizes why he is so helpful to her when she looks at the notes on his desk, which are printed larger for him, the way that he ensures Anna’s test materials are printed. The truth is that Mr. Lloyd also has low level vision. He covers up for his disability, but he privately admits to Anna that he also struggled when he was young. His parents got him a private tutor because his vision was so bad, and he admits to Anna that he’s impressed at how well she does in a standard school. Mr. Lloyd has strong feelings about some things, but Anna realizes that he’s also a bit shy and socially awkward. The two of them bond over their shared disability and experiences they’ve had in common.

When Rudi becomes blind, he initially feels like his life is over. He can’t continue in the navy, and he doesn’t know how he can return to his studies. Although he tries to cover up how hopeless he feels, Anna realizes that he feels like he can’t do anything anymore. He even lacks the will to use the resources he’s being offered. Anna pushes Rudi to “see” things differently, showing him how he can do things besides sit around and feel sorry for himself. She introduces him to recorded books (on records, not tapes or CDs, because of the time period) and Braille. When Rudi begins to see that he can still think and study, even if he can’t see, he begins to feel more hopeful and see new possibilities for his future. The part of the story about Rudi’s blindness doesn’t come until the end of the book, about the last third or quarter, but it serves to illustrate the point about envisioning hopeful possibilities for the future, even in the midst of misfortune and the chaos of the world around them.

Anti-German Sentiment

Anti-German sentiment was common among the Allied countries during both World Wars. People were paranoid about spies being among them. In most cases, it was just paranoia, but as with many conspiracy theories, it’s the odd case where it actually turned out to be true that kept people in that constant state of paranoia. Realistically, most average schools during this period did not have enemy spies in them, but the possibility that a spy could be anywhere haunts the characters, and that’s behind some of the prejudice that Anna’s family experiences in the story. (See also Charlotte Sometimes for an example at a boarding school for girls during WWI.) In the story, Mr. Lloyd’s prejudice isn’t just about the rise of the Nazis but also about his own brother’s death in the previous war against Germany. To him, the war that’s just starting brings back painful memories of the last one.

Later in the story, after Anna and Mr. Lloyd come to an understanding with each other over their shared vision troubles, Anna speaks to Mr. Lloyd about his prejudice against Germans. She points out to him that a lot of Germans don’t support the Nazis, and they are also at their mercy. She doesn’t know whether or not she’s ever going to hear from her aunt again after she was arrested by the Nazis. Mr. Lloyd admits to Anna that he’s probably not going to be able to let go of all of his feelings about Germans because he’s had years of resentments about them, but he also apologizes to her that his feelings have made things harder on her. This is a small concession, but it may be a turning point in Mr. Lloyd’s attitude. He tells Anna to give his regards to Rudi and is nice to Anna’s father when they meet. Seeds of change have been sewn for Mr. Lloyd, and we see the beginnings in the story. It’s another point where we see the beginning of something and can imagine how it might play out over time.

Posted on by TracyC

Lucy and Tom’s Christmas

Lucy & Tom’s Christmas by Shirley Hughes, 1981, 1989.

This British children’s picture book shows a young brother and sister enjoying Christmas and celebrating many popular British Christmas traditions.

Before Christmas, Tom and Lucy help their mother make a Christmas pudding, each of them making a wish as they stir it. They see the postman delivering Christmas cards and packages, and they make Christmas cards of their own. They also help their mother to decorate the house.

Each of them also has small presents for each other and other people in their family. They also write letters to Father Christmas and “post them up the chimney.” (In Britain, it’s traditional to burn letters to Father Christmas or Santa Claus because he can read their wishes in the smoke.)

They enjoy listening to carol singers and buying a Christmas tree in the market. On Christmas Eve, they hang their stockings at the foot of their beds for Father Christmas to fill with presents.

On Christmas morning, the excited children wake up early and play with the presents in their stockings. When their parents wake up, they unwrap their other presents.

Later, they go to church, and friends and family come to their house for a turkey dinner. After dinner, they open Christmas crackers (party favors that open with a bang and have little prizes and paper hats inside – they aren’t as common in the United States as in Britain, but you can get them here). They give their guests their presents and play party games. It’s a Merry Christmas for everyone!

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

My Reaction

I enjoy seeing different types of traditions from around the world, and this picture book reminded me of a YouTube video I saw about British Christmas traditions. Many of the traditions mentioned in the video were also shown in the book, including burning letters to Father Christmas, hanging up stockings on the beds instead of by the fireplace, and opening Christmas crackers.

I loved the pictures in the book, showing the children participating in all of the Christmas activities. They are colorful and cheerful, and I enjoyed noticing little details among the children’s Christmas presents. In one picture, it looks like Tom has received a little R2-D2 robot.

Posted on by TracyC

The Case of the Bicycle Bandit

A Jigsaw Jones Mystery

The Case of the Bicycle Bandit by James Preller, 2001.

Jigsaw Jones and his friend, Ralphie, have to go to the library to get books for a book report at school. While they are at the library, somebody steals Ralphie’s bike!

First, it’s strange that Ralphie’s bike was stolen because Ralphie is sure that he locked it up using the same chain that he used to also lock up Jigsaw’s bike. How could someone take a bike that was chained up, and since the two bikes were chained together, why is Jigsaw’s bike still chained up, as if the lock was never opened?

Second, if someone could get the chain open to take one of the bikes, why did the thief take Ralphie’s bike? Jigsaw’s bike is new and in good condition, while Ralphie’s bike, which he calls “Old Rusty”, is old, beat-up, and always breaking in some way. Ralphie is fond of “Old Rusty”, which was a hand-me-down from his older brother, but if some stranger had a choice of stealing one of two bikes, wouldn’t it make more sense to take the one that’s in better condition?

Jigsaw Jones calls his friend, Mila, to help him investigate and find Ralphie’s missing bike, and they get some help from a classmate who is good at drawing portraits to interview witnesses and do sketches of suspects. Their most likely suspect is a skateboarder whose face nobody saw clearly. But, how did the skateboarder know how to open the lock on the bike chain, and why did he take only the old bike and lock up the newer one again?

The book is available to borrow and read for free online through Internet Archive (multiple copies).

My Reaction

Books in this series are easy, beginning chapter books with pictures that accompany the story. The mystery in this book is pretty simple, although it might seem more difficult to younger readers. I liked the way the characters reasoned it out, logically confronting the problem of how the thief opened the bike chain and why the thief took the older bike instead of the new one. I also enjoyed their use of an amateur sketch artist to find one of their suspects.

Even after Jigsaw does a stakeout and realizes who is responsible for taking the bike, he doesn’t seem to quite understand the motive until the thief explains it, although the motive was what I figured it was. Revealing the culprit in this book also includes a spoiler for an earlier book in the series.

I was amused when Jigsaw said that he charges a dollar a day for his detective services. At first, I thought that shows the inflation that’s happened since Encyclopedia Brown charged his clients a quarter. Then, Jigsaw checks out an Encyclopedia Brown book from the library, showing that Jigsaw is familiar with the books and also giving kind of a nod to an earlier boy detective who may have somewhat inspired this series. I always appreciate children’s books that reference other books.

Posted on by TracyC

The Windy Hill

The original cover is public domain and available through Wikimedia Commons

The Windy Hill by Cornelia Meigs, 1921.

