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

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

The Magic Nation Thing

The Magic Nation Thing by Zilpha Keatley Snyder, 2005.

Abigail O’Malley’s life was turned upside down when her parents divorced when she was in kindergarten. They sold the family home, and her father went to live in Los Angeles and pursue his law career while her mother opened a detective agency. Abby isn’t fond of her mother’s detective agency and has no such ambitions herself. In fact, she would be satisfied if she just has a nice, normal family someday. She misses the nice house where her family used to live and doesn’t like the shabby Victorian house where she and her mother now live and use as the office of the detective agency. Abby envies her friend, Paige Borden, whose family has plenty of money and who life a much more “normal” life. Abby’s mother, Dorcas, isn’t too enamored of the Bordens, thinking that the family is boring. She wishes that Abby would become interested in joining her detective agency someday because the truth is that Abby isn’t quite normal herself, although she doesn’t like to think about it much.

Abby’s mother, Dorcas, says that Abby has an ability to notice information that other people miss, but that’s not quite it. Dorcas says that people in her family have had a “gift” for doing unusual things, like reading people’s minds or finding missing objects. Dorcas is convinced that Abby has inherited this “gift.” However, Abby denies having any such “gift.” As far as she’s concerned, she just occasionally gets hunches about things, and once or twice, they’ve turned out to be right. Abby resents the idea of a special gift partly because she thinks that her mother’s crazy desire to be a detective has something to do with her belief that she also has this special gift, and Abby doesn’t think she does. Abby doesn’t like to think about any of her relatives having been that strange. She just wants a normal family, like Paige’s.

However, Abby’s gift is re-awoken when her mother accepts a case involving a missing girl, who is believed to have been kidnapped by her own father because her parents are divorced. When Abby holds a locket belonging to the little girl, she begins to have visions, not unlike visions that she’s had at other times in the past. Mrs. Watson, who owned the day care that Abby used to attend said these vision episodes were just her imagination, which Abby used to think of as her “Magic Nation.” Abby has spent years trying to ignore it, but this is one of those times when it’s impossible to ignore. Abby has a vision of the little girl at Disneyland with her father. At first, Abby doesn’t want to admit the existence of this vision, but thinking about how worried the girl’s mother is, Abby casually suggests to her mother that, if the girl was taken in a custody dispute, her father might have decided to take her somewhere fun, like Disneyland, to try to win the girl’s favor so she’d want to stay with him. Her mother follows up on the hint, and with the help of the police, the girl is found and reunited with her mother.

That’s the end of the kidnapping case, but it’s only the beginning of Abby’s acknowledgement of her “gift.” Dorcas’s success in the kidnapping case brings more business to her detective agency. As Dorcas gets busier, Abby feels neglected, but Paige’s mother offers to look after her after school to help out, helping Dorcas to feel better about Abby’s friendship with the Bordens. Abby enjoys spending more time with Paige after school, and the girls even start getting along better with Paige’s annoying younger brothers, Sky and Woody. The youngest boy, Sky, particularly comes to like Abby when Abby intervenes after he makes the family’s intimidating cook angry by spilling juice in the kitchen. Abby sensed the boy’s fear and went to the kitchen to find out what happened. Although Abby still wonders how much of her “hunches” are really due to some kind of “gift” because they don’t work all the time, she increasingly realizes that what she still thinks of as her “Magic Nation thing” is not something that she can simply ignore.

Paige is fascinated by Abby’s mother’s work, and she particularly idolizes her pretty assistant, nicknamed Tree. When Abby tells her that her mother and Tree are investigating a case of arson, Paige talks her into coming with her on a little stakeout of their own, which messes up Tree’s actual stakeout and Dorcas’s plans. Dorcas is angry with the girls, and Abby finds herself using her “Magic Nation thing” to try to learn something about the arsonist and make up for ruining the stakeout. Abby does discover who the arsonist is, although she still doubts the reality of her “hunches.” When she shares that information with Tree, Tree also becomes aware of what Abby can do. Tree has known that Abby sometimes gets “hunches” about things, and although Abby still isn’t sure what to think about them, Tree says she’s noticed that Abby’s hunches pay off more than her mother’s do. Then, after the arsonist is caught and Paige goes overboard in her idolizing of Tree for catching the arsonist, Abby lets it slip that she was the one who figured out who the arsonist was.

Abby had been trying to keep this weird and questionable “gift” a secret, but once she tells Paige that she was the one who found the arsonist, she has to explain how she did it. To Abby’s surprise, Paige believes her about the “Magic Nation thing” and thinks it’s really cool. She’s noticed before that there are times when Abby seems to know things that other people don’t or learns things more quickly that most, and Paige thinks that’s a product of her “Magic Nation.” Paige is so enthusiastic about Abby’s “gift” that she thinks the two of them should start their own detective agency, and she starts trying to find cases for them to solve. Paige’s efforts to find an exciting mystery for Abby to solve don’t lead to much, and Abby finds herself doubting her “gift” and its usefulness again.

Then, Abby goes on a ski trip with Paige and her family, and young Sky disappears. Abby realizes that, whether or not her “gift” is real or reliable, she has to try again for Sky’s sake.

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

My Reaction

I like Zilpha Keatley Snyder books. She’s also the author of The Headless Cupid. This story is well-written and fun to read, and I enjoyed seeing how Abby comes to understand and accept her “gift” and make it work for her. I particularly liked the way that Abby comes to understand her “gift” and accept its limitations. There are points when Paige is disappointed or angry that Abby can’t use it to come up with all of the answers that she wants on demand, but Abby can’t make the “gift” do what her friend wants, and she makes it clear that Paige is going to have to accept that. Sometimes, Abby isn’t even interested in trying to use her gift in the way Paige wants, just like she isn’t really interested in using her gift to follow her mother’s profession. Abby comes to realize that an important part of learning to live with her gift is making it clear that this “Magic Nation thing” belongs to her – it’s her gift, to use or not use, as well as she can, in whatever way she sees fit. It’s her right to create her own boundaries, even refusing to talk about her “gift” when she doesn’t want to. The “Magic Nation thing” can’t be forced, and Abby herself won’t be pushed or bullied, either. This personal development is actually a bigger part of the plot than any of the mysteries that Abby solves or attempts to solve.

We don’t know what will happen with Abby and her “gift” after the story ends. There are hints that Abby might be willing to use her powers again, if the situation is important enough and she’s still able to do it. It seems that her mother no longer gets the visions that she used to get when she was Abby’s age, which is why her “hunches” don’t work out as well as Abby’s do now. Dorcas isn’t going to be able to rely on her “powers” to make her a great detective, but Abby comes to appreciate that her mother still enjoys her work and is pretty good at it, not because she’s relying on psychic powers, but because she works hard and is attentive to details. It’s possible that Abby’s powers will also fade as she grows up, but even if they do, it will be okay because Abby can also have a fulfilling life doing the things she loves and is good at. Dorcas is still more enamored of the idea of their shared “gift” than Abby is, but the reality is that neither of them really needs to rely on it. It might be there in the future, if they need it, but it’s not their only strength.

There are some contemporary cultural references in this story that help set the time of the story. Paige is a Harry Potter fan, Abby says that she has some Lemony Snicket books, and they refer to Jennifer Lopez, the Olsen Twins, Leonardo di Caprio, and Britney Spears.

Posted on by TracyC

Encyclopedia Brown Gets His Man

Encyclopedia Brown

Encyclopedia Brown Gets His Man by Donald J. Sobol, 1967, 1982.

The Idaville police department has an excellent record, but that’s because the chief of police’s ten-year-old son is Encyclopedia Brown. People praise Chief Brown, and Chief Brown doesn’t feel like he can admit how much help his son gives him because he doubts anyone would believe him. Encyclopedia himself doesn’t want to admit to other people that he helps his father figure out tough cases because he doesn’t want to seem too different from the others kids at school. However, Encyclopedia also has a detective business, helping the neighborhood kids to solve their problems for only 25 cents a day, plus expenses.

I always liked Encyclopedia Brown books when I was a kid! There are a couple of instances in this book of underage kids smoking, but I’d like to point out that smoking isn’t portrayed as a good think. Bugs is shown smoking in a picture, but he’s a young hoodlum and Encyclopedia’s nemesis, not one of the good guys in the stories. In another case, there’s a kid who smokes coffee grounