Posted on by TracyC

The Log Cabin Quilt

The Log Cabin Quilt by Ellen Howard, illustrated by Ronald Himler, 1996.

Elvirey’s granny loves quilting, and she always saves scraps of cloth from old clothes in a flour sack for her quilts. After Elvirey’s mother dies, her father moves the family to Michigan, traveling by covered wagon. When Elvirey tries to pack some of her mother’s things to bring with them, her father insists that they leave them behind, saying that they don’t have room for them. However, Granny insists on bringing her sack of quilting scraps, saying that she will sit on them in the wagon.

When the family finally reaches their destination, it’s just a clearing in a wooded area. They camp near a spring, and Elvirey’s father and brother begin building a cabin for the family. Elvirey and her sister add the chinking to the log walls of the cabin, packing the gaps with a mixture of mud and grass to keep out the wind.

However, the cabin still doesn’t feel like home to Elvirey. They don’t have her mother’s books, and there aren’t any flowers growing nearby to decorate the house like her mother would.

Then, one cold day, Elvirey’s father goes out hunting. He says that he will back before dark, but he doesn’t return. The night is very cold, and Elvirey and her family suddenly realize that it’s more than unusually cold in the cabin. The chinking they put in the walls of the cabin has frozen and fallen out, and the cold is getting in. Worse still, it’s starting to snow.

They’re worried about what happened to their father, and they’re worried about what they will do with the cold getting into the cabin. Then, suddenly, Elvirey has an inspiration. There is something they can use to fill the cracks in the cabin walls: Granny’s quilting scraps. With scraps from everyone’s clothes suddenly decorating the walls of the cabin, the cabin begins to look like it has turned into a quilt itself. When Elvirey’s father returns, he tells her that her mother would be proud of her, and for the first time, the cabin starts to feel like home to Elvirey.

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

My Reaction

There’s a pun in this story that people who don’t know the names of quilting patterns might miss. There are many patterns that the squares of a quilt can have, and Log Cabin is a traditional quilting pattern. When Elvirey and her siblings stuff the quilting scraps into the walls of their cabin, their Granny laughs about them creating a “log cabin quilt”, and it’s not just that she’s amused that they’ve made their cabin walls look like a quilt with all the scraps; it’s a pun on the name of the quilting pattern.

Although the story is about a family of pioneers, the focus of the story isn’t really their journey by covered wagon or the building of their cabin. It’s about loss and change and about what makes a new place feel like home. At first, Elvirey doesn’t feel like their cabin is their home because they no longer have the familiar things that belonged to her mother, and she can’t do some of the things that her mother used to do, like decorating the home with flowers. Even the quilt scraps and their associated memories don’t quite make her feel like home, although they do add a needed touch of color and hominess to the cabin. What finally makes Elvirey feel like home is when her father mentions her mother. Since her mother died, her father hasn’t smiled and hasn’t talked about her mother at all. When he sees what they did with the quilt scraps, he does both, and that makes Elvirey finally feel like they’re home. She really needed that sense of her mother’s presence or her memory to really get a feeling of home.

Elvirey is an unusual name, but I think it’s a nickname or variation of Elvira. Elvira is an unusual name in modern times, and in the United States in modern times, it usually reminds people of Elvira, Mistress of the Dark, a character portrayed by Cassandra Peterson and known for hosting horror movies since the 1980s. That reference has no relation to the story. Elvira/Elvirey is just an interesting and unusual name.

Posted on by TracyC · 1 Comment

Snowbound Mystery

The Boxcar Children

Snowbound Mystery by Gertrude Chandler Warner, 1968.

The school that most of the Alden children attend is closed temporarily because there was a fire and the building needs to be repaired. Henry is in college (this is one of the books in the early part of the series where the children age), but he doesn’t have to go back for another week, so the family is talking about what they’d like to do. Benny says that he wants to go up to the hunter’s cabin in the Oak Hill woods. Grandfather Alden belongs to the sportsman’s club that owns the cabin, but the hunters in the club don’t use it during the fall. It’s early for there to be snow, so Grandfather Alden thinks it will be okay. Grandfather Alden isn’t eager to go himself, but he thinks that it’s okay if the kids want to spend a week there.