Oliver and Janet are spending the summer with their mother’s cousin, Jasper, who is a wealthier man than the rest of their family. Janet is enjoying the visit and Jasper’s grand house so far, but Oliver is very uneasy there. Oliver doesn’t like the vast, empty house, and he’s noticed that Jasper’s manner seems different from he remembers the last time they saw him. Oliver senses that something is troubling Jasper, something that he doesn’t want to discuss. Jasper is usually a cheerful person who enjoys his cousin’s children, but during this visit, he hardly pays attention to them and never smiles. Janet finds things to do to keep herself occupied, but Oliver is terribly bored and bothered by Jasper’s odd behavior.

Then, one evening, Jasper sees Oliver looking at a nearby house. He says that the people who live in that house are also cousins of theirs, but he’s been too busy lately to see much of them. Jasper apologizes for having neglected Janet and Oliver during their visit so far, and he says that he will invite Eleanor, the daughter of the cousin who lives in that house, to lunch the next day. Eleanor is close in age to Janet and Oliver, and Jasper thinks that they will be friends and that a visit from her will liven up the visit for them. Janet is pleased at the idea of another girl cousin visiting, but Oliver is at that phase where he doesn’t like girls. He can’t imagine that he would have anything in common with this unknown girl cousin, and he thinks he’ll be bored while Janet and Eleanor have fun together. He tries to tell Jasper as much, but Jasper is just amused by his attitude and tells him that, if he is afraid of girls, the sooner he gets over it, the better.

When Jasper orders his car and driver to take Janet and Oliver to see Eleanor, Oliver decides to rebel by going to the train station and trying to get a train home. However, while he is waiting at the train station, he becomes curious about the countryside around him and the nearby river he hasn’t yet investigated. He wanders off to explore a little and encounters a man and a girl at a nearby cottage. The man and the girl ask him to help them with their beehives. Oliver is a little nervous of the bees at first, but he follows the beekeeper’s directions and finds himself enjoying the work. The beekeeper and his daughter, Polly, invite him to join them for lunch afterward. After a lunch of biscuits, honey, and iced cocoa, Oliver feels much better about everything.

Polly thinks that she and her father have somewhere they need to be after lunch, but her father tells her not to worry about that. Instead, he entertains Oliver and Polly with a story about a Native American medicine man, a boy who is curious about what lies beyond the ocean, and their first encounter with white people. By the time the story is over, Oliver realizes that he has missed his train. He decides to return to Jasper’s house, where he is told that Janet didn’t go to see Eleanor because Eleanor was delayed somewhere. (Guess where.)

More and more, Jasper’s odd mood becomes apparent. His servants have also noticed how worried he’s been, and it seems like he’s always more upset after a mysterious and disagreeable man comes to see him. Nobody knows who he is or what his visits are about. Oliver knows how to drive, and Jasper has Oliver drive him out on a mysterious errand one evening to see someone. Oliver doesn’t know who Jasper talks to or what they say to each other, but the visit takes a long time, and it makes Jasper angry.

Oliver’s visit with Jasper gets better because Jasper allows him to use the car by himself from that point on. He takes Janet to visit the Beeman and Polly. Although Oliver is still not enthusiastic about girls, he likes Polly because she is very different from how he imagines that cousin Eleanor must be. The Beeman says that they have to pick up some new beehives that day, and Oliver volunteers to take the girls to get the hives from a man named John Massey. John Massey complains about his landlord, who hasn’t been maintaining the dikes. Massey has had to take it on himself, and the burden is becoming too great for him to bear.

It turns out that Massey’s landlord is Anthony Crawford, the unpleasant man who has been troubling Jasper. Crawford also seems more than happy to let Olive and Janet know that he is also a cousin of theirs. He seems to be under the impression that Jasper has cheated him in some way. Jasper says that he’s already given him what he’s entitled to have, but Crawford says that his share should be more than that. Crawford says that, if Jasper doesn’t give him what he really owes him, he can take everything Jasper has and destroy his reputation in the process. There are secrets in their family’s past that would cause a scandal if the public knew about them, and Crawford says that if people knew that there was one crook in their family, they would all be suspicious that Jasper is much the same way.

Oliver doesn’t know what to think of Crawford’s insinuations or his threats. Not knowing who else to turn to, Oliver explains the situation to the kindly Beeman and asks him what he should do to help Jasper. The Beeman knows far more about everything that’s been happening than Oliver knows, and he say that Crawford has unknowingly been laying a trap for himself. Crawford thinks he’s pretty sharp in his dealings with other people, but he’s been neglecting something very important. Actually, multiple things.

In a series of stories that the Beeman shares with the children, he indirectly tells the children the history of their family and quarrels that go back generations. He tells them about a family with a shipping business that restored their lost fortunes during the War of 1812 by turning to piracy. He tells them about siblings divided by quarrels over money during the Gold Rush. Although the Beeman doesn’t admit to the children that all of his stories are true in the beginning, they soon come to realize that they are and that they are directly connected to the them and the current situation.

Toward the end of the book, the Beeman ties all the pieces of the puzzle together before telling them the final story, the one about three cousins named Jasper, Anthony, and Thomas, who were all raised together and were very close, until they had a falling-out over Anthony’s scheming and his unethical dealings. There are reasons for everyone to resent Anthony for his meanness and greed, but the Beeman is correct that Anthony has set himself up for a fall. He really should have listened when everyone tried to tell him to fix the dike.

The book is available to borrow and read for free online through Internet Archive (multiple copies) and Project Gutenberg. Because it is in the public domain, there is also a LibriVox Audiobook recording.

My Reaction and Spoilers

The Family’s Story

In some ways, the story of the family in the book is also a celebration of American stories. The short stories about different generations in their family are set at turning points in American history. Something that fascinated me about these stories was that they were not all glowing about these points in American history and their associated legends. There are parts of the stories that emphasize the bold American values of adventure and ingenuity, but there are also dark sides and downsides to the stories and flawed characters. The family fortunes were set partly by piracy, but one of the heroes of the family was the man who realized when it was time to stop. Members of their family have been consumed by greed and quarrels, although some have overcome their flaws and misconceptions to come together and be a family again. Again, the Gold Rush story resolves happily when the brothers involved also realize the folly of endlessly pursuing riches at the expense of relationships with the people they love. There is even a slight rebuke against the westward expansion of the United States – portrayed heroically but also as highly costly as people died and killed others over land and gold and promoting an endless, unhappy quest for more and more, with people living their whole lives never feeling satisfied. In short, the family, like the stories and American history itself, is a mixed bag, and they are at their best when they realize their wrongs and make the decision to change. For a book from the early 1920s, a period of heightened patriotism and prejudice after WWI, it seems remarkably insightful and self-aware.

It was Anthony’s decision to forge a relative’s name to get money to cover his unethical dealings that ruined his relationship with his family. It was only by their charity and intervention that he wasn’t charged with his crime and sent to prison. He’s fully aware of that, but he’s been resentful about it rather than grateful. Even from a young age, Anthony had always coveted what other people had. Even if he didn’t really want things for their own sake, he would go through elaborate schemes and bitter fights to get what someone else had, just because someone else had it. Out of greed and spite, he has resurrected old property quarrels in their family. He not only got the old house that was originally willed to Jasper, but he has been scheming to get Jasper’s new house. The Beeman (who is the third cousin in the last story and father of Eleanor, who is called Polly as a nickname) says that Anthony should have headed the lessons learned by their family during the Gold Rush, that always reaching and reaching for greater prizes means never being satisfied with what one has and risking its loss in pursuit of the unattainable.

