Posted on by TracyC

The Powder Puff Puzzle

The Polka Dot Private Eye

PowderPuff#4 The Powder Puff Puzzle by Patricia Reilly Giff, 1987.

Dawn is on her way to go swimming with her friend Emily Arrow when her cat, Powder Puff, is startled and jumps into a stranger’s car.  Before Dawn can do anything about it, the car drives away with her cat!

Fortunately, Dawn managed to notice a few things about the car and driver. The car is red and dented.  The driver is tall and skinny and has long, gray hair.  She was eating a jelly cookie and carrying a box and a long pole.  Her license plate had a name on it and that started with “PA,” but Dawn didn’t get to read the rest.

Emily’s father is a police officer, but he can’t trace the license plate with just the letters that Dawn was able to give him.  Instead, he has the kids make Lost Cat posters to put up in the neighborhood.  Still, that’s not enough for Dawn.  As The Polka Dot Private Eye, she should be able to figure out where her own lost cat is!

PowderPuffPicWith the help of her friends, especially Jason, Dawn uses what she knows to put together a picture of the person they’re looking for, and they try to retrace her steps through town.  Can they track down Powder Puff and get him back?

Part of the puzzle that Dawn and Jason overlook at first is the woman’s profession, which is one that the kids hadn’t really expected to find a woman doing, although Dawn spots the clues which point to what the woman was doing in the area and allow them to realize where she had to be going.  Whether more modern kids reading this book would feel the same way about the woman’s profession, I’m not sure.

The book is currently available online through Internet Archive.

Posted on by TracyC · 4 Comments

Mystery of the Black-Magic Cave

MegMagicCave

Mystery of the Black-Magic Cave by Holly Beth Walker, 1971, 1978.

MegMagicCavePic1Meg’s Uncle Hal takes her and her best friend, Kerry, with him on vacation to Merrybones, Maine.  He has a cabin there, and it’s a good place to go fishing or exploring in the woods.  However, Uncle Hal isn’t just there to relax this time.  His friend, Emily Hawthorne, has asked for his help because she’s received some mysterious, disturbing messages.

Emily was born in Merrybones but moved away at a young age to live with an aunt on the west coast because she was orphaned after the death of her father.  Her father’s death was mysterious, and Emily has had the feeling that people haven’t told her the full truth of it.  It was known that he had a heart condition, and he was found dead in the woods one morning, apparently having died of a heart attack.  Emily herself was also found wandering in the woods alone, frightened and talking about a “dark monster”, but she was very young at the time and no longer remembers what happened or what she saw that night.

MegMagicCavePic2She has returned to Merrybones to teach in the local school, but people in this town look at her as an outsider because she has spent so many years away.  Now, she has received threatening messages written in rhyme and signed with a star with the number 13 inside.  Her pet black cat, Melissa, has also mysteriously disappeared, and Emily is worried about her.

Someone doesn’t want Emily to stay in Merrybones, possibly because they’re afraid of what she might remember about the past.  Meg and Kerry soon learn that there are strange legends and stories of witches connected with a cave in the woods.  They later discover that someone has been there recently, lighting candles and drawing pentacles like the ones on the threatening messages to Emily.  In fact, Mrs. Stoner, the woman who owns the bed-and-breakfast where Meg and Kerry are staying because Uncle Hal’s cabin only has one room, has what appears to be a witch’s spell book hidden in the storage room next to where the girls sleep.  To get the answers, Meg and her friends, including Mrs. Stoner’s own children, must summon the courage to go the cave once more and learn more about these mysterious “witches.”

The book is part of the Meg Duncan Mysteries.  It is available to borrow and read for free online through Internet Archive.

My Reaction and Spoilers

A creepy mystery like this was just the sort of thing I loved as a kid, but this story kind of bothered me, reading it again as an adult.  I had forgotten how it ended, but as I was reading about the secret society in the book and the clues that Meg and her friends uncovered about them, I found myself not just thinking that their spells and witch names were a little hokey for a secret society of adults (“Endorella” indeed!) but also getting angry at the juvenile way they behaved.  Part of me thought at first that it was because the witches’ scariness was toned down for the sake of juvenile readers, but more and more, I found myself thinking of them as adults who never really grew up, whose mean, cliquish ways were carried over into adulthood, long after they should have grown out of them.  There are adults in real life who are like that.  To my surprise, that sense wasn’t just because their little rituals were toned down for children but was actually a genuine clue to the identities and motives of the “witches” and the origins of their secret society.  Discovering that actually made me feel a little better.  I also think the author did a good job of explaining how a little harmless “fun” can get out of hand and showing the adults’ embarrassment at being caught in their “game.”  The secret society isn’t quite as mean or sinister as it first appears, which is also a relief.

There is an interesting twist to the story in who the real author of the threatening messages was.  I was pretty sure who the writer was, and I guessed right, but I had expected that this person would be a member of the secret society, which wasn’t true.  Also, the secret that the villain is trying to protect isn’t how the father died years ago, which turns out to be just because of his heart condition with no foul play, but the fact that someone stole the money that the father had in his possession at the time he died.  The story does end happily, though, including the thief repaying Emily (this person had actually been trying to work up to it for a long time) and Emily agreeing to spare the person’s reputation.  The kitty is okay at the end, too!

Posted on by TracyC

Meg and the Disappearing Diamonds

MegDisappearingDiamondsMeg and the Disappearing Diamonds by Holly Beth Walker, 1967.

Margaret Ashley “Meg” Duncan lives in a small town called Hidden Springs in Virginia, not too far away from Washington, D.C., where her father works.  Her mother is dead, and she has no brothers or sisters. When her father is away in Washington, working, Mr. and Mrs. Wilson, the gardener and housekeeper, take care of her.  For company, Meg has her beloved cat, Thunder (who doesn’t like anyone but Meg), and her best friend, Kerry.

People in Hidden Springs have been talking lately about Mrs. Partlow and her diamond jewelry.  Mrs. Partlow is the wealthiest, most important woman in town.  Usually, she keeps her jewelry in a vault at the bank, but recently, she brought it to her house so that she can wear it at her niece’s wedding.  Then, someone attempts to break into Mrs. Partlow’s house.  Nothing is taken, but everyone can guess what the thief was after.

MegDisappearingDiamondsPicMrs. Partlow invites a few friends to her house for tea to show them her jewelry and thoughtfully invites Meg and Kerry to join the women.  Meg and Kerry are excited at the chance to attend a grown-up tea party and to see Mrs. Partlow’s fabulous jewelry.  However, the party is crashed by Mrs. Glynn, a new woman in town.  Mrs. Glynn has three trained dogs that she dotes on.  She dresses them up in fancy costumes, and she can’t resist the opportunity to show them off when she wanders into the gathering in Mrs. Partlow’s garden.  The dogs cause a disruption, and after it’s over, everyone realizes that Mrs. Partlow’s diamond jewelry is missing!

Could the dogs have been an intentional distraction?  What about the person who tried to break into Mrs. Partlow’s house earlier?

Kerry’s much younger cousin, Cissie, is visiting her family and has a habit of taking things that catch her eye and hiding them in her secret “playhouse” which changes locations from time to time.  So far, the girls know that she’s taken Meg’s ballet slippers. Cissie also slipped into Mrs. Partlow’s party, uninvited and unnoticed by the other guests.  The girls don’t know for sure that Cissie took the jewelry, but the theft is a serious crime, and they don’t want to see little Cissie get into trouble.  They have to either find Cissie’s new “playhouse” and search it for the jewelry or to discover who else might have taken the diamonds before anyone else realizes that Cissie might be the thief.

My edition of the book has drawings that are done in kind of a gray green color.

The book part of the Meg Duncan Mysteries.  It is available to borrow and read for free online through Internet Archive.

Posted on by TracyC

Susan’s Magic

SusansMagicSusan’s Magic by Nan Hayden Agle, 1973.

Susan Prescott believes in magic, although her mother tries to tell her that it’s all imagination.  Susan gets feelings about things and sometimes seems to have the ability to make things work the way she wants them to.  That’s part of the reason why she can believe that old Mrs. Gaffney is really a witch.  People say that Mrs. Gaffney used to be a fortune teller but had to stop when one of her predictions became frightening true and people got scared of her.  Now, Mrs. Gaffney runs an antique shop, living in a small apartment above it.  But, whether Mrs. Gaffney is really a witch or not, Susan’s life soon becomes entangled with hers through a series of unforeseen events.

Susan lives with her mother, who is a practical, down-to-earth woman, and her older brother Mike, who likes to play football.  Her parents are divorced, and her father lives in another state, only visiting occasionally, often at unpredictable times.  Susan’s father is known for not being very dependable, and he apparently left the family to be with another woman, although the story doesn’t provide many details.  Susan misses her father and is hurt by his absence, lack of dependability, and that he is more interested in being with someone else, somewhere else, instead of with her, her mother, and her brother.

The story begins when Susan sets out one day to buy a present for her mother’s birthday, and another girl she knows from school tells her to have a look at the flea market being held that day at a church.  Susan doesn’t have much money, and even most of the used items at the flea market are beyond her small savings.  Then, she foolishly spends what little money she has on cupcakes and lemonade.  Susan is angry with herself for her  foolishness, but her mistake leads her to greater adventures.