The kids bring some food with them to the cabin, but they plan to buy more from the nearest store, which is a five-mile hike away. On their arrival, they choose the places where they’re going to sleep in the cabin, and they look through the cabin’s guest book for names they recognize. One name they recognize is the Nelson family. The Nelsons are the ones who own the store, and they kids wonder why they’ve visited the cabin three times recently because they wouldn’t have come there to hunt. They decide to ask the Nelsons about it when they go to the store.

The Nelsons are friendly and helpful at the store. When the kids ask about their trips to the cabin, Mr. Nelson just says that they sometimes like a change of scene. The cabin used to belong to the Nelson family before the sporting club bought it. However, the Nelsons’ young son, Pugsy, says that whenever they go to the cabin, they “look and look.” His parents stop him from saying more, but the Aldens wonder what the Nelsons could be looking for at the cabin.

The Nelsons give them useful advice about dealing with the squirrels at the cabin and about cooking. Mr. Nelson loves cooking and baking. In particular, he likes to make buns, but he makes an odd comment about how they’re not as good as they could be.

Back at the cabin, the Aldens find a hidden broom closet and a strange message that seems to be in some kind of code. They can’t understand what it means, and they wonder if this message could be what the Nelsons are looking for. Because they don’t understand the significance of the message, they’re not sure what to do about it. The Nelsons are nice, so the kids don’t want to think that they might be involved in anything bad, but if there’s an innocent reason for them to have this message, why are they being so secretive about it?

Although it is early for snow, a bad snow storm comes that leaves the Aldens snowbound in the cabin. Fortunately, they have plenty of supplies, and they can use their radio to hear about weather conditions. There are messages on the radio for people who have been separated from family members, and one of them is from the children’s grandfather, telling them to remain in the cabin and wait for help because he will get to them as soon as he can.

However, the Nelsons were also worried about the Aldens and made their ways through the snowy woods to check on them. The snow was worse than they thought, so now, the Nelsons are also stuck at the cabin with the Aldens. While they wait for their rescuers to arrive, the Aldens and Nelsons discuss the secret message and what the Nelsons are really looking for.

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

My Reaction and Spoilers

The Nelsons are actually a nice family, and there is an innocent reason for their behavior. Mr. Nelson’s father and grandfather also loved baking, and they had a special recipe that they used for making buns. Their recipe had a secret ingredient, but unfortunately, they both died before passing on their secret. Mr. Nelson thinks that, if he could make the buns like they did, he could become famous or at least earn more money for his family. He is a good baker, but the recipe is something special. The secret message is part of the recipe, but there’s still a missing piece of the puzzle. The Aldens and the Nelsons use their time when they’re snowbound in the cabin to look for the rest.

This story is equal parts adventure and mystery. Fans of the Cottagecore aesthetic will appreciate how the Aldens make do with the primitive conditions at the cabin, use plants as decoration, and gather nuts in the woods before the snowstorm.

Years after this book was published, another author wrote a cookbook based on food references in the Boxcar Children series, and she included a recipe for the buns in this story. The story never reveals the secret ingredient, and the author uses some shortcuts in preparing them, but it’s an easy recipe that kids can learn to make.

Posted on by TracyC

The Rescue

The Rescue by Mary Cunningham, 1978.

Bob and Becca are going to stay at their aunt’s cabin in the mountains in California with their mother. Becca has been upset since she found out that her best friend, Elaine, will be moving to another state with her family. This trip is partly to get Becca’s mind off of losing her best friend, but Becca keeps thinking about how much she would have liked having her friend along on the trip. The only bright spot for Becca is that she might be able to write to Elaine about how nice the cabin, called Lantern Lodge, is or about the interesting things they might find to do. It’s not as good as having Elaine there to share the experience, but it’s better than nothing.

