Posted on by TracyC

Meg Mackintosh and The Case of the Curious Whale Watch

Meg Mackintosh Mysteries

Meg Mackintosh and The Case of the Curious Whale Watch by Lucinda Landon, 1987.

Meg and her brother, Peter, are going on a whale watch trip with their grandfather. As they board the boat, their grandfather tells them that the captain is well-known as a treasure hunter, looking for pirate treasure.

On board the Albatross, they are greeted by Captain Caleb and meet his mate Jasper, and the other whale watch guests. The guests are Mrs. Clarissa Maxwell and her nephew Anthony, who seems to like gambling; a man named Oliver Morley, who likes stamps; a college student called Carlos de Christopher; and a marine biologist, Dr. Susan Peck.

Meg asks Captain Caleb about his treasure hunting, and he shows everyone an old map that’s been in his family for many years. The sailor who gave it to them also gave them a whale’s tooth with a scrimshaw carving of a whale on it. It’s supposed to help explain where the treasure is hidden. Some of the members of the expedition debate about how much money the treasure of the map would be worth, but Dr. Peck is completely opposed to treasure hunting because it’s disruptive to the environment.

The group enjoys watching the whales, although Meg’s grandfather has to go lie down for a while because he’s seasick, and lazy Jasper spends his time reading comic books in the lifeboat. When they encounter a storm, and everyone goes into the cabin to get out of the rain, they discover that the map is missing!

Who could have taken it? Various members of the whale watch have talked about their need for money, and Dr. Peck said that she thought the map should be destroyed to prevent damage to the environment. Meg goes over the pictures she’s take to find the thief!

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

My Reaction

I like the Meg Mackintosh books because it’s fun to solve the mystery along with the heroine. Like other books in the series, readers are supposed to use the story and the clues in the pictures to solve the mystery. At various points in the story, the story pauses for readers to figure out something about what’s happening, and these are good points for readers to check that they’re on track and to review the information they know so far. The story isn’t very long, but there are multiple points for readers to figure out something about what’s going on.

I did figure out the answer to this one very quickly. It’s partly because I’m an adult and this is aimed at children, but more importantly, I’ve seen the movie Charade with Audrey Hepburn, which used a similar plot device. The story did a good job of making all the suspects look like they had a motive, but when you figure out what the thief’s real goal was, there’s only one person who qualifies. Kids in early elementary school would probably find the mystery more challenging.

Posted on by TracyC

Meg Mackintosh and The Mystery at Camp Creepy

Meg Mackintosh Mysteries

Meg Mackintosh and The Mystery at Camp Creepy by Lucinda Landon, 1987.

Meg Mackintosh is at a summer camp in Maine! The camp is called Camp Crescent, but it soon gets the name Camp Creepy because there’s a ghost story about the camp. The story says that an old man named Stuart once lived in the building that the camp uses for a boathouse and that he still haunts the camp. When people start hearing strange noises at night, the campers start thinking maybe the ghost story is true.

To celebrate the Fourth of July, the camp decides to hold a treasure hunt with puzzles for the campers to solve. Everyone is excited about the treasure hunt, but Meg is especially excited because she’s solved treasure hunts before. However, in her excitement to start the treasure hunt, she accidentally drops the first clue on the camp fire, and much of it burns.

Everyone is angry with Meg for messing up the treasure hunt because they’re supposed to solve it before nightfall to enjoy the prize. Although they don’t know what the prize is supposed to be, they’re told that it won’t be any good if they find it too late. While the others go on a hike, Meg fakes a stomach ache because she just can’t face the other campers again.

At the camp’s infirmary, Meg meets two other campers who are staying behind. Russell has a bad case of poison ivy, and Tina has been dealing with homesickness. They ask to see what’s left of the first clue, and Meg shows them. Something in the clue reminds Meg of something she saw at camp earlier, and the three of them begin thinking that they might be able to solve the after all. If they can just get past that first burned clue, they can continue the treasure hunt like normal.

Can the three of them manage to solve the treasure hunt and save the prize for all the other campers? Will they meet Stuart’s ghost along the way?

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

My Reaction

I always enjoy treasure hunt stories, and like other Meg Mackintosh mysteries, this story gives readers the opportunity to figure out the clues and puzzles along with Meg. The information readers need is in the pictures of the story.

Most of the focus of the story is on the treasure hunt, and the ghost is kind of a side plot. Maybe the ghost would seem a little spookier to young readers, but I have to admit that I found it difficult to think of anybody named Stuart as sounding very sinister. The legend of Stuart doesn’t even seem to carry any consequences for people who see him other than it just being spooky, so I didn’t think the story was that creepy.

Posted on by TracyC

Lucky Dog Days

Pee Wee Scouts

Lucky Dog Days by Judy Delton, 1988.

Mrs. Peters tells the scouts that it’s Help-a-Pet month. The kids start talking about the kinds of pets they have, and Mrs. Peters asks them if they would like to do something to help a pet. She suggests that they could walk dogs at an animal shelter or raise money for homeless pets.

Mrs. Peters takes the scouts to an animal shelter. The kids like seeing all the animals, although Tracy turns out to be allergic to them. The other kids walk the dogs around the shelter yard. This turns into chaos because Rachel decides to walk a dog that’s really too big for her to handle, a St. Bernard. (The adults should have stopped her, but they never do in this series when a kid is about to do something they shouldn’t. They take Rachel’s word for it that she can handle a St. Bernard because she has walked her uncle’s Great Dane. However, even dogs of the same size don’t have the same temperament, and I think a real shelter worker would know the individual animal’s temperament and not offer an oversized dog with a lot of energy to a six-year-old child.) When her dog starts running and dragging her, the other dogs get out of control, too. Fortunately, they’re all in a contained yard, so none of them gets away. The incident ends with Rachel crashing into a lily pond in the yard.

Mrs. Peters tells the children that they will have a rummage sale to raise money for the animals at the shelter. All of the scouts will donate things to sell and collect donations from others. Tracy tells Molly and Mary Beth that she will help them collect donations. Molly is annoyed that Tracy is coming with them because she thinks Tracy is bossy and that her sniffling is gross. However, it turns out to be a good thing that Tracy comes because she brings a wagon with her to collect donations, which the other girls hadn’t thought to do. Unfortunately, their wagon disappears when the girls try to visit one last house to ask for donations and leave it unattended.