In the end, when Anthony’s scheming and corner-cutting leave him with no one to turn to but the family members he has harassed and schemed against, he finally experiences a change of heart. I find stories where the villain has a sudden change of heart after long-term villainy to be unrealistic, but the crisis that Anthony realizes he caused is sudden and serious. Because he has neglected the dike and driven away the people who were helping to cover his negligence at their own expense, he suddenly realized that he has endangered many lives, and everyone knows that it’s all his fault. He schemed to get control of that land but didn’t take care of it when he had it. Everyone knows what he did, nobody’s going to cover for him, and while he’s unscrupulous enough to scheme to get others’ property, he doesn’t want to be responsible for killing people. It’s enough to make him swallow his pride and acknowledge the reality of the situation to his cousins. They help him for the sake of the people in danger, and in return, he decides to leave the area.

In the end, Anthony takes a hard look at himself and his life, and he realizes that he and his wife and children were better off when they lived in another community, where he was forced to work for a living instead of by his schemes. He now fully understands his weaknesses and temptations, and rather than continuing to resent the things and people in his life that stop him from furthering his schemes, he has come to welcome them as the guiding forces that keep him from making destructive decisions. The way he phrases it struck me as a little corny, almost like the end of a PSA, but I approved of the sentiment. His family members made him angry because they saw him for who and what he was, but the point is that he now understands who and what he is himself. Although the others are willing to allow him some leniency because of the way he handles the crisis, Anthony realizes that he must give himself the discipline he needs and be the changing force in his own life.

Overall, I thought it was a pretty good story, although there are a few issues with racial language related to Native Americans. I’m not sure if there is a modern revised version of this story or not. The version that I’m reviewing is the original from the 1920s.

Native Americans in the Story

I found the first story the Beeman tells, the one about the Native Americans, fascinating because the story contains the concept that Native Americans arrived in the Americas by crossing the Pacific Ocean and moving eastward across the continent. I know that’s the modern concept of the origins of Native Americans, but I was surprised to find the concept in a book from the early 1920s. I didn’t realize that people in the 1920s had that concept because I thought the older theory was that Native Americans crossed a land bridge.

During the story about the Native American medicine man, the book uses the term “squaw”, which is a controversial term because, although it apparently can mean just “woman” in some Native American languages, it can mean something vulgar in others. Modern books avoid the use of the word, but it appears in some older books, like this one, because white people weren’t always aware of the connotations the word could have. This is the danger of using words you don’t fully understand. It isn’t meant in an insulting way in this book, but be aware that the word appears here and that it isn’t a good word to use yourself. If you’re referring to a Native American woman, just say “Native American woman”, and leave it at that.

The book also uses the word “Indian” instead of Native American, something that also appears in older books. I’ve explained before that this hearkens back to a much earlier misunderstanding about who Native American peoples were, and the nickname has stuck to a certain degree. However, modern convention is just to say “Native Americans” because it’s both a more accurate description and less confusing than explaining American Indians vs. Indians from India. I don’t mind the use of that term too much because it isn’t insulting. However, the book also occasionally uses the term “Red Man” to refer to Native Americans. The characters saying that don’t seem to use it out of malice, but I still think it’s inappropriate. I think that sort of thing went over my head when I was a little kid because I knew people were referred to as “white people” and “black people”, but after I was old enough to understand that there were other connotations to the term it became one of those terms that I think of as “derailing terms.” Even if the characters use it in a non-hostile way or kind of thoughtless way, we (the readers) know that there are hostile or demeaning connotations to the term. It just derails the train of thought of readers like me because we stop to process whether or not the character is trying to be insulting or demeaning, and it just distracts from the rest of the sentence and the thread of the story. I’m generally in favor of reprintings of books like this, with the racial terms updated because, provided that the author and characters are not trying to be demeaning or insulting, a change in the language can clarify attitudes and put the readers’ attention back where it belongs – on the story itself.

Native Americans also appear in the story about the Gold Rush, as risks encountered by westward travelers. Their appearance in the story is minimal, if stereotypical.

Posted on by TracyC

Mummies in the Morning

Magic Tree House

Mummies in the Morning by Mary Pope Osborne, 1993, 2014.

This time, Jack and Annie use a book in the magic tree house to travel back in time to Ancient Egypt. Jack has a fascination for mummies and pyramids, and Annie can’t wait to see them up close. When the children arrive, they witness what appears to be a royal funeral procession, but the people seem to vanish awfully quickly. Annie wonders if they could have been ghosts, although Jack thinks that’s nonsense. He thinks it was probably just a mirage, although he has reason to rethink that later.

The children follow a mysterious black cat into a pyramid. Annie is eager to see a mummy, but the children are startled when they see what appears to be a walking mummy that drops a scepter. Jack realizes that what they saw wasn’t a real mummy but probably a tomb robber in disguise. He reads in their book about Ancient Egypt about the problem of tomb robbers.

Then, the children encounter a real ghost! She is see-through, and objects pass through her. Fortunately, the ghost is nice instead of scary, and she explains to the children that she needs their help. She is the ghost of an Ancient Egyptian queen, and she has been unable to progress to the afterlife because she cannot find her copy of the Book of the Dead, which is supposed to guide her through the obstacles on the way to the afterlife. She knows that her brother, who designed her tomb, hid the book to protect it from tomb robbers and left clues for her in the symbols carved on the walls of her tomb. However, her brother apparently forgot that her vision was always bad, and she can’t read the symbols. (Apparently, poor vision doesn’t improve after death.) Jack would be willing to loan her his glasses, but since she’s incorporeal (not a word used in the book, but basically, she no longer has a physical presence and can’t use physical objects), the glasses wouldn’t stay on her face.

Instead, she asks the children to describe the symbols on the wall to her so she can interpret them. Together, the children and the ghost use the clues to find the scroll containing the Book of the Dead. After that, Jack and Annie have one more task: escaping the maze-like tomb!

My Reaction

The ghost in the story is a non-scary ghost, but there’s enough mild creepiness and mystery to satisfy kids who enjoy a little creepiness in their stories. Toward the end, they have to put the scroll in the sarcophagus with the queen’s mummy, which both grosses out and fascinates the children.

The historical information was good, although translating Egyptian hieroglyphics is much more complicated than the book indicates. In the book, the symbols are meant to literally depict specific objects, which some hieroglyphics can, but others are used to represent sounds to spell out words or names. I think the story just kept things simple for kids.

I liked the part where the kids get lost in the pyramid because pyramids were build with false hallways and dead ends to confuse tomb robbers. Everything work out fine in the end!

Posted on by TracyC · 2 Comments

Charmed Life

Charmed Life by Diana Wynne Jones, 1977.