Lantern Lodge was originally built to be a guest cabin for friends of the movie star who once owned the mansion at the top of the hill. Now, the mansion is owned by an old man whose grandson is staying there with him. Bob wonders what the grandson is like and if he might want to go fishing sometime. There used to be a staircase leading up the hillside from the cabin, but it’s overgrown with brambles now.

Becca finds her way up the hillside by following a friendly Siamese cat, who shows her how she can use a cherry tree to reach the portion of the old stairs that is still climable. When she gets to the top of the hill, she admires the greenhouse where the old man grows orchids. She also discovers that Bob got to the top of the hill before her and has already met the old man’s grandson, Dan. Without revealing herself to the boys, she listens to what they’re saying. Dan explains that he’s taking care of his grandfather’s house and plants while his grandfather is in the hospital with pneumonia.

There’s a weather report on the radio that there’s a storm coming and that people in vacation cabins should watch for flash floods. Bob asks if that means his family should leave Lantern Lodge, but Dan says that there shouldn’t be a problem because the lodge is well-constructed. However, Dan says that Bob should wait until after the storm to go fishing. Bob agrees and heads back to the cabin. Becca, who still hasn’t shown herself to the boys, decides to stay longer because she’s curious about the old mansion and wants to look around more.

Becca heads back to the cabin when it starts to rain, although it’s difficult to get down from the stairs and tree when they’re wet and slippery. Becca manages to do it unharmed, but her mother slips and hurts her arm when she comes outside to look for her. When her mother’s arm swells up, Becca goes to look at the plants where she fell and realizes that there’s poison oak or poison ivy there. The rain has gotten worse, and the road has flooded, so they can’t leave the cabin, even if their mother was able to drive with her injured arm.

Fortunately, the phone at the cabin still works, and Dan calls them to see how they’re doing. They explain about their mother’s injured arm, and Dan gives them the name and number of a doctor to call. He also gives them other advice for dealing with the situation, recommending that they cook as much food as they can and bring it upstairs in case the lower floor of the cabin floods. They should also fill everything they can with clean water for drinking and prepare candles in case they lose electricity. They follow Dan’s instructions and call the doctor’s office. The nurse on duty gives them some instructions for caring for their mother’s arm and says that they’ll try to send a messenger with some medicine.

Dan calls again later to tell them that cabins in the area are being evacuated, and he thinks they should leave their cabin, too. Bob tries to explain that they can’t leave because the road is flooded and help hasn’t come for them, but the phone line goes dead. He doesn’t know how much Dan understood. They know that there is an emergency crew helping with the evacuations, but without a phone, they can’t call for help. There’s only one way left to communicate with the outside world, and that’s the old flagpole that’s been there since before the telephone was installed. A white flag run up the pole is supposed to signal distress, but the rope is rotten, and they can’t raise the flag. Their mother is now feverish and not very aware of what’s going on. What are Bob and Becca going to do?

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

My Reaction and Spoilers

I’ve never been a fan of disaster movies or survival stories, but I did enjoy this one. At one point, Bob says that he used to like seeing disasters movies, but it’s very different from experiencing one in real life. The children are scared, but they try to stay practical and do everything they can to deal with the situation and keep themselves and their mother safe.

It’s not a very long book, but it has some useful information about dealing with disasters. After the phone line goes dead, the kids find a book in the cabin about dealing with disasters. Most of the information in the book doesn’t apply to them, but they make use of the parts they can.

Dan eventually reaches them, but the tree he tied his boat to falls over, trapping him in the house with the kids and their mother. The situation is still dangerous at that point, but the kids realize that there is now one more person to help them. Although Dan was sure that the cabin would be solid, they soon realize that it’s starting to break up, and they have to get out fast. Because he has assisted with other rescues, Dan has the experience they need to help the kids get themselves and their mother to safety. Also, don’t worry about Becca’s pet mouse. I was afraid at first that the mouse wouldn’t make it, but the mouse is okay in the end!

Having survived a real disaster puts the more minor disaster of Elaine moving away into perspective for Becca. It’s sad when a friend moves away, but there are far worse things, and she and her family have come through them together.

Posted on by TracyC

The Case of the Waltzing Mouse

Brains Benton

The Case of the Waltzing Mouse by by George Wyatt (Charles Spain Verral), 1961.

The Crestwood Garden Club holds an animal show to raise money for their Community Camp Fund. Brains and Jimmy enjoy seeing all of Professor Gustave’s animals, but they become concerned when a seal knocks over a creel where its fish are stored, and they see that there is a large amount of cash concealed inside. Professor Gustave says that he carries that much cash with him because he is always traveling from town to town with his animal show and can’t depend on a single bank for his money.

Brains still seems concerned about the money and the way it’s concealed, but Jimmy is hoping that Brains won’t find a mystery that will disrupt their vacation plans. Every year, they spend a few weeks at a lakeside cabin that their families rent, and all Jimmy wants to do is go swimming and fishing.

However, while Jimmy’s older sister, Ann, is driving the boys to the cabin, they come upon the professor’s trailer of animals. The animals are very upset, and the professor is nowhere to be seen. After searching the area, they find the professor, and he tells them that he was attacked by a couple of men. One of them is a guy called Blackie, who used to work for the professor, but the professor fired him because he mistreated the animals. The men were trying to take the creel with the money in it, but the professor threw it into the bushes, and they didn’t find it.

It turns out that the professor is also going to be staying at a cabin by the lake for awhile. They help him to get settled there with his animals, but Brains is still concerned that the men will be back for the professor’s money. The concern is justified because the men later attack the professor while he’s in a boat on the lake, and the creel is lost overboard. The professor is very upset, not just because the money is now at the bottom of the lake but because the money actually doesn’t belong to him. The professor says that it really belongs to someone else, although he doesn’t say who.

Brains realizes that they can get the creel back because a policeman friend of theirs is also staying at the lake and has offered to teach the boys how to skin dive. Jimmy has wanted to learn to dive and is willing to dive for the creel. Unfortunately, the situation is complicated when the men kidnap the professor for ransom, saying that they’ll let him go if the boys bring them the money.

My Reaction

There were parts of this book that I didn’t really care for. I’ve noticed that the Brains Benton books sometimes include stereotypical attitudes of boys looking down on girls or discounting their abilities. Near the beginning of the book, Jimmy’s sister Ann is trying to get the boys to hurry getting ready to go to the cabin, but Brains wants some extra time to take care of a new device that he’s just gotten. Jimmy says, “But, after all, she is a girl, and girls and women just don’t understand how it is when a fellow gets interested in something highly scientific and technical.” No, Jimmy, I don’t think that’s the issue. It’s not about not understanding how someone can find science interesting; Ann’s just in a hurry to get going. She would probably be just an impatient if you were taking extra time to pick out a different shirt or get your hair combed just right. Granted, some of Jimmy’s comments are tongue-in-cheek. When Ann later tells them to stay out of trouble because she knows that they’ve gotten into trouble with their detective business before, Jimmy mentally lists the dangerous situations they’ve been in while denying that they were really that bad. “Women! Always exaggerating!”

The mystery wasn’t too bad. We do know who the villain is from the beginning, so like the other books that I’ve read in this series, it’s more of a “howdunit” than a “whodunit.” Readers get to watch Brains and Jimmy figure out how to rescue the professor and save his money. There is one other element of the story that is more of a mystery than the professor’s kidnapping. The professor says that the money isn’t really his, and the boys see a mysterious girl talking to Blackie. Is she the one who really owns the money, and if so, what is the relationship between her and the professor?

Posted on by TracyC

Ruth Fielding at Snow Camp

Ruth Fielding

Ruth Fielding at Snow Camp or Lost in the Backwoods by Alice B. Emerson (the Stratemeyer Syndicate), 1913.

It’s shortly after Christmas, and Ruth and her friends, the Cameron twins, Helen and Tom, are home from boarding school. They’re excited because the twins’ father has purchased a snow camp, a kind of winter retreat in the woods, with a nice cabin that has enough room for the twins, Ruth, and some of their school friends. In fact, Mr. Cameron is allowing the young people to take a party of their friends there soon, before school starts again.

However, before they leave on their trip, Ruth and the twins have an unexpected confrontation with a neighbor’s bull that causes a boy hiding in a hollow log to be knocked into a freezing creek. They manage to rescue the boy and take him back to the Red Mill to warm up.

The boy reluctantly explains that he is Fred Hatfield and that he has run away from home, which is in Scarboro, New York, close to the snow camp. His father is dead, and he says that he has plenty of other siblings to help his mother at home. He is evasive about why he felt the need to run away, just saying that he was tired of where he was, and he’s sure his family won’t miss him. None of the adults are impressed by that explanation, saying that they’re sure that a mother would miss any of her children, no matter how many others she might have.

Ruth spots a newspaper clipping that Fred dropped, and when she picks it up and reads it, she realizes that Fred’s situation is more serious than anyone else thinks. At first, she doesn’t tell anyone else about the clipping, not sure how much she should reveal about what she knows (even to the readers). However, knowing that Fred might try to run away, she hides his trousers so he can’t leave in the middle of the night.

The next day, they tell Fred that the young people are going to the snow camp near Scarboro, and that Mr. Cameron will take Fred there on the train when he escorts his children and their friends there. As Ruth anticipates, Fred doesn’t want to go back to Scarboro. He tries more than once to run away, and one of his attempts to run and Ruth’s attempt to stop him cause them both to be separated from the rest of the party, lost in the winter woods. Fred isn’t happy with Ruth for tagging along with him and interfering in his business, and Ruth says that she’s not going to let him abandon her in the woods.

Together, they have a frightening encounter with a with a panther and get help from a hermit living in the woods. The hermit is a strange man who keeps rattlesnakes as pets, although the poison sacs have been removed. He teaches the Ruth and Fred to walk in snow shoes, and he helps them to reach the snow camp. They actually manage to get there before the rest of their party does, but Fred disappears just as they arrive.

When Ruth calls her friends in town to let them know that she’s all right and that she’s reached the snow camp, Mr. Cameron shocks her by telling her that the boy she’s known as Fred can’t possibly be the real Fred Hatfield. Mr. Cameron has learned from the local authorities that Fred Hatfield was killed in an apparent hunting accident months ago, although some people wonder if it was actually a murder. Fred’s half brother is being held by the authorities for Fred’s death. Did Fred just fake his death and run away? Or is the boy they know as Fred someone else entirely?

The book is now public domain and is available to borrow and read for free online through Internet Archive (multiple copies) and Project Gutenberg.

My Reaction and Spoilers

When we’re first told that Fred Hatfield was supposedly killed in a hunting accident, they mention that the boy’s body apparently rolled into a river after being shot, making it seem like Fred could still be alive, but then we’re told that the boy’s body was recovered from the river. That means that either Fred is actually dead and this new runaway Fred is an imposter or some other boy has been killed and Fred is just letting everyone think that the dead boy is him. Either way, there is a runaway boy whose identity needs to be established and a dead body whose identity also needs to be confirmed, and the circumstances of that death also need to be established. What really happened during that fateful hunting trip?

I liked the premise of this book because it’s much more of a mystery than the previous two books in the series. However, as an early Stratemeyer Syndicate book, there isn’t much deliberate investigation of the mystery. Most of the story is more adventure-oriented, and the characters learn the truth of the mystery almost by accident and through Fred’s eventual confession. In between, the characters have some outdoor winter fun. The girls make some homemade candy, which the boys spoil with a prank, causing some boy/girl rivalry. The girls get lost in a bad snow storm while trying to prove that they can be as daring and innovative as the boys when it comes to having fun and end up having to rescue Fred as well, which is when the solution to the story is revealed.

The solution is pretty much what people thought it was, which is a bit of a let down. At first, I thought that there might be more of a plot twist. Even the true identity of the dead body isn’t very exciting. Fred was labeled as a bad boy in the beginning, and that turns out to be true, but his half brother also admits that he was pretty hard on Fred at home because he’s smaller and not as physically strong as his older half brothers. They criticized Fred for not keeping up with the physical work they were doing and called him lazy, but realistically, Fred can’t do all the things they do, and his half brothers realize that they have to acknowledge and accept that. They say that they’re going to try to find him a different kind of work that he can do.

It’s not a bad ending, but I’d like to see a little more deliberate investigation from Ruth Fielding. I would have liked to see Ruth Fielding talk to other members of Fred’s family and maybe have one of them produce a picture of Fred to help establish his identity. Then, I’d like to have Ruth and her friends find Fred more deliberately than accidentally. The story isn’t bad the way it is, and there’s plenty of adventure, but as a mystery fan, I usually prefer more deliberate detective work.

Posted on by TracyC

The Berenstain Bears and Too Much Vacation

The Berenstain Bears

The Berenstain Bears and Too Much Vacation by Stan and Jan Berenstain, 1989.

“Can a bear’s vacation
with more rain than sun
end up being
the one that’s most fun?”

The Bears are looking forward to their family vacation! The vacation was Papa’s idea because he saw an ad in the newspaper for a rental cabin the mountains. Papa likes the idea of a wilderness vacation and living off the land. He describes to his family how much fun it will be to swim and fish in the lake and eat wild berries.

However, when they arrive at the cabin, it soon becomes apparent that their vacation is not going to be as it was advertised. The cabin is run-down and messy. The water from the pump is brownish, and the lake is too.

From the very beginning, nothing on their vacation goes right. Papa’s “wilderness stew,” made from plants that he gathered, is terrible, and the wild berries are sour. Their rowboat sinks, and fishing is a disaster!

When it starts to rain, their cabin leaks, and Papa falls down in the mud. By then, everybody has decided that they’ve had enough and that it’s time to go home.

So, what did they get out of their worst vacation ever? Memories! The experiences were pretty awful, but Mama’s pictures of everything that happened turn out to be hilarious! This is a fun story about how even disappointing situations can have a humorous side.

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

Posted on by TracyC

Kate’s Camp-Out

Sleepover Friends

#6 Kate’s Camp-Out by Susan Saunders, 1988.

Kate’s family is spending the weekend at a cabin at Spirit Lake, and Kate is allowed to bring her Sleepover Friends with her.  However, what promised to be a fun and exciting weekend soon comes with complications.  First, Kate discovers that the Norwood family will be in a cabin nearby.  Dr. Norwood is a colleague of her father’s, but his two sons, Sam and Dave, are pests who like to play practical jokes.  When they arrive at the cabin, there is also no electricity (a problem that they fix the next day), and they learn that the reason the lake is called Spirit Lake is because there are some scary stories about the place.  Kate’s father tells the girls a story before bed about an old fur trapper who murdered another fur trapper for his money.  The ghost story is interrupted by Dr. Norwood, who comes over to see if everything is all right because there have been some break-ins in the area recently.

The girls are spooked by the ghost story, but the next day, they also encounter the Norwood boys and realize that they’re every bit as awful as Kate remembers them.  First, Sam and Dave trick a couple of the girls into wading out into a deeper area of the lake so that they’ll fall in and get wet.  Then, when the families meet for a barbecue, the boys give a couple of the girls worms in a bun instead of sausages.

Because of their bad experiences with the boys, the girls are allowed to go back to their cabin while the others finish the barbecue.  While the girls are at the cabin, they accidentally find a secret hiding place in the fireplace with a pouch of old coins inside!  The girls wonder if that could be the stolen money from the ghost story, but Stephanie, who has been reading a book about ghost stories from the area, says that the dates on the old coins are later than the story took place.  According to the book, a ghost child was once seen around their cabin, but the girls can’t figure out why a child would have hidden so much money.

While the girls wait for the adults to return from the barbecue, they fix dinner for themselves and decide to hold a séance to contact the spirits.  They don’t really believe that the séance will work when they try it, but without any tv or radio, they don’t have anything else to do, and they can’t get their minds off the ghost stories. 

To the girls’ surprise, they actually hear strange knocks in reply to the questions that they ask the spirits.  Then, a child’s giggle convinces them that it’s just the Norwood boys, spying on them and trying to scare them again.  It’s the last straw, and the girl plot how to get even with the Norwood boys!

The book is currently available online through Internet Archive.

My Reaction and Spoilers

This is one of those stories that has a somewhat ambiguous ending. When the girls try to catch the Norwood boys playing ghost, they instead discover the identities of the people behind the recent break-ins at the cabins. Later, they learn that Sam and Dave actually have alibis for the time that they heard the ghost noises, leaving them wondering if the knocking and giggling could have actually been a ghost. The girls do manage to play a prank on the boys before the end of the story, but they never learn the story behind the old coins.

I liked the part where they never firmly establish whether or not there was a ghost because it’s fun to leave people wondering. People who like ghost stories can imagine that the girls did hear a ghost, but if you don’t like the scary explanation, you can imagine that there’s another explanation for the noises. However, I found the lack of resolution behind the presence of the coins a little disappointing. The owner of the cabin they were using lets each of the girls keep a single coin as a souvenir (and the coins really are valuable collectors’ items) and gives the others to a local museum. I think I would have liked the story better if the girls found an explanation for the presence of the coins at the museum, so at least part of the story would be resolved.

There are two main theories that I have behind the events in the story. One is that the thieves in the area hid some stolen coins in the cabin for some reason and they were the ones trying to scare the girls during their seance. The other is that the mystery of the coins ties in with the child ghost in some way, hinting at dark unknown deeds from the past. Alas, there is no confirmation about which of these theories, if any, is true.

Posted on by TracyC

The Haunting of Cabin 13

Cabin13The Haunting of Cabin 13 by Kristi D. Holl, 1987.

Thirteen-year-old Laurie is looking forward to her family’s vacation. They’ve rented a cabin for a week, Cabin 13, by the lake at Backbone State Park (It’s a real state park in Iowa. Link repaired 10-19-22.), and her friend Jenny is staying there with them. Laurie’s mother isn’t looking forward to the trip. She hates dirt and bugs and doesn’t like the cabin when they arrive. As everyone starts unpacking, Laurie looks around the cabin and finds a note that warns them to leave because the cabin is haunted. Supposedly, it was written by the ghost herself. The note is signed “Eleanor.” Laurie’s mother thinks that they should leave right away, but Laurie and the rest of the family persuade her that it’s just a joke. At first, Laurie’s sure that’s all it is.

Then, the park ranger tells the family that the other families who have tried to stay in that cabin this summer also found similar notes. It might be just a prank, but it might not. He also tells them that a girl named Eleanor, the same age as Laurie and Jenny, drowned there the summer before, and strange things have been seen there since, like lights around the lake. Laurie’s brother, Ricky, thinks it sounds cool that they’re staying in a haunted cabin by a haunted lake. Like others, Laurie thinks that the notes are the product of a prankster, but what would be the point behind it?

The girls meet a pair of brothers who are staying nearby, Kevin and Matt. When they tell them about the note, Matt is eager to investigate. Jenny enjoys flirting with boys, and she’s mostly interested in flirting with good-looking, athletic Kevin. Matt is in a wheelchair, so Jenny doesn’t pay much attention to him. She just makes an awkward comment about cripples being able to contribute to society that makes everyone feel uncomfortable. Although Laurie knows that Jenny’s comment was inappropriately personal and callous, Laurie also underrates Matt’s ability to help with their note mystery at first, and she’s shy about talking to him because she’s often shy around boys. However, needing someone to confide her thoughts in when Jenny isn’t interested, Laurie talks to Matt about her theories about the mysterious notes. Matt turns out to be easy to talk to, helping Laurie get over her nervousness about talking to boys.