It turns out that some of the other scouts, Roger, Sonny, and Tim, found their wagon and try to claim the donations as their own at the next scout meeting. The boys say it’s theirs because they just found it on the sidewalk, but the girls tell Mrs. Peters what happened. Mrs. Peters smooths things over, saying that it doesn’t matter because these items will be sold to help the animals. Molly doesn’t think it’s fair for the boys to get credit for the work the girls did gathering donations, though. (I think Mrs. Peters should also have had a word with the boys about not taking things if you don’t know who they belong to and don’t have permission to take them. The adults in this series never explain things enough.)

There is one particularly fancy necklace that looks like diamonds among the donations. Mrs. Peters says that, rather than putting a price on it, they will auction it off to the highest bidder. They also have some adoptable dogs at the sale to attract people who might adopt them. It was Molly’s idea to have adoptable dogs there to sell because a lady expressed interest in Mrs. Peters’s big, black dog, Tiny. To Molly’s surprise, the lady who eventually buys the fancy necklace and pays a thousand dollars for it is the woman who donated it. When they ask her about it, she explains that it is a real diamond necklace and that she donated it by a mistake. However, even though she paid a lot of money to get it back, it’s still only a fraction of its real value, and she’s happy to make a big donation to a worthy cause.

In the end, Mrs. Peters congratulates the scouts on how much money they raised and how many animals were adopted that day. There is just one puppy left from the animals who were at the sale. The kids are attached to the puppy and don’t want to send him back to the shelter, so Mrs. Peters decides to keep him as a mascot for the troop. They name him Lucky, and Mrs. Peters says that they can take turns keeping him at their houses. (Except for the kids with allergies, like Tracy.)

My Reaction

The name of the book comes partly because the month is August, and Mrs. Peters explains to the kids what the “dog days” of summer are, although she just describes what the weather is like rather than explain why they’re called “dog days.” The term comes from the period after the rising of the dog star Sirius, but then again, I suppose that could be difficult to explain to six-year-olds. Not all adults would necessarily know it, either. I had to look it up myself to get the explanation. Even so, the name is appropriate because the theme of the book is pets, and it is set during late summer.

I still think that the adults in the story could explain some things to the kids more. That’s often a part of books in this series, although that’s also where much of the excitement of the story comes from, things going wrong because the kids don’t entirely know what they’re doing. Any lessons learned are more implied than spelled out.

The kids also keep insulting each other, even though they’re also kind of friends in the stories. We don’t really know why Molly thinks Tracy is bossy because she doesn’t really explain that. It just seems to her that Tracy tends to tell other people what to do and get her way. Molly relents a little in this book, though, because it turns out that Tracy has some good ideas, and even when she thought Tracy screwed up because they lost the wagon, everything worked out for the best.

Posted on by TracyC

Camp Ghost-Away

Pee Wee Scouts

Camp Ghost-Away by Judy Delton, illustrated by Alan Tiegreen, 1988.

The Pee-Wee Scouts sell powered sugar donuts door-to-door in their neighborhood to raise money for their trip to camp, and there is a special badge for the scout who sells the most. The kids all brag about how much they’re going to sell, each claiming that they can sell the most. Rachel teases Sonny because his over-protective mother will probably go with him while he’s going door-to-door. She calls him a “mama’s boy”, and he calls her “stuck up.” (There is some truth to both of these insults, but they’re still nasty, and no adult comments on it.) Molly and Mary Beth decide to do their selling together because they’re best friends.

In the end, Rachel and Sonny are the biggest sellers, each of them selling more than 100 boxes, in spite of Rachel’s teasing about his mother’s involvement and Rachel’s mother’s objection that donuts aren’t very healthy. However, there are some objections about how fair that is when Rachel and Sonny reveal the secrets of their success. Sonny’s mother sold 80 of his boxes at her workplace, and some kids object that it isn’t fair because Sonny didn’t sell them himself. He gets more teasing about being a “baby” and having his mother do things for him, but Mrs. Peters, the scout leader, says that it’s fair for a mother to sell on their behalf because the most important thing is the money they raise for camp.

Similarly, Rachel explains that her family went to a family wedding, and she sold most of her boxes to her relatives. Her family seems to have money, and her aunt and grandmother each bought 20 boxes. Jealously, Molly says that her relatives will get fat if they eat that many donuts. Rachel says that they won’t because they plan to donate the donuts to hungry people. Again, Mrs. Peters doesn’t say anything about the insults the children trade, just saying that the money they raised is important because they will now be able to afford to go to camp.

The camp is called Camp Hide-Away, and Mrs. Peters gives the children information about the camp and what to pack. They will go to camp next weekend, and Lisa’s mother will come with them on the trip. Rachel brags about how she has two swimsuits to bring, while the other kids only have one each, and she also shows off her new gold bracelet.

When they get to camp and Rachel discovers that they will be sleeping in tents, she isn’t so sure she wants to go camping after all. She doesn’t like bugs, and she worries about bears. The other kids call her “sissy” and “scaredy cat.” Mrs. Peters assures them that it will all be fine, and she has her large dog with them.

That night, they hear a strange sound, which sounds like the moaning of a ghost. The kids debate about whether it’s a ghost or some kind of wild animal. Either prospect is terrifying. When it starts talking, they’re sure it’s a ghost, but Mrs. Peters’s dog saves the day!

My Reaction and Spoilers

I’ve commented before that the kids in this book series do a lot of name-calling. In a way, it’s realistic for young children, but it’s also really annoying. Sonny inevitably gets called “sissy”, “baby”, and/or “mama’s boy” in every book I’ve read. It also bothers me that no adult ever tells the kids not to talk like that. The kids in the story are only six years old, so this kind of name-calling could be considered realistic, but adults telling kids not to talk like that is also realistic. I feel bad for Sonny because he often gets picked on in these books, and I think it’s unfair. Maybe his mother is a little over-protective, compared to the other parents, but at the same time, these kids are only six years old. Things like having a mom who walks to a six-year-old to school and doesn’t want a six-year-old to go door-to-door, selling things to strangers all by himself, are not outrageous. Even Rachel admits that she heard her mother saying that the kids were rather young to be away from home overnight for an entire weekend, and I think that’s true. There is some trouble with homesickness in the story, and I’m not surprised.

Like other books in this series, there are also multiple parts to the story, almost like short stories put together. The first part of this book is about selling the donuts to raise money for camp, and the second part is about their camping trip, although that part also has some smaller episodes. The highlight of the book is the spooky noise that the kids hear at night and think is a ghost. It is pretty quickly revealed that it’s just a couple of the scouts playing a prank on the others. The prank gets foiled by Mrs. Peters’s dog and the pranksters crashing into things because they have sheets over their heads.