This is the first book in the Chrestomanci series.  There are many different dimensions with duplicate worlds, and in each of those duplicate worlds, there is a copy of every person.  People’s lives can differ dramatically between the different worlds, but there is one person in each generation who has no duplicates in any of the other dimensions or worlds.  This person is called the Chrestomanci.  All of the talents, abilities, and lives that would have been spread among the duplicates across the other worlds are now centered on that one person, giving that person, literally, nine lives.  Very often, the Chrestomanci doesn’t realize that he’s a Chrestomanci until he actually dies . . . and fails to die because he uses up one of his spare lives and continues living with the others.

When young Eric Chant’s older sister Gwendolyn gives him the nickname Cat at a young age, saying that he has nine lives, he doesn’t understand that it’s literally true.  Then, he and Gwendolyn are unexpectedly orphaned during a boat accident.  Their parents drown.  Gwendolyn doesn’t because she’s a witch, and the water rejected her.  Cat thought that he was saved because he grabbed hold of Gwendolyn.  Gwendolyn knows differently.

After their parents’ deaths, Cat and Gwendolyn live with their downstairs neighbor for a time, receiving support from the town. Their neighbor, Mrs. Sharp, is also a witch, and she recognizes Gwendolyn’s talent. When she goes through the children’s parents’ things, she finds three letters from someone called Chrestomanci, and she recognizes immediately that they are important. Cat doesn’t fully understand who Chrestomanci is, but everyone regards him as an important person, so much so that they even hesitate to say his name out loud. His signature is valuable, and Mrs. Sharp offers the letters as payment for witchcraft lessons for Gwendolyn from the best tutor in the area, Mr. Nostrum. Gwendolyn breezes through the early lessons easily, and everyone in the neighborhood recognizes her talents. They are sure that Gwendolyn is destined for great things, and they are all eager to ingratiate themselves with her. A local fortune-teller even says that Gwendolyn will be famous and may be able to rule the world if she goes about it in the right way. The fortune-teller also tells Cat’s fortune, but his fortune is a warning that he is in danger from two sides. Cat is frightened and unsure what to think of it.

However, there is still the question about how the children’s parents knew Chrestomanci and what their father argued about with him in their letters to each other. Mr. Nostrum is particularly curious to know what the children know about Chrestomanci, having apparently tried to learn things about him through his signature and failing, but neither of the children can tell him much. Cat still isn’t sure exactly who Chrestomanci is, so he suggests that Mr. Nostrum just write to Chrestomanci himself to ask. It’s such a straightforward approach that it never occurred to either Mr. Nostrum or Gwendolyn to do that before. Gwendolyn ends up writing the letter to Chrestomanci herself, exaggerating her plight as an orphan to gain sympathy, and implying that Cat also drowned in the boat accident. When Chrestomanci arrives to see Gwendolyn, he is initially surprised to see Cat.

Although their relationship to Chrestomanci isn’t explained at first, Chrestomanci takes custody of the children and brings them to live at his castle with his own wife and children, Julia and Roger. Everyone tells the children how lucky they are because living with someone as important as Chrestomanci means hob-nobbing with other important people. Cat realizes that the reason why Gwendolyn wants to go to Chrestomanci is that she is serious about becoming famous and ruling the world. She sees life with Chrestomanci as the first step. Cat is more intimidated and homesick.

Life in Chrestomanci’s castle is quite different from what Gwendolyn expected, though. There is some kind of enchantment over the castle that muffles Gwendolyn’s powers, and that drives her crazy. Gwendolyn is contemptuous of Julia and Roger for being plain and fat, but both of them turn out to be better at magic than she is and are fully capable of standing up to her magical tricks and bullying. Worst of all, nobody seems impressed by Gwendolyn or thinks that she’s special, and Gwendolyn is accustomed to people thinking that she’s special and impressive.

Chrestomanci makes it clear that none of the children are supposed to be practicing magic unless they are under the supervision of their tutor, Michael Saunders. When Gwendolyn and Cat begin having lessons with Michael Saunders along with Julia and Roger, it becomes apparent that Gwendolyn is far behind in her normal subjects, like math and history, even behind Cat, who is younger. Gwendolyn airily tells the tutor that she never paid attention to such things at their old school because she was concentrating more on learning witchcraft. Michael Saunders tells her that she won’t have any more magical lessons until she catches up in her normal studies, and Chrestomanci backs up the tutor. Gwendolyn is infuriated because, not only is nobody treating her like she’s special and impressive, for the first time in her life, they are treating her like what she really is: a spoiled and naughty child.

Gwendolyn’s parents didn’t fully have the ability to impose consequences on Gwendolyn when they were alive, although they were a restraining influence. After they died, nobody tried to restrain Gwendolyn, only trying to ingratiate themselves so she would help them or they could use her for their own purposes. Although Cat has idolized his older sister, there are dark sides to her personality that he has never realized before, and he soon discovers that she has sinister intentions that involve him.

One day, Gwendolyn vanishes and is replaced by one of her duplicates from another world, where magic doesn’t exist.  This other version of Gwendolyn, who is called Janet, has no idea where she is or how she got there.  It is from her that Cat learns that there is no duplicate of himself in her world.  While Cat struggles to figure out what is happening, he helps the new girl to pretend that she is the usual Gwendolyn, although she actually has a very different, much nicer, personality. The more Cat tells Janet about Gwendolyn, the less Janet likes her or the idea of being her, which makes Cat nervous.

When Cat and the new Gwendolyn realize what Cat’s Gwendolyn intends to do, they will need the Chrestomanci’s help to stop her and for Cat to claim his true destiny, the one that Gwendolyn has been attempting to conceal from him all along.

The book is available to borrow and read for free online through Internet Archive (multiple copies).

My Reaction and Spoilers

One of the best parts of the book for me was the setting at Chrestomanci Castle. The idea of living in a castle with magical playmates who can make toy soldiers move on their own is exciting! Cat and Gwendolyn’s rooms in the castle sound like the kind of bedrooms that any kid might imagine having. Even though the castle is strange and sinister things are happening, there is also a kind of coziness to the atmosphere. The children have hot cocoa every morning in the nursery. (I’m not sure why Cat, Gwendolyn, and Janet don’t like hot cocoa. Having hot chocolate for breakfast every morning would have made me happy as a kid, although I admit that, if Chrestomanci and Millie are concerned about their children’s weight issues enough to limit their marmalade intake, that’s not really the best morning drink they could have. I would have suggested tea instead. While we’re on the subject, I didn’t like the way they kept going on about the kids’ weight issues.) They have their own old-fashioned schoolroom in the castle with their own private tutor. When they get allowance money, they can walk to the charming, old-fashioned town nearby and buy candy and other small items. Millie is a doting magical mother, and even though Chrestomanci can be a little intimidating and fussy about appearances, he seems to genuinely care about the children and isn’t above sticking his well-dressed head into the nursery to say good morning and check on them.

During his time at Chrestomanci Castle, Cat learns things about his parents and his sister that he never knew before. His parents were actually cousins, and marriages between cousins in magical families are frequently dangerous, especially when they have children. Chrestomanci is also their parents’ cousin, and the argument he had with their father through their letters was about preventing the couple from having children any children with magical abilities, a suggestion that insulted and angered their father. Their father later came to regret that when young Gwendolyn first started using her powers, and even her parents started to see that she was dangerous. They weren’t quite sure how she was using Cat, but they had the sense that she was using him to do her magic somehow. Nobody thought to take Cat’s nickname seriously until Janet started questioning the reason why Gwendolyn started calling him that.

The truth is that Cat is a nine-lived enchanter. Gwendolyn realized this when he died at birth but didn’t actually die, and even though she was young herself, she found a way to hijack his powers. From the time when he was a baby, she’s been using his powers as if they were her own. That is how Gwendolyn appears to be unusually powerful for her age, even though she’s never really had the patience to go through any of her lessons by the numbers, just glossing over the beginning parts. Cat has been unable to use his own magical abilities because Gwendolyn has been keeping them all for herself, so for a long time, he assumes that he doesn’t have any magic at all. Since Gwendolyn has been doing this for his whole life, Cat has grown accustomed to how it feels and doesn’t notice it until Janet puts together the clues and realizes what’s been happening. When Gwendolyn does particularly powerful magic, she even sacrifices one of Cat’s extra lives, which she placed in a little matchbook for easy use.

Cat is appalled when he finds out about it, and he doesn’t want to believe it at first. However, when he tries to light one of the matches and instantly catches fire, he is convinced. What is even worse is that Gwendolyn and her magic tutor are planning to use him as a human sacrifice to open the gateway to other worlds so that they and the other evil magicians can use their powers to control these other worlds. Gwendolyn is a malevolent narcissist and always has been. Cat is devastated when he learns how little Gwendolyn cares about him, but he manages to finally summon enough anger to stand up to Gwendolyn and take his powers back from her. Like other victims of narcissists, he has always been the stronger and more powerful of the two of them, but he needed some help to see it.

Unlike Gwendolyn, Janet is not a narcissist and is capable of feeling empathy and caring for others. She’s even capable of selfless acts and personal sacrifices for the sake of others when necessary. When Gwendolyn escapes and permanently seals herself in another world where she is a queen, Janet is stuck in Cat’s world, unable to return to her own. It’s a terrible blow for her to be separated from her parents, who are alive in her world. However, when Chrestomanci asks her if she will be okay and if she wants him to try to return her to her own world, she refuses the offer because she has discovered that the double who replaced her in her world is an orphan who badly needs a family. While Gwendolyn was even going to volunteer Janet, one of her other selves as a sacrifice if Cat wouldn’t do, Janet is willing to sacrifice her former life in her world for the sake of one of her other selves. Janet is really the kind of sister that Cat has needed all along. She says that she was supposed to have a younger brother in her world but that he died at birth, and she is fascinated to find Eric/Cat alive in this new world and get to know the brother she lost. Janet learns to love her new brother and to get along with Julia and Roger, becoming the kind of girl Gwendolyn really should have been to her family. She doesn’t have any magical abilities, but she discovers that she can help help her new family because life in her usual world (which is supposed to be our world) has given her a different perspective from theirs. She is the one who suggests to Chrestomanci that he stop using silverware made of actual silver, which impedes his powers, and use stainless steel instead. When Gwendolyn played magical tricks at dinner, Chrestomanci always had trouble dealing with it because he was holding silver, but if he uses stainless steel, he won’t have that problem again. Chrestomanci and Millie admit that they never thought of that because stainless steel cutlery isn’t common in their world.

I remember finding this story fascinating the first time I read it as a kid. There are some dark themes with Gwendolyn’s narcissism, the threats to the children’s lives, and even Cat losing a few more lives. Cat’s growth is central to the story. Once Gwendolyn’s toxic influence is removed from his life, he begins to see the truth about himself and how Gwendolyn has treated him. Cat had always looked to her for comfort as his sister and his last living relative (so he thought), but all along, she was the one who was most dangerous to him, and that’s a terrible betrayal. Once Cat starts to understand the situation, he begins to see his own potential, and he also has some new people in his life who show him better treatment. The castle is charming, the world is fascinating, and the story is thought-provoking about the different ways a person’s life can go in different circumstances. Other books in the series go into more detail about how the different worlds in this universe function and how they split off from each other in different series, based on the outcomes of important events.

Posted on by TracyC

Revolutionary War on Wednesday

Magic Tree House

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.

Posted on by TracyC · 1 Comment

Gone-Away Lake

Gone-Away Lake by Elizabeth Enright, 1957.

Eleven-year-old Portia and her six-year-old brother Foster are traveling alone by train to visit their aunt and uncle and twelve-year-old cousin Julian in the country for the summer while their parents are on a trip. Portia likes spending time with Julian because Julian is an amateur naturalist and tells her things about animals and birds. When Portia and Foster arrive, their aunt, uncle, and cousin tell them that their dog has had puppies. Portia is allowed to name them, and if her parents agree, she and Foster will even be able to keep one!

While Portia is out exploring the countryside with Julian one day, they find some garnets in a rock. They start chipping some out to take to Julian’s mother, and they find a carved inscription in Latin on the rock with the date July 15, 1891. They’re not sure what the Latin words mean. They figure out that part of the inscription refers to the Philosopher’s Stone, which was supposed to turn different substances to gold. Portia asks if this stone could be the real Philosopher’s Stone, but Julian says that’s impossible because they’ve been using knives to pry out the garnets, and they haven’t turned to gold. They continue to wonder what the inscription really means and why someone put it there.

They explore the countryside further, getting lost. They aren’t too worried because they don’t need to be back soon. They follow a brook and find themselves in a swampy area. Strangely, they stumble over an old rowboat. Then, they spot a row of old, abandoned houses. The houses are in bad condition, but the kids can see that they were built in elaborate Victorian styles. The children wonder why those houses are there on the edge of swamp. Portia finds it a little creepy, but Julian wants to get a better look.

Then, the children hear a voice. Strangely, the voice is repeating an advertisement for medicine for indigestion. The children think it’s funny because no ghost would say something like that. Taking a closer look at the houses, they notice that one seems to be in better condition than the others that it has animals and a garden, so someone must be living there. Thinking about it more, Julian says that the swamp was probably once a pond or a lake, and that’s why it had houses and a rowboat. He hasn’t heard of a lake in the area, but he and his parents haven’t lived in the area for long. The children wonder who lives in the house and decide to find out.

They find an old woman in old-fashioned clothing, listening to a radio. The old lady is surprised to see them but welcomes them, saying that it’s been a long time since she has seen children. She invites them to come inside her house, and the children find themselves in a cluttered and chaotic parlor with each wall covered in a different kind of wall paper. The woman introduces herself as Minehaha Cheever.

The children explain how they ended up there by coming through the swamp, and Mrs. Cheever says that they shouldn’t go through the swamp because there is a dangerous sinkhole there that they call the Gulper. She says that when it’s time for the children to go home, she’ll have her brother show them a better and safer way. Mrs. Cheever says that there used to be a lake there, and that her family and about a dozen others had summer houses there, but the lake largely dried up when a new dam was built. After that, the summer houses were abandoned, and many of them were vandalized. However, her father and another woman locked up their houses with the furniture inside, thinking that they would come back and move them, but they never did. The large and fancy old Villa Caprice is still untouched, but Mrs. Cheever says that she supposes that much of the contents is probably deteriorated. She says that the Villa Caprice gives her the creeps.

The children ask Mrs. Cheever why she’s there, and she says that she used to live somewhere else. After her husband died, she didn’t have much money, and she remembered that the house at the former lake was still there. Her brother, Pindar, also wanted to retire somewhere quiet, so they decided to go live in their family’s old summer house. There was enough furniture and old clothes left there for the two of them, and it suits them. They keep animals. Pindar still has their old car, so he can sometimes go into town for things they need. “Pindar” was one of the words in the inscription on the rock.

Pindar explains that he and his best friend when he was a kid, Tarquin (another of the words on the rock), were the ones responsible for the inscription on the rock. Tarquin was three years older than Pindar, but they were still close friends. However, they had a temporary falling out when Tarquin was 13 years old. Tarquin had gone away to boarding school for the first time, and the next time they met at their summer homes, Tarquin had brought a friend from his new school with him, Edward. Tarquin and Edward were putting on airs and showing off how sophisticated they were because they were 13 years old and knew so much more now that they had been to boarding school. Pindar felt bad about his old friend shunning him and treating him like a little kid, so he started hanging out with his other best friend, Barney. Then, Pindar had the idea of showing Barney the big rock with garnets stuck in it where he and Tarquin used to meet and hang out together.

When Pindar and Barney got to the rock, they discovered that Tarquin and Edward were already there, and the older boys said that they had claimed the rock for themselves. They called the rock the philosopher’s stone and wrote the inscription labeling it as the philosopher’s stone in Latin, which they had learned at their boarding school. The older boys said that the younger ones were too little to be philosophers, like the two of them. Pindar’s feelings were hurt all over again, and he told his father about the situation. Pindar’s father was amused by the older boys and their sophisticated philosopher talk. He said that there was no age limit on who could be a philosopher and explained to Pindar what a philosopher’s stone was supposed to be and how it was supposed to turn things to gold. Then, he suggested a prank that Pindar and Barney could play on the older boys, convincing them that the stone really did have the power to turn things to gold. The older boys were temporarily fooled by the trick. At first, Tarquin was angry about being tricked, but then, he had to acknowledge that he had provoked Pindar and that the trick was a clever one. Tarquin made up with both Pindar and Barney, and he added Pindar’s name and his own to the inscription on the rock. Pindar still considers Tarquin and Barney to be his best friends, and they still write letters to each other in their old age.

Julian and Portia are fascinated by the stories that Pindar tells about the childhood summers he and his siblings and friends spent at this now-vanished lake. Mrs. Cheever said that she loves having children around the place again, and she suggests that Julian and Portia could use one of the old houses that is still in reasonably good condition as a kind of clubhouse. Julian and Portia love the idea, and Pindar and Mrs. Cheever suggest that they use the old house where Tarquin and his family used to stay. It’s in disrepair, but it’s much better than some of the other houses. There is plenty of furniture in the attic that the children can use, too. The children decide to invite some other kids to join them, and they call their club the Philosopher’s Club, after Pindar and Tarquin’s old group of friends.

Julian and Portia invite some other local children to join the Philosopher’s Club and spent a magical summer exploring this abandoned community, picking blackberries, learning about local plants and their uses, and scavenging things from old houses and trying on the clothes from Pindar and Mrs. Cheever’s youth. The boys help Pindar build a bridge over the large sinkhole they call “the Gulper” after Foster falls into it and has to be rescued. When Julian and Portia’s parents meet Uncle Pin and Aunt Min (as they come to call Pindar and Mrs. Cheever) and come to see Gone-Away Lake, the adults also experience the magical, dream-like qualities of this place, and Portia’s parents consider plans that may make the children’s future summers magical.

The book is available to borrow and read for free online through Internet Archive (multiple copies – including a couple of copies of the sequel, Return to Gone-Away).

My Reaction

I remember a teacher reading this book or part of it to us when I was in elementary school, but I couldn’t remember much about the story except for the lake that had gone away and caused the town to be largely deserted. For some reason, I had thought this story was a mystery story, but it’s not.

In many ways, I think this is the perfect nostalgia book because a large part this story is about the nostalgia that the elderly brother and sister in the story have for the place where they used to have their childhood summer adventures, even though the place isn’t what it used to be. Through the stories that they tell the children and the children’s own adventures and explorations of this largely abandoned summer community, they begin building their own attachments to the place and their own nostalgic summer memories.

Because the story takes place in such a unique location, I think it would make a fun kids’ movie with a vibe of nostalgic summer adventure. Although, because the story is largely low-key slice-of-life and the flashbacks of Uncle Pin and Aunt Min to incidents in their youth, I can see that the story might have to be changed a bit to fit the usual movie format, focusing on one definite problem or a particular adventure to give the story its climax. I picture the kids and their Philosopher’s Club making it their mission to preserve this vanishing community, which fits with the way the original story goes, although the kids in the book enjoy the old community for the magic of its dilapidated state rather than wanting to fix it up and restore it to its former glory. I think they could lean into promoting the preservation of nature and the ecosystem of the area, with Julian in particular pointing out what makes this environment unique and how it has become home to animals and insects since the lake changed to a swamp and most of the people left. The Philosopher’s Club might connect with a local naturalist society, and they could build the bridge in the story together to make the swamp safer to traverse for nature lovers and bird watchers. Uncle Pin and Aunt Min could remain on the site as its caretakers. Perhaps, the kids might even find some old notes and drawings in one of the old houses that show some interesting aspects of how the environment has changed and some of the unique animals that make their home there. That didn’t happen in the book, but it would be a sort of environmentally-connected treasure the children could find.

Posted on by TracyC

Mystery of the Black Diamonds

Mystery of the Black Diamonds by Phyllis A. Whitney, 1954, 1974.

Twelve-year-old Angie (Angela) Wetheral and her eleven-year-old brother Mark are visiting the foothills of the Rocky Mountains in Colorado. They’re from New York, but their father is a mystery novelist, and he’s doing some research over the summer for a book that will take place in Colorado. As the kids explore the area and speculate about the murder that’s going to happen in their father’s new book, they meet Benjamin Ellington, an old timer who talks to them about the days when the gold and silver mines in the area were active. He tells the kids to call him Uncle Ben, and they talk about whether or not there’s any treasure still to be found in the area. They also meet Sam Springer, the park ranger, who worries about Uncle Ben exploring and digging in the hills by himself because he could get hurt and people wouldn’t know where to find him and help him. Uncle Ben says that Sam worries too much and that he knows the area well because he’s been digging out there for years.

Sam later tells the kids that Uncle Ben came to the area in 1889, when he was 15 years old. That means that Uncle Ben was born in 1874, and Angie says that means that he’s almost 70 years old now, which puts the date of this story in the early 1940s, during WWII, but they don’t talk about the war. Sam says that Uncle Ben actually struck it rich while he was in his teens and owned three or four mines. Apparently, Ben blew through most of his money pretty quickly, so he’s not that rich anymore. However, the kids are fascinated by the idea of finding gold or silver and striking it rich.

The reason why the family lives in New York is that it’s helpful for their father’s work. Besides writing mystery novels, he also writes shorter stories for magazines and does book reviews for various publishers, so it’s important for him to live close to the New York book publishers. Angie misses their old home in New Hampshire, where they had a view of the mountains. Colorado reminds her of her old home, and she wishes that they could stay there, so she could enjoy the beauties of nature and the outdoor life. Their father says that someday, when he’s saved enough money, they’ll be able to live anywhere they want, and he’ll take time away from his regular projects to work on a serious novel that he’s been thinking about writing for some time. Mark suggests to Angie that if they could strike it rich in the mountains, the family would have all the money they needed, they could live where they want, and their dad would have the time to write anything he wants.

The kids ask Uncle Ben about searching for treasure, and he gives them a piece of paper with a strange coded message that is supposed to be the map to the treasure. He tells the kids that if they want the treasure, they’ll have to work for it by figuring out how to read the message. Mark wonders why Uncle Ben would give them the key to a treasure when he could just go after it himself, but Uncle Ben says, “I’ve got all I need. I’ve had enough of treasure and the way it can ruin men’s lives.” Uncle Ben says that maybe the kids would do better with a treasure than most people, but he insists that the kids will have to work for whatever they find and refuses to give them any hints about what the message means.

Uncle Ben continues helping the children’s father with background for his mystery story. He suggests that Mr. Wetheral have a look at a nearby ghost town. Unfortunately, Uncle Ben is killed in a fall soon after. The children are nearby when he falls and call for help, but there is little that anyone can to for him. Just before he dies, he whispers to the children, “Black diamonds. Right where Abednego used to be.” It’s a reference to the coded message that he gave the children, one final hint at the treasure. His death leaves it entirely up to the children whether or not to go after it.

To the Wetherals’ surprise, they soon learn that Uncle Ben recently added Mark and Angie to his will, leaving them a house and some land in Colorado. The catch is that the house is in the old ghost town. Angie is hopeful that if they own a house in Colorado they might be able to stay there instead of going back to New York, but the question is whether or not they’d be willing to live in a ghost town.

The Wetheral family decides to go to the ghost town and camp out in their new house and see what it’s like. Mr. Wetheral thinks the ghost town would make a good setting for his book, and staying there will give him a chance to do some research and soak up the atmosphere. Plus, the family is going to have to decide exactly what they’re going to do with the house the kids have inherited.

Most of the ghost town is crumbling, but the house they’ve inherited appears to be in better condition than most. They even find some furniture they can use in a back room. As they explore the town, the kids have their mind on the treasure that Uncle Ben talked about. Most people think that was just a story he made up because he gave copies of the same treasure map message to other friends of his, and nobody has ever figured out what it’s supposed to mean. Mark and Angie think that there is more to the message than most people believe, and they’re determined to find the answers.

It turns out that the ghost town isn’t completely uninhabited, though. The Koblers and their granddaughter Juanita, who is nicknamed Jinx, also live there with their pet skunk. Grandpa Kobler is an old friend Uncle Ben’s, and he talks to the children about him and the old says of the ghost town, Blossom. He used to own the general store there, and his wife was once the schoolteacher, and they didn’t move away from Blossom when the others did. He’s aware of Uncle Ben’s “maps” and hints of treasure, but has no interest in treasure-hunting himself because he likes the life that he and his family are living and doesn’t want it to change. However, Angie can tell that Juanita/Jinx is unhappy and can’t understand why she doesn’t want to talk about her parents and where they are. Then, someone else shows up in Blossom, looking for the clues to Uncle Ben’s treasure. If there really is a treasure to find, can Mark and Angie find it first?

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

Themes, Spoilers, and My Reaction

It isn’t easy for the kids to get to know Juanita/Jinx because she has a prickly and defensive personality and doesn’t like to talk about her past. However, she gradually starts to bond with Mark and Angie because of their shared love of the town of Blossom. Eventually, she tells Angie that her parents died when she was very young. Her father was killed in a mining accident. He thought that there was still treasure worth finding in the old mine outside of town and tried to get at it even though Grandpa Kobler told him that it was dangerous and that there was probably nothing worth finding anyway. Juanita’s mother died of pneumonia soon after her husband’s death, leaving little Juanita to be raised by her grandparents. Juanita has a warm relationship with her grandfather, the only person who calls her by her real name. However, Juanita is convinced that her grandmother doesn’t love her and is only raising her out of a sense of duty. Juanita’s grandmother never approved of her mother, partly because her son’s early marriage is what stopped him from going to college. Juanita also thinks that her grandmother didn’t like her mother because she was Mexican, which is why Juanita has a Hispanic name. Her grandmother was the one who gave her the nickname “Jinx” because that’s what she would call her when she was chiding her for something, which seems to have happened all too often. Jinx often calls herself Jinx instead of Juanita because she’s trying to get away from her Mexican-sounding name and seem more American.

For part of the book, Jinx actively tries to sabotage the Mark and Angie in their treasure-hunting activities because she’s afraid that if they find treasure, everything in Blossom will change. She worries that other people will come to Blossom seeking treasure. If that happens, the town will be built up again, but that means destroying what’s already there. Also, Jinx fears the way other people will treat her. She doesn’t want other people to come into Blossom or to be sent away to school if her grandparents suddenly have the money to do it because she thinks that outsiders will always treat her badly and look down on her. Her grandmother has repeatedly told her that people look down on Mexicans, and Jinx thinks it’s true because some kids she met in Boulder were also mean to her and called her names. Angie tells her that it isn’t true that everyone hates Mexicans. The Wetheral family lived in Mexico one summer while her father was researching another book, and they liked it, and Angie still has a friend there. Angie realizes that the reason why Jinx’s behavior and attitude are so poisonous is that her grandmother has poisoned her mind because of her own twisted feelings. Angie declares that she’s going to have a word with Jinx’s grandmother about it, but Jinx stops her because she says that will just make her grandmother mad. She says that sometimes, when she’s especially well-behaved, her grandmother forgets that she’s half Mexican, and if anyone reminds her, she’ll just get angry all over again. It’s a pretty sick way to raise a vulnerable child who is isolated from other people who could give her a more balanced view of life and people’s feelings. Grandpa Kobler seems to realize this, which is why he wants Angie to be friends with Juanita and show her that there are different people in the world, including people who are willing to be friends. As Angie points out to Juanita, her grandparents are getting older, and someday, she will be an adult and they’ll be gone. Juanita is going to have to learn to get along in the wider world without them, and actually, dealing with strangers in the outside world might not be as bad as living full-time with her grandmother’s nasty attitude.

Some of Juanita’s feelings are resolved when Angie’s mother has a heart-to-heart talk with her about the things her grandmother has been telling her and her own opinions about herself. I agreed with Angie that some of the things her mother said to Juanita while challenging her attitudes were rather harsh, and I wouldn’t have said things like that, but Juanita does take what Mrs. Wetheral says to heart and realizes that she has as much reason to take some pride in herself and her background as anyone else. I didn’t like the part where Angie’s mother says that Juanita’s grandmother can’t help her opinions about Mexicans because that’s just the way she was raised and there’s nothing that can be done about it now. It seems to me that they’re discounting the idea of personal accountability. If Juanita’s grandmother can’t be responsible for her own mind and behavior, what can she be responsible for?