SusansMagicPic1One of the things at the sale which especially captures Susan’s attention is a small stuffed toy elephant.  The elephant is very worn, and Susan feels sorry for him, wanting to take him home and take care of him.  However, her money is gone, and she still has no present for her mother.  Then Mrs. Gaffney spots her looking sad and offers to lend her the 25 cents she would need to buy the elephant.  Although Susan has reservations about accepting such a loan, she does anyway, telling Mrs. Gaffney that she’ll pay her back.

Susan brings the elephant, which she names Trunko, home, and when her mother thinks that Susan meant to give it to her for her birthday, she doesn’t correct her although she has become very attached to him herself.  Her mother, sensing Susan’s attachment to the toy, says that they can share it and that Susan can sleep with it.  Susan thinks this is a good arrangement until someone calls the house to say that the toy elephant was donated by mistake and that the original owner is sad and wants it back.

At first, Susan can’t bear the thought of giving up Trunko. But when she learns that the real owner is Hugo, a member of her brother’s football team, that he has had the toy ever since he was small, and that he really misses it, she realizes that she has to let him have it back.  To thank Susan for giving him back Trunko (originally named Stanley), Hugo gives Susan a stray cat that had been living under his porch.  Susan loves the cat immediately and names her Sereena.

However, Susan’s mother says that they can’t keep the cat because the hill nearby is a bird sanctuary.  Susan tries to persuade her mother otherwise, but she says that they’ll just have to find another home for Sereena.  Susan tries to get an older girl from school to look after the cat for awhile while she tries to persuade her mother to let her keep her, but the other girl refuses.  Then, unexpectedly, the cat runs into Mrs. Gaffney’s shop as Susan is walking past it.

In Mrs. Gaffney’s shop, Susan accidentally breaks a teapot, increasing her debt to Mrs. Gaffney.  However, Mrs. Gaffney turns out to be a cat lover and agrees to look after Sereena for Susan.  This is the beginning of a new relationship between Susan and Mrs. Gaffney as Susan offers to work for her in order to pay off her debt.  Mrs. Gaffney could use some help in her shop because sales haven’t been good, and she’s worried about losing it.

Sereena herself turns out to be good for Mrs. Gaffney’s shop, attracting customers’ attention to the items for sale.  Susan feels jealous about how much Sereena likes Mrs. Gaffney and her shop, as if Sereena has abandoned her like her father and Trunko have.  But, when a beautiful dollhouse in Mrs. Gaffney’s shop catches her eye and it turns out to be even more valuable than Mrs. Gaffney believed it was at first, Susan has to decide whether she is willing to give it up to help Mrs. Gaffney earn enough money to fix up her shop or if she will hold Mrs. Gaffney to her earlier promise to sell it to her for much less.

SusansMagicPic2In spite of the talk about magic and witches, this is not a fantasy story at all.  Susan’s concept of magic has more to do with a way of living, dealing with change, and solving life’s problems.  For the first part of the book, Susan’s “magic” focuses on getting what she wants for herself and getting things to work out the way she wants them to.  But, as the book goes on, Susan matures in the way she deals with the complications in her life.

Toward the end of the book, Susan thinks about reality and fantasy: “The magic part of living was how you fit yourself around real things, she guessed.  A magician was extra good at fitting. That’s why being one was important.”  What Susan really wants and the kind of person she wants to be change.  She comes to realize that, while she can’t get and keep everything she wants in life in the sense that it’s always with her all the time, caring about people and things is also a kind of ownership.  Giving up the toy elephant and sharing the cat with Mrs. Gaffney do not mean losing them completely because she still cares about them and the people connected with them.

Susan also realizes that, even if she doesn’t get exactly what she wants in the beginning, as long as things work out for the people she cares about, she can still be happy.  Although she has to make sacrifices at times for the people she cares about, she earns the love and respect of the people who mean the most to her.  Susan says, “Anyway, magicians don’t lose. They win. Dad, Trunko, and Sereena are mine still in a way.”  She will always be close to her mother and brother, even without her father’s presence, and Hugo, Mrs. Gaffney, and Sereena are all her friends.  Susan is a winner not because she gets what she wants for herself but because she knows how to make things work out in the best possible way for everyone she cares about, and that’s a kind of magic.

The book is currently available online through Internet Archive.

In some ways, this story reminds me a little of the Miyazki movie Whisper of the Heart, which also features a young girl who likes making up stories and who is led to an antique store by a friendly cat and meets an older person who helps her to learn about the person she wants to be and the kind of life she wants to live.  The two stories are not the same, though, and Whisper of the Heart was based on Japanese manga, not this book.  In some ways, however, both this book and Whisper of the Heart are the kind of stories that take on a new life when you read them as an adult because, at that point, you understand some of the feelings behind them better.