There’s also a third part of the story, where Molly has more trouble with camp activities than the other kids. She can’t swim or row as well as they can, and when they look for interesting things, like rocks and wild flowers, on their hike, all she finds is poison ivy. But, she isn’t the only one having problems. Rachel doesn’t like bugs and the camping food, and Sonny gets homesick. Sonny’s mother comes to pick him up because he’s so upset. The other kids tease him again, but the truth is that other kids are also homesick and cry at night. Even Lisa cries, even though her mother is there on the trip. Molly realizes that she is the only one who isn’t homesick. Although she doesn’t get the badges for the standard camp activities, Molly does get one for not being homesick and another for finding Mary Beth’s lost ring. I was surprised that Rachel’s bracelet wasn’t the thing that got lost since she made a big deal of introducing it, but it was Mary Beth’s ring that got lost instead.

Although I often think that the adults don’t explain much to the children in this series, Mrs. Peters does tell the children that homesickness is natural. I think she could have given them a little more advice about it and defended Sonny from the teasing more, though.

Posted on by TracyC · 3 Comments

Cookies and Crutches

Pee Wee Scouts

Cookies and Crutches by Judy Delton, 1988.

This is the first book in the Pee Wee Scouts series. The children in Troop 23 meet after school on Tuesdays, and their leader is Mrs. Peters. One Tuesday, they meet at Mrs. Peters’s house to bake cookies. Mrs. Peters says that, to earn their cookie badge, they must each bake cookies at home without help and have their parents write a note that they have done it. She teaches the children an easy cookie recipe that they will use.

Roger White doesn’t want to bake cookies because he thinks that baking is for girls. Sonny Betz argues that it’s not just for girls, but many of the other children think that Sonny is a sissy because his mother still walks him to school. Sonny thinks that Roger is a creep. Mrs. Peters says that cooking is for everyone who eats. If boys can eat, they can also cook.

Mrs. Peters demonstrates making a recipe for chocolate chip cookies (and the book provides the recipe). Molly and Mary Beth ask if they can make their own batch of cookies for their badge together. They are not supposed to have adults helping them, but Mrs. Peters says that it is fine if they work with each other. In spite of their earlier argument, Roger agrees to make cookies with Sonny as a team.

However, when Molly and Mary Beth try to bake cookies by themselves, they don’t think the cookie batter looks right. It looks too pale, and when Mrs. Peters made her cookies, the batter was more brown. To fix the color problem, they decide to pour in some root beer, which is not part of the recipe. Then, they decide that the batter is too runny, so they add some gravy mix to thicken it. Because they added things they shouldn’t have, the cookies come out all wrong, and the girls worry that they won’t get their badge.

At their next meeting, though, they learn that nobody’s cookies look like they should. Mrs. Peters has the kids make cookies together while she supervises, although she doesn’t help them directly, so they can say that they did it themselves. This time, the cookies work out, although some of them are oddly-shaped. However, all of the kids get their cookie badges together.

The scout troop then organizes an ice skating party with the kids’ fathers. It’s a little awkward because not all of the kids have fathers living at home. Most of the kids without fathers bring an uncle or brother instead, but Sonny doesn’t have either, so his mom comes. The other kids tease him about it because they think he’s already too much of a mommy’s boy.

Some of the kids are also nervous because they don’t know how to skate, and they’re not even sure that their fathers know. Molly gets into trouble because Rachel makes a big deal about her fancy skates, which she owns so she doesn’t need to rent any, and about her dainty little feet. Molly rents a pair in the same size as Rachel’s, trying to prove that her feet aren’t too big, but they’re really too small for her. She has to take off her socks to put them on, and even then, it’s a hard squeeze. She ends up spraining her ankle badly because she’s wearing the wrong skates, and she has to use crutches. Molly doesn’t get her skating badge, but she does get one that’s almost as good as a consolation.

My Reaction

This is one of those children’s books/series where the kids in the story, although they are part of the same troop and seem to be friends for the most part, still say insulting things about each other, like when Roger called Sonny a sissy and Sonny called Roger a creep. I know that kids do things like this sometimes, but I don’t really like books that seem to promote or are permissive about that kind of talk. What bothered me is that, even though the boys were insulting each other in front of Mrs. Peters, she didn’t tell them to stop, which makes it seem like she tacitly thinks those insults are fine. I liked it that she contradicted Roger’s assertion that cooking and baking are only for girls, but I wish that she had said something about the way the kids were insulting each other.

I knew from the beginning of the story that the way Mrs. Peters was teaching these young children to make the cookies, just by watching her, and then expecting them to do it right completely on their own, with no adult supervision, was probably going to lead to a disaster of some kind. Of course, that’s because I’m reading this from an adult perspective. Nobody learns anything complex from only having seen it done by somebody else just one, especially if they just watched and didn’t actively participate. These kids are also young, just in the first grade of elementary school. They can read, but they don’t have advanced reading skills or much experience with cooking anything before. What I’m saying is that they really needed adult supervision, and I didn’t think that telling them that they had to do this completely by themselves wasn’t a great idea. Although, it’s possible that Mrs. Peters assumed that the kids would get more supervision than they actually got, even if the adults didn’t actively help. I think a lot of adults assumed that not helping meant no supervising and no advice or intervention when the kids were about to do something wrong. I have to admit, though, that there wouldn’t be much of a story if they did everything right, and this activity went as expected.

The story has two parts to it, which aren’t directly related. I thought, at first, that the kids would be serving cookies they baked to the dads, and that would be the tie-in between the cooking baking and the party with the fathers. They didn’t, though. The skating incident and Molly’s injury are unconnected to each other. The only connection I can see to the two incidents isn’t explicitly stated, but both of this incidents involve the kids doing something they’ve never done before and not really doing it right. They need to have experiences where things go wrong to start figuring out how to do things right. Although Rachel brags about her skating ability and her skates, after Molly is injured, Rachel admits that she fell down a lot when she was younger and was first learning. Molly feels a little better, realizing that nobody does things perfectly the first time. Although getting hurt isn’t great, learning to use crutches is also something new that Molly experiences that none of the other kids have experienced before.

Posted on by TracyC

Garbage Juice for Breakfast

Polka Dot Private Eye

Garbage Juice for Breakfast by Patricia Reilly Giff, illustrated by Blanche Sims, 1989.

This book follows an earlier book in the series, The Case of the Cool-Itch Kid, while Dawn is staying at her summer camp, Camp Wild-In-The-Woods. Her friend from school, Jill Simon, is at camp with her, and they’ve made friends with another character from the earlier book, Lizzie Lee, who started out as a rival/antagonist for Dawn. Both Dawn and Lizzie like mysteries and being private detectives, and they’ve bonded over that. There is still an element of rivalry between them, but it’s a friendlier rivalry than when they first met each other.

When their camp counselor announces that she has set up a treasure hunt for the campers to solve, Dawn is excited. As the Polka Dot Private Eye, she’s sure that she’ll be the first to solve the mystery! However, Lizzie is the Cool Cat Detective. (Each of them take their names from the detective kits that each of them own.) Dawn knows that Lizzie will be tough competition.

Because the kids in their cabin are from different schools and some were friends with each other before they came to camp, the campers in the cabin have favorites between the two girl detectives. Jill thinks that Dawn is the best detective and will solve the treasure hunt before Lizzie will, while Lizzie’s friends think that she’s going to be the one to solve the mystery. They decide to turn the treasure hunt into a contest to show which of the girls is the best detective.

The first clue is in the form of a rhyme. It seems to have something to do with horses, and the girls are starting to learn horseback riding. There is also a hint about taking a particular trail. It’s tough for both Dawn and Lizzie to investigate the same mystery without getting in each other’s way, following one another or being suspicious that they’re following each other, or accidentally giving each other hints. Is the competition between them really a good idea, or is teamwork what they really need?

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

My Reaction and Some Spoilers

I remember reading this book when I was a kid, and I loved it because I always loved treasure hunt books! There are parts of the treasure hunt that readers can solve along with the characters in the story, although it’s not one of those stories that pauses to ask readers if they’ve solved parts before the characters have. It’s just that the information necessary to solve each part of the treasure hunt is given in the story and shown in the pictures, so readers have the opportunity to think what the next step should be along with the characters or before the characters announce what they’ve figured out. Some of the clues point to features of the camp itself, like the names of the trails around the camp, but the story does provide that information to the readers, so there’s nothing that the characters know that the readers don’t. Other clues use pop culture references, like Donald Duck, because their camp counselor is a Disney fan and has items with Disney characters on them.

Dawn and Lizzie do compete with each other to solve the treasure hunt, until they solve the final clue. All through the book, Dawn struggles with the horse lessons because she’s actually afraid of horses. When reaching the prize means going through an area with a lot bugs, Dawn suddenly feels sorry for Lizzie, who is following her but struggling because she’s afraid of bugs. Understanding what it’s like to struggle with something that scares her, she feels some empathy for Lizzie and realizes that she can’t use Lizzie’s fear to get ahead of her and reach the treasure first. She tells Lizzie that they can go together to reach the treasure, so they are able to share the glory. The experience helps the girls a little with their respective fears, and they share the final prize.

The name of this book comes from a kind of mixed fruit juice that the camp serves in the dining hall. None of the campers know exactly what’s in it, nobody really likes it, and the camp rumor is that it’s just strained out of the garbage. It doesn’t really have anything to do with the mystery in the story, but it’s there for background color, the kind of stories that kids tell about food at camps and schools that they don’t like.

Aside from the mystery, the story has some fun camp atmosphere for beginning chapter book readers: horses and barns, the camp dining hall, a picnic with books, and a cozy, rainy night in their cabin with cookies.

Posted on by TracyC

Megan’s Island

Megan’s Island by Willo Davis Roberts, 1990.

School will be out soon, and eleven-year-old Megan and her best friend, Annie, are making plans for the summer. Megan’s family doesn’t have much money because her father died when she and her brother, Sandy, were very young, and her mother struggles to find a job that will pay enough to support the three of them. They’ve moved around multiple times in the last several years while her mother looks for better work, and they get by with some help from Megan’s grandfather. This summer, Megan’s family is planning to visit her grandfather at his cottage by the lake. Her grandfather is already staying there, recovering from an injured foot, and Megan’s mother agreed that Annie can come with them on the trip.

However, before school lets out for the summer, something happens that suddenly changes their plans. One evening, while their mother is in the kitchen, clearing up from dinner, she suddenly drops her favorite salad bowl, cutting herself on the glass. Megan and Sandy help her clean up the mess and bandage her cut, but they can tell that it wasn’t just clumsiness that made their mother drop the bowl. She really seems to be upset and even afraid of something. Since they didn’t have any phone calls or mail that could have given her upsetting news, they can only think that it must have been something she heard on the tv news. Their mother had been listening to the news on the small tv in the kitchen before she dropped the bowl, and she quickly turned it off when the children came to see what was wrong.

Their mother refuses to explain what upset her, and she tries to pretend that nothing is wrong, but she quickly tells the children to pack their things because she’s taking them to their grandfather at the lake early. Megan protests that school isn’t out yet, but their mother says that they’ve already finished their tests, so they won’t be missing anything important. Megan also worries that they’re leaving without Annie or even telling Annie that they’re going early, but their mother says it can’t be helped. Then, Sandy overhears their mother asking a friend of hers on the phone, asking her to put their things in storage for her while they’re gone, making the kids worry that they’re leaving for good and not just for vacation. Refusing to answer any more questions from the children, their mother hurries them through their packing and out of the house that very night. She drives them all through the night to get to the lake.

When they get to their grandfather’s cottage at the lake, he is surprised to see them, showing that their early arrival wasn’t something he had arranged with their mother. Later, Megan overhears them talking. Her grandfather urges their mother to tell them the truth about what’s happening because kids are more resilient than they seem, and whatever they’re imagining might be worse than the truth. However, their mother says that the truth really is upsetting, and while she knows that she has always insisted that her children tell the truth, telling them the truth now would mean admitting that she has already lied to them.

Megan is shaken by what she hears. What has their mother lied to them about? Is it something to do with her father? Megan barely remembers him, and their mother gets upset when she asks questions about him. Her mother seems to be hoping that this whole matter will just blow over, but her grandfather comments about how what happened eight years ago didn’t just blow over. He implies that whatever secret their mother is hiding is the real reason why the family has moved around so much, that it wasn’t just because she needed to find new jobs. Megan worries about what her mother could be hiding and what terrible thing could have happened eight years ago that would affect her family today. Then, Megan remembers that eight years ago is about when her father died.

Megan tells Sandy what she overheard and that their mother is hiding a secret, something that might have to do with their father’s death. Before either of the children can talk to their mother and ask her what’s going on, she tells them that she’s leaving them with their grandfather at the lake for a few days because there’s something she has to do. She won’t say where she’s going or what she needs to do, but she says that they’ll be safe there with their grandfather. Megan finds it disturbing that her mother made it a point to say that they’ll be safe because it implies that the reason why they left home so suddenly was that, for some reason, they weren’t safe at home. Megan also begins to wonder whether whatever danger there was at home might find them at the lake.

Sandy seems to find it easier than Megan to put aside whatever worries and secrets are following the family and just enjoy being at the lake, going fishing with their grandfather and exploring the area with Megan, although he later admits that he tried to ask their grandfather some questions while they were fishing that he refused to answer. Megan can’t stop wondering and worrying, though. She and Sandy agree that coming to the lake wasn’t just a vacation. Their mother brought them there to hide from something … or someone.

Megan remembers that, every time they’ve moved before, their mother refused to let them even write letters to friends they were leaving behind. Sandy says that she didn’t tell them not to write any letters this time, and with no phone at the cottage, there’s no other way for Megan to tell Annie what happened and to apologize for their ruined summer plans. Megan decides to go ahead and write to Annie. That letter to Annie changes everything for Megan and her brother.

Megan and Sandy go rowing out on the lake and find an island with a beautiful hiding place beneath an overhanging rock that’s almost like a cave. It becomes a special place for Megan, and she goes there to think. Then, one day, they meet a boy named Ben who’s also staying at the lake for the summer with his divorced father and has been exploring the island that Megan has started to think of as hers. Megan doesn’t like Ben at first because he’s bossy, but he proves to be someone she and Sandy can confide in when the adults won’t give them answers, and he become a useful ally in their troubles.

Ben tells the Megan and Sandy that his father said that someone in the nearby town is looking for a couple of kids with red hair, matching Megan and Sandy’s description. This man claims to be their uncle, but Megan and Sandy don’t have an uncle. Then, Megan spots a strange man prowling around the outside of their grandfather’s cottage. A letter that Megan receives from Annie says that people have been asking about them since they left town, and Ben correctly realizes that someone has traced them through Megan’s letter to Annie. Whatever trouble their mother has been hiding them from has found them. With their mother still away and their grandfather having gone to town for some x-rays on his injured foot, Megan and Sandy hide out with Ben in a tree house they’ve built on the island. The island seems to be their last safe place to hide while they wait for their mother and grandfather to return. But, when they do, will they finally get the answers they need? What terrible secret has their mother been hiding from them all these years?

The book is a winner of the Edgar Allan Poe Award.

My Reaction and Some Spoilers

I didn’t read this book when I was a kid, but I did read others by the same author, The View From the Cherry Tree and Baby-Sitting is a Dangerous Job. I really liked this book. I think one of the author’s strengths is her ability to create suspense. This story is very compelling. Right from the beginning, readers as well as Megan know that her mother is behaving oddly and that what she is doing has sinister or troubling implications. There isn’t a wholesome or happy reason why anybody decides to skip town suddenly in the middle of the night. I could hardly put the book down, wanting to get into the details of the situation. It was hard for me not to skip to the end to see what happened and what it was all about, but I made myself slow down a little to appreciate the journey.

I guessed, at the beginning, that this was going to turn out to be a case of a non-custodial parent kidnapping their own children after a messy divorce. We are told that Megan’s father died when she was very little and that she barely remembers him, and then, we are told that the family moves frequently because the mother has trouble getting work as a single parent. That, by itself, isn’t necessarily sinister, but after we see the mother rush her children away in the middle of the night and we learn that she has never allowed them to keep in touch with old friends after any of their other moves, it starts to look like a suspicious pattern. I had guessed that what upset her mother while she was watching the news was that there was an announcement about the father looking for his missing children. My other thought was that maybe they were in the Witness Protection Program, possibly because their father was murdered and the mother needed protection from the people who killed him, and that what alarmed the mother on the news was that his killer was being released from prison. That second theory of mine was way off. The first one was closer, but that’s still not quite the situation, although elements of that are close to what happens in the story.

Because the suspense in this was so good, I don’t want to spoil the ending entirely. The custody of the children is the reason for the mother’s panic, but there’s a twist on it that I wasn’t quite expecting, and as the story goes on, it becomes apparent that there are two sets of people hunting for the children instead of one. One set of searchers is who the mother was expecting, but the other set is someone else who has different motives and is an even bigger threat.

I thought it was interesting that the story brought up the question of a person’s right to disappear and whether that disappearance can sometimes be justified. The fact is that it’s not a crime if an adult decides to go voluntarily missing. It’s only a crime if the adult has committed a crime prior to disappearing or in the process of their disappearance or if the person is missing because they’re the victim of a crime. Otherwise, any adult has the right to walk away from their old life, cut off old relationships, change their name, and reestablish their identity somewhere else. People can do this for a variety of reasons, but it usually has something to do with overwhelming problems in the person’s life, mental health issues, and/or abusive relationships. It occurred to me that the mother in the story might be afraid of her ex-husband because he was abusive, and she was afraid of what he might do to the kids if she had to either give him custody of them or share custody with them. Again, that’s not quite the case here, although I was thinking about it through a good part of the story because it would explain the mother’s behavior.

If the mother was a non-custodial parent or had violated custody arrangements with the children’s father, then she would have committed a crime by taking the children. However, that doesn’t turn out to be the case here. The mother hasn’t committed any crime, but the fact that she has the children with her is the reason why someone is looking for them. Missing children is a matter of legal concern and can be a matter of humanitarian concern, although even then, the issue can be complicated. Not all runaway children are “saved” by being found or returned to legal guardians, and some of them have had very good reasons for leaving toxic or abusive home environments. The sad fact of real life is that, sometimes, the people who are searching for missing children can be the very threats those children are escaping. People who disappear have reasons for doing so, but giving them the type of help they need means discovering what those reasons are.

To be honest, I’m not completely sure of the legality of the person looking for the particular children in the story or publicizing their search for them, but it is telling that this individual is using a private investigator to look for them, not the official police. The official police are not looking for the family because the mother hasn’t committed a crime. She is their real mother and has legal custody of the children. The person who is searching for the children does not. When their mother reveals the truth to the children, Megan is forced to consider that a person might have good reasons or at least a compelling motive for wanting to get away from their past and not be found by people who are looking for them.

Part of the issue related to that is that Megan and her brother Sandy were never consulted about whether or not they wanted to separate from their old life or to live the kind of lifestyle they’ve been living. Up to this point, they’ve taken for granted that they’ve had to move and lose contact with friends repeatedly because their mom needed to look for work and had trouble finding jobs as a single parent. When they realize that what’s been happening to their family isn’t normal, that their lives have been disrupted, and that their mother has lied to them about important pieces of their past and even their own identities, the children are understandably shocked and upset. Megan is angry with her mother for the position she’s put them in, and she is right that she needs answers.

Fortunately, things do work out for the best for the kids and their mother in the end. It is a relief that the mother has not actually committed a crime because of what she’s doing. She apologizes to the kids for not explaining things to them sooner, but she explains that, when the whole thing started, they were only little toddlers and couldn’t understand the seriousness of what was happening or what was at stake for them. When Megan learns the full truth, she does come to understand her mother’s motives, and she realizes that it has also changed the way she’s always felt about her father, whose life and death turn out to be very different from what she’s always assumed. Perhaps, if she had found out the truth earlier, when she was much younger, it would have been harder for her to take. Now that she and her brother are old enough to speak up for themselves and the situation they were running from has changed somewhat, things are likely to be much better for them. We’re not entirely sure at the end how things will be for their family or where they will be living, but it seems like their days of hiding and running are over.

The addition of Ben as a character not only gives Megan and Sandy an ally during their worries and evading the people searching for them, but he also provides a different perspective on their situation, in more ways than one. While Megan struggles to come to terms with her family’s secrets and the idea that both she and her family are not quite what she’s always believed they are, she also considers how her situation compares to Ben’s situation with his family.

Ben isn’t a happy kid. He’s been in trouble at different schools and behaves badly because he’s deeply troubled about his parents’ divorce and his mother’s remarriage to a man who isn’t thrilled to be his stepfather. Part of Ben’s troubles with his parents and stepfather are because he’s been acting out, and they don’t know how to deal with him, but deep down, he feels like his parents don’t love him. In fact, he admits that he’s been getting into trouble at school on purpose to get his parents’ attention. He had hoped that things would be better while he was staying with his father over the summer, but his father is a writer and absorbed in his work. He doesn’t seem to care much about what Ben does as long as he doesn’t disturb him while he’s writing. Ben feels like neither of his parents really loves him or wants him.

One thing that Megan has always been sure of is that her mother loves her, and even though her mother hasn’t told her the truth about everything before, Megan can tell that she still cares about her, takes time for her, and does things to ensure her safety. Megan’s family has their problems, but they are still a family. Even though Ben still has two parents and a stepfather, he doesn’t feel like he’s part of a family or that he can really rely on his parents. Megan’s realization that she feels very differently about her mother is part of what convinces her to listen to her mother and understand her side of the story.

Things start working out for Ben by the end of the story, too. He admits that he knows the way his dad acts is because he’s also upset about the divorce. He hadn’t really wanted to divorce his wife, but Ben’s mother wanted to marry someone else. He also hasn’t meant to neglect Ben. He’s just been preoccupied. Before the end of the story, he finishes the book he’s been working on and apologizes to Ben about being so busy. He’s not a bad father, and he and Ben usually get along better with each other. Now that he’s finished with his project and has more time to concentrate on Ben, Ben will get more attention. Ben also reassures Megan and Sandy, who are worried about how other people will look at them when the truth about their family’s past gets out, that he doesn’t see them any differently because of what he knows and that real friends will know and like them for who they are, not judge them for what their family members did.

Posted on by TracyC

Cranberry Mystery

Cranberry Mystery by Wende and Harry Devlin, 1978.

Antiques are being stolen from the people of Cranberryport, and no one knows who is responsible. People are looking at each other with suspicion.

After Annabelle, an old figurehead that used to belong to Mr. Whiskers’s grandfather, is stolen from Mr. Whiskers’s house, Mr. Whiskers sees a light on Sailmaker’s Island. He believes that the thieves are hiding on the island, but the sheriff will not listen to him. The only person who listens to Mr. Whiskers and believes him is young Maggie.

When Mr. Whiskers and Maggie set out to the island to find the thieves by themselves, they are captured!  How can they escape and get the authorities?

The book includes a recipe for Grandmother’s Famous Cranberry Pie-Pudding.

My Reaction

The story is more adventure than mystery. The thieves are strangers, not anybody from the town, so there’s no evaluation of different suspects, and Mr. Whiskers has a pretty good idea where the thieves are hiding, so there isn’t much searching for them. It’s more about how Maggie and Mr. Whiskers escape from the thieves and alert the authorities. It’s a nice story, but I just think that the “mystery” could use a little more mystery. The best part is when Maggie uses the old figurehead, Annabelle, as an improved raft to reach the authorities.

The season in this story is “Indian summer“, which is when it’s technically fall, but there’s a warm period. There are different names for this phenomenon, but the term “Indian summer” might be based on the concept that this is the time of year when Native Americans prepared food stores for the coming winter.

Posted on by TracyC

Spiderweb for Two

The Melendy Family Series

Spiderweb for two by Elizabeth Enright, 1951.

Randy Melendy is feeling morose because the three older Melendy siblings (Mona, Rush, and their adopted brother Mark) have all gone away to school. Rather than attending the local school as they used to, Rush and Mark have gone away to boarding school for the first time this year, and Mona is attending a school in New York City, where they used to live. Since Mona has started acting professionally on the radio, she’s been commuting back and forth from the family’s house in the country to her acting job in the city. This year, her father decided that, rather than continuing to commute back and forth, it would be best for her to remain in the city and go to school there, staying with a family friend, the wealthy Mrs. Oliphant, who is fond of the children. That leaves only Randy and her younger brother, Oliver, at the big Melendy house in the country, known as the Four-Story Mistake.

Since Randy is accustomed to having her very active siblings around her, always doing something interesting, Randy thinks that life is going to be boring and lonely from now on. She recognizes that the older siblings going away to school is just the first step in growing up and moving away from the family. She knows the next likely steps for them are college and marriage, and they will likely never really live all together again, at least not all the time. The housekeeper, Cuffy, tries to reassure Randy that she still has Oliver for company, but Randy isn’t reassured. Oliver is a few years younger than she is, and she doesn’t think they have much in common or much that they would like to do together. However, the two of them are about to be involved in a special shared adventure.

Cuffy sends Randy and Oliver to get the mail, and they are surprised to find an envelope addressed to the both of them in handwriting they don’t recognize. Inside the envelope is a poem that seems to be some kind of puzzle or riddle – the first clue to a treasure hunt! The mysterious letter writer tells them to keep it a secret, and the clue seems to point to a place where the shadow of a tree falls.

It takes Randy and Oliver a little time to decide which tree is supposed to cast the shadow, and their treasure-hunting is delayed by rain. However, when they dig in the correct spot, they find a tin box. Inside the box, there is a little golden walnut box with another clue. This time, the clue indicates that the next clue is being held by someone who loves them, although they don’t know it. It takes some effort for Randy and Oliver to solve this one. At first, they think it’s probably Cuffy or Willy, and searching their pockets or getting them to reveal what’s in their pockets without the kids explaining why they need to know is tricky. Eventually, it turns out that the next clue is hidden on the collar of Isaac the dog.

The treasure hunt continues in this way for the whole rest of the school year. The clues are written as poems on blue paper and send them various places around their own house, the houses of people they know, and various other landmarks, including a grave yard! Randy and Oliver figure out that this treasure hunt must be something their older siblings have created to keep them busy and entertained during their absence. The treasure hunt breaks off periodically when their siblings are home from school for Christmas before resuming after Christmas with another letter.

In between solving the riddles of the treasure hunt, Randy and Oliver do get to spend some time with their siblings. Over Christmas, the family decides to go caroling and visiting friends. For Easter, the girls make Easter bonnets, and Rush makes a special one for their horse. Randy and Oliver never discuss the treasure hunt with their siblings, though, because secrecy is part of the game.

Sometimes, Randy and Oliver get into trouble following clues, and sometimes, they accidentally make the hunt tougher than it has to be because they misinterpret where they’re supposed to go next. Eventually, the hunt leads them to a special surprise from an old family friend, and everyone shares in the surprise!

My Reaction and Spoilers

I liked the treasure hunt in this book because I always like books with treasure hunts that have riddles to solve and clues to follow. I’ve read other reviews of this book online, and other people remember this book fondly for the treasure hunt, although it does have a different feel from the other books in the Melendy Quartet, for several reasons. It’s partly because only two of the Melendy siblings are present for most of the story, although the others do appear sometimes and make their presence felt, even when they’re away. Readers will probably figure out before Randy and Oliver that their absent siblings have set up this treasure hunt for them to keep them busy and give them something to think about so they won’t be too lonely without the others.

This is also the only book in the series that doesn’t make references to WWII because it’s the only book in the series written after the war ends. The war wasn’t a main part of the plot of the other books, but it was always present in the other stories, with the children taking part in activities to help the war effort. The war also affected the attitudes of the children, making them want to do their parts for their family as well as their country. This book never mentions it once, and the focus is on how the children are growing up.

Randy knows that seeing her siblings go away to school is just the first step to them all growing up and moving away. When the older siblings come home for Christmas, they’re already showing signs that they’ve been doing more growing up during the few months they’ve been away from home. When Mona comes home for Christmas, she has a new haircut and is wearing lipstick, and Rush’s voice is starting to change. Eventually, Randy and Oliver will do these things, too, but for now, they’re the ones left behind as kids at home. Through their shared adventures with each other without their siblings, they grow closer to each other than they were before. Oliver was too young to join Randy and the older siblings on some of their previous adventures, but he is growing up, too, and he’s now able to join Randy in shared activities. During the course of their treasure hunt, they have adventures in the countryside, like the siblings did in other books.

Like other books in this series, there are also stories within stories. Sometimes, the main story departs from Randy and Oliver when other people tell them stories about exciting or interesting episodes from their own lives. This books has stories about how Cuffy saved a boy from drowning when she was young, their father’s search for a lost dog, and Mrs. Bishop remembering when she first noticed the patterns of snowflakes.

There’s only one full page picture in the book. The other illustrations are smaller ink drawings at the beginnings of chapters.

Posted on by TracyC

Then There Were Five

The Melendy Family Series

Then There Were Five by Elizabeth Enright, 1944.

It’s summer, and the four Melendy children have some big plans! They’ve already started building a dam to make the swimming area on the property of their new house bigger. Their father, who travels frequently, giving lectures, tells them that he’s going to be away for most of the summer. He has to work hard to provide for his big family, and he has also taken a government job that will help the war effort. Mr. Melendy isn’t going to be a soldier because he’s a little old for that and the father of four children. He says that he can’t tell the children about his job, but it will keep him away in Washington for long periods of time. While he’s away, the children will be in the care of the housekeeper, Cuffy, and the handyman, Willy. They will also largely be left to entertain themselves, which is something they definitely know how to do.

Aside from swimming and enjoying themselves this summer, the kids decide that they should also do something useful, to help the war effort. Because of the war, patriotism is running high, and the children feel like they should take on some serious responsibilities. They’ve held events to help the war effort and bought bonds before. This summer, Rush and Randy decide that they’re going to go door to door, collecting scrap metal. Their collecting efforts help them to further get to know their neighbors, and they make friends with the Addison children and a nice, older man named Mr. Titus, who likes to spend his time fishing and baking things and invites the kids to join him sometimes.

However, there is a nasty man called Orin who yells at the children and scares them away when they come to ask him for scrap metal. Soon after this unpleasant incident, Rush and Randy meet Mark, the nice boy who lives with Orin. Mark is an orphan, and he lives with Orin because he’s a distant cousin. Orin’s wife was a nice lady, and Mark liked her, but she died a couple of years before. Orin is mean to everybody, and he mainly sees Mark as a source of unpaid labor on his farm. The Addison children, who know Mark from school, confirm that all of this is true. Orin doesn’t even let Mark go to school very often because he wants to keep him working most of the time. Their teacher and the school superintendent both tried to go see Orin and insist that Mark go to school regularly, but Orin is a violent and frightening man. He chased them both away and sent his mean dogs after them. Nobody really knows what to do about Orin, and most people are afraid to try. He also locks Mark in his room to keep him from running away, although Mark has found a way out and sneaks out sometimes.

The Melendy children feel sorry for Mark, although they try not to be too pitying so they won’t make Mark feel too self-conscious. Rush and Randy start meeting with him secretly to go swimming and fishing and hunt for arrowheads left by the Iroquois who used to live in the area. Rush and Mark also play at being soldiers on a secret mission and go stargazing. Mark knows about the constellations, and the boys watch the Perseid meteor shower in August.

Then, Mark reveals to Rush that Orin and his few friends are making illegal alcohol in a still. They do it because it costs less than buying alcohol. Orin’s friends include a couple of brothers who live in the woods and hardly ever come to town and a man who’s been suspected of bank robbery and murder although nobody was ever able to prove it. The boys spy on Orin and his friends at their still one night, and they hear Orin talking about selling his farm and maybe getting one of the new defense jobs. His friends ask him what he’ll do with Mark if he moves out, and Orin says that he’ll probably just turn him over to the county. One of his friends say that giving Mark to the county might not be so easy because they’ll ask questions, but Orin says he’s thinking of changing his name. The suspected criminal says that he might take Mark because he has trouble keeping workers around his place. Mark tells Rush that he’d rather run away that go live with that criminal, and Rush says that Mark can come stay with his family. The men almost catch the boys listening because the boys are wearing citronella to keep the mosquitos away, but the boys manage to get away before the men catch them.

Rush tells Mark that he’ll talk to his father to see if Mark can stay with the Melendy family or if he knows what else Mark can do. Then, a series of events happen that change everything. First, Cuffy has to go away for awhile to take care of an injured relative, leaving the children even more to their own devices, with Willy and the older children in charge. Then, the in the middle of the night, Rush wakes up to realize that something is on fire. It turns out that Orin’s farm is burning! Rush wakes Randy, and the two of them hurry down to Orin’s farm to see if Mark is safe. They find Mark hurrying to get the animals out of the barn, and neighbors and firefighters are already working on the blaze, but it’s a loosing battle. They manage to save the animals, but both the house and barn are destroyed. Willy, who was also there to help fight the fire, take the Melendy children and Mark back to the Melendy house. Later, Willy informs them that they have discovered that Orin was still in the house and was killed in the fire. (A short flashback informer readers, although the characters in the story don’t know it, that Orin accidentally started the fire when he returned home from his still, drunk, and passed out in the kitchen with a lamp too close to a wall calendar.)

Mark was never fond of Orin because Orin treated him badly, but without Orin, Mark’s custody is in doubt. Mark doesn’t have any other relatives. He’s still only 13 and not old enough to live alone. Rush decides to call his father to ask if Mark can live with them. Mr. Melendy tells Rush to keep Mark at their house for now, and when he returns home from Washington, he’ll straighten things out.

The Melendy children make Mark welcome at their fascinating house, the Four-Story Mistake, and Mark begins to enjoy all the new experiences they give him. He gets to try their books, enjoying classics like Tom Sawyer, Robin Hood, Eight Cousins, and various fairy tales. Mark also likes listening to Rush playing music on his piano. Above all, Mark gets the new experience of living with a family that really cares for him. Mark becomes part of the Melendy family’s idyllic summer, but the children worry about whether or not their father will allow them to stay with them permanently.

This is the third book in The Melendy Family series. The book is available to borrow and read for free online through Internet Archive, as part of a collection.

My Reaction and Some Spoilers

The Darkest Book in the Series

This book is different from the earlier two books in the series because, while the other adventures were all just treated as fun adventures without anything truly tragic happening when things go wrong, this book actually contains some serious issues. Mark is an orphan living with a violent and abusive guardian who frightens all of the local adults who have tried to intervene on Mark’s behalf. Mark’s guardian is also involved with some seriously shady people and illegal activities. The sudden death of Mark’s guardian frees him from the abuse but also leaves his future in doubt. This is the darkest book in the Melendy series. The book doesn’t shy away from Mark’s feelings and the sadness of Orin’s death, even though he was an awful person. Fortunately, because the tone of this series is optimistic, things work out for the best.

Of course, Mr. Melendy agrees that Mark can stay with the family, but in a realistic touch, adopting him isn’t as simple for the family as taking in a stray dog. Some of the local farmers offer Mark a place working on their farms, including the disreputable man and possible criminal who was one of Orin’s friends. Social service agencies want to know about the home and family Mr. Melendy has to offer Mark before they decide whether or not to allow Mark to remain with them, and a social worker comes to interview him. The social worker sees a taste of the family’s boisterous children and eccentric hobbies (at one point, Mona enters the room, practicing the part of Ophelia from Hamlet), but she is charmed by them and sees that Mark loves being with them, and she decides that the Melendy family will be good for him. There is extra legal work for Mr. Melendy to officially adopt Mark after Mark is allowed to stay with them as a ward or foster child, and the local bank is also interested in Mark’s custody because Orin had a mortgage on his farm, and there are financial issues to be arranged.

In the end, the bank claims Orin’s property because of the mortgage, but Mark inherits the animals because he’s Orin’s only relative. Mark keeps a few animals that can live on the Melendy property, and the Melendys help him sell the others in an auction held on their property. They turn the livestock auction into a fair to raise money for the war effort. Some of them make baked goods to sell, Mona dresses up as a fortune teller, and they hold a talent show with other children from school.

The element of raising money for the war effort continues a theme from earlier books in the series and emphasizes the point that this book was set contemporary to the time when it was written, during WWII. I find books that were written during major events and that take those events into account interesting because it shows how people felt about those events and what they wanted children to understand about them. The kids sometimes make references to the war in casual conversation in a way that seems realistic for a child’s observations, such as when they describe someone as having “teeth like a Japanese general”, although I know that what they’re probably referencing is anti-Japanese propaganda cartoons at the time rather than actual pictures of them. That isn’t mentioned in the story, but I’ve seen those cartoons before, so I can envision what kind of teeth the kids in the story are probably picturing.

The Lighter Side

In spite of the dark parts of the story, the book still has qualities of idyllic life in a big house in the country and the outdoor fun the children have. Some of the images in the story would fit well with cottagecore themes today, such as Mona weaving a strawberry plant in her hair. Oliver collecting caterpillars and watching moths. On Oliver’s 8th birthday, the whole family, including Mark, goes on a picnic to a cave that Mark knows.

There is also a theme around cooking and baking in the story. Mona develops an interest in cooking and baking, and Mr. Titus teaches her recipes and helps her and Randy when they experiment with canning vegetables from the garden. Mona had told her brothers to leave her and Randy alone in the kitchen when they were canning because it was women’s work, and Rush thinks it’s funny that it’s Mr. Titus who rescues them when the job gets too much for them and it becomes obvious that the girls don’t know what they’re doing. Mr. Titus tells the kids at one point that, when he was younger, he was a little embarrassed about his interest in cooking because it didn’t seem like men’s work, but now, he doesn’t care anymore, and he just appreciates doing what he really loves to do.

Another fun note is that the Melendy children like to play a game they call the Comparison Game. One child leaves the room, and the others think of a person they all know or know about. When the other child returns to the room, the others say whether they thought of a male or female person, and the other child starts asking them what that person is like. The child who left the room earlier asks the others what color the person is like, what animal the person is like, what type of weather the person is like, etc., until the child can guess which person they’re talking about by the comparisons made about the person.