I know people can cling pretty hard to some weird ideas. One night, we took my grandmother out to dinner at a nice restaurant for a family celebration. My grandmother was actually really upset that the restaurant had given her so much food that she couldn’t eat it all, and she said that she was worried because her parents would never have approved of her not clearing her plate. She was genuinely upset about it, not just making an idle comment. It really bothered her. Now, I know that part of my grandmother’s youth took place during the Great Depression, when wasting anything was a sin, but at the time this incident took place, she was a widow who was over 80 years old. The Great Depression had been over for more than 60 years. I was her youngest grandchild, and I was an adult at this time. Her parents had been dead for longer than I had been alive. She was not only a parent herself, but she was also a grandparent and a great-grandparent. She was literally the oldest living member of our family, and nobody would have said a word about what she wanted to eat or not eat for dinner, but my grandmother just couldn’t get past the idea of what her parents told her years ago about always clearing her plate. It’s an odd thing to cling to, but admittedly, there are far more harmful ideas that people can’t bring themselves to give up because of stuff their parents said back in the day.

Mrs. Kobler has had years of living her own life and ample opportunity to work out her feelings, but I think that part of the reason she hasn’t is because there’s something else that’s preventing her. This theory is conjecture on my part because there’s never a point when Mrs. Kobler explicitly explains her thought processes, but although the book doesn’t really explain it, I think that her son’s death is probably the reason why Mrs. Kobler has been harboring so many negative attitudes and taking them out on Jinx. Although nobody actually says it, I suspect that Mrs. Kobler assigned blame to Jinx’s mother for her son’s death. If he hadn’t gotten married at a young age and went looking for a fabulous discovery to raise a fortune for his young family, he might have gone to college, gotten a good career, and still been alive. Even though the characters don’t explicitly say it, I think it’s logical. I further suspect that the really problematic part for Mrs. Kobler is that she needs to blame Jinx’s mother for what happened because, if she can’t, some part of her might blame herself for not stopping her son from doing what he did, and she can’t handle that. As long as she can tell herself (and Jinx) that her daughter-in-law was awful because she was Mexican and caused the downfall of her son, she won’t have to question why she wasn’t able to stop her son from dying. In her mind, I think Mrs. Kobler thinks that her son’s marriage was a terrible mistake that led to his early death, and by extension, her granddaughter really was a “jinx” because she came from that unlucky marriage. Some of Mrs. Kobler’s feelings get resolved later, when they discover that her son was right about the type of treasure he was seeking, even though he got killed pursuing it. A sudden disaster also makes Mrs. Kobler realize that there are many things that a person can’t control in life and that God’s will is taking her family in a direction she never anticipated. This book doesn’t really lecture about the subject of God and religion, but there are some Christian themes in the story.

All through the story, there is the theme of treasure – what is treasure, what do people do with treasure when they get it, and what are they willing to risk to get it? Early in the story, Uncle Ben talks about having lost his taste for treasure-hunting because he’s seen the way it ruins lives. It isn’t until the Wetheral family gets to Blossom and the children talk to Grandpa Kobler that they get the rest of the story about why Uncle Ben felt like that. After Uncle Ben dies, he is buried in the old cemetery in Blossom because that’s where his wife and young daughter are buried. They both died of diphtheria, and he blamed himself for them contracting the disease because they went to live in the big city after he got rich. Grandpa Kobler, who knew Uncle Ben back then tried to console him by saying that they could have caught that disease anywhere, not just in the city, but Uncle Ben still felt responsible. (Diphtheria is now a very rare disease in the US, thanks to the development of a vaccine to prevent it. It’s often given in a combination vaccine that also protects against tetanus and whooping cough, which is how I’ve received it. I was first given the vaccine when I was very young, and I still get my booster shots. I’d recommend it to anyone capable of receiving vaccines. I have never actually seen a person with any of those illnesses in my entire life, and I’m in my late 30s now.) The point is that money doesn’t buy love and happiness, and Uncle Ben came to the conclusion that the lifestyle his family lived when they were rich was unhealthy. He would rather have had his family back than the money from his mines.

Grandpa Kobler understands how Uncle Ben felt because, when Uncle Ben once asked him if he wanted a treasure, he said no. He was happy with the life he was living in Blossom, and he had enough money for his family to live comfortably. If he suddenly got rich, people would expect him to move to a bigger house in the city and start living a completely different life, and he realized that he wouldn’t be as happy doing that. In his youth, he saw the lives that other people lived after they got rich, and he didn’t like what he saw. Later, his son got killed while chasing a dream of treasure, which further emphasizes that there is a price for treasure-hunting, and sometimes, that price is too high. In the Wetheral family, Mark is the one who thinks that their lives would be better if they could find a fortune, but Angie points out that they don’t really need a fortune; they just need enough for their dad to feel comfortable taking the time to write the book that he wants to write and for them to have a home away from the big city, which is what they really want. There is the idea that having enough money is good, but having too much or trying too hard to acquire more can cause problems and complicate a person’s life.

Spoilers

Things are about to change in Blossom, in spite of what the people there want, and as Grandma Kobler concludes, it might be the will of God that they do. In the most dramatic part of the book, much of the town of Blossom is destroyed in a flash flood. Fortunately, all of the people and animals in the town survive, although the Koblers have a close brush with death. Juanita is in less danger because she’s on a picnic with Angie and her mother when the flood startes, and she is the first to realize the danger. At first, everyone is afraid that the Koblers drowned, but they eventually find Mrs. Kobler, just barely keeping her own head and her husband’s out of the water. During this time when they were almost killed, Mrs. Kobler admits that she had some revelations about many things, especially when she realized that she could depend on Juanita to come and help them. In spite of all of her nagging at Juanita, Juanita is bright and dependable and cares about her grandparents, even the grandmother who’s been making her life miserable. Mrs. Kobler never completely changes her mind about Mexicans, but she does change her mind about Juanita, giving her more respect than she did before. The book explains that she comes to realize that, while Mrs. Kobler disparaged Juanita as her mother’s daughter, she came to remember that she was her son’s daughter, too. It’s not as much as could be hoped for, but it’s a start. Mrs. Kobler also realizes that everything that’s happened is the will of God, there is nothing anyone could have done that would have changed the outcome, and God is leading her family in the direction He wants them to go, so she is just going to have to go with the flow (not exactly her words, but I think you catch my drift – ha, ha).

The secret of Uncle Ben’s treasure is also revealed. What he found wasn’t really “black diamonds” but something else that’s very valuable, the same mineral that Juanita’s father was looking for at the time he died. However, Juanita’s father was looking in the wrong part of the mine, which was why he got killed instead of finding what he was looking for. (Maybe he should have gone for his geology degree before going for the “treasure.” Just saying.) Uncle Ben was more experienced with mining and figured out the right place to look himself. It wasn’t until after Juanita’s father died that he came to realize the full value of what he had found, though. (It’s important that this story is set after WWII.) Uncle Ben’s lawyer reveals that, since samples of this mineral were sent to be analyzed, it has activated a part of Uncle Ben’s will that leaves the mine to Juanita Kobler, making her an heiress. Since the town of Blossom was destroyed in the flood, there’s nothing left to preserve that would prevent mining. Now that Juanita is an heiress, she’s going to have a much higher standing in the community, which might take care of some of the bullying she received at school in Boulder. The Wetherals also benefit from the discovery, as the mysterious stranger who came to town informs them that there’s a government finder’s fee for locating valuable mineral deposits.