At first, Laurie tells Matt that she thinks that the prankster is trying to drive people away from Cabin 13 because something important is hidden there. However, as she starts asking questions about Eleanor, she learns that the notes haven’t just been directed at Cabin 13. Staff at the park have also received notes from “Eleanor.” Laurie also sees a figure in black sneaking around the park, who she is sure is not a ghost.

It isn’t long before Laurie receives more notes from “Eleanor,” hinting that she might be in danger, and she and Jenny see the mysterious lights that people have been talking about. Then, when the children are out in a canoe together, it develops a leak and sinks. Matt panics because his legs are paralyzed, and he can’t swim, but Laurie saves him with the help of some people in another boat.

Was that accident just an accident, or could it have something to do with Eleanor’s “accident” last year? There are plenty of suspects who might have reasons for playing ghost and stirring up trouble at the lake. Matt’s father blames the park ranger for the accident that paralyzed Matt. At a previous visit to the lake, Matt was crossing a road with his father and brother and was struck by a speeding car. Matt father says it wouldn’t have happened if the roads had been policed properly. Laurie realizes that he might have a motive for revenge. Then again, some people have been coming to the lake, drawn by the ghost stories and hoping to see the mysterious lights. Could the ghost be a publicity stunt to drum up business?

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

My Reaction and Spoilers

When Laurie discovers that Eleanor’s half sister has come to the lake to investigate Eleanor’s death herself, she thinks that she has the mystery solved, but she’s only half right. It’s true that Eleanor’s sister has been responsible for some of the things happening at the lake, but not all of them.  She explains to the kids that Eleanor loved mystery stories and was always playing detective games, but she thinks that perhaps the game got too real for Eleanor the summer that she died.  There is something sinister going on at the lake, something that Eleanor also realized before her death, and there is more to Eleanor’s death than most people know.

At the end of the book, Matt gets a chance to be a hero and stop the bad guy from escaping, using his wheelchair to his advantage because a person on wheels can sometimes move faster than a person on foot.  Even before that, Laurie had gained an appreciation for Matt and his sensible thinking, realizing that a person who is impaired in one way can still have great abilities in other areas of life.  She also comes to think of Matt as being brave for coming back to the site of the accident that made him a paraplegic.  Matt says that he had to come in order to prove to himself that there was nothing inherently bad about the  place and to stop the nightmares he was having about his accident.  Matt and Eleanor’s sister both make Laurie realize that everyone has something difficult or frightening that they have to deal with in their lives; it’s just that some people’s problems are more obvious than others.  Everyone can see what Matt’s dealing with at first glance because he’s in a wheelchair, but no one knew about the pain and fear that Eleanor’s sister was carrying around with her until she admitted it.

I consider this story a pseudo-ghost story because the obvious parts of the haunting were caused by living people, for reasons of their own.  However, Laurie seems to feel that Eleanor’s spirit was there with them, waiting to see the mystery of her death solved.  It’s left open to interpretation, but if Eleanor was there, it was only seen in the odd feelings that Laurie had from time to time, not in any more obvious or physical way.

Something that confused me a little in the book is that, at one point, Jenny tells someone that Laurie already has a reputation for being an amateur detective, having discovered that Jenny herself had been kidnapped when the authorities thought that she had run away from home. Jenny gives full details of the time when she was kidnapped, including who kidnapped her and why and how Laurie figured out where she was. When I read that section of the story, I thought at first that the author was talking about a previous book that she had written with these two characters, but I had trouble figuring out which it was, if any.

Interesting fact: some of the children in the story are named after the author’s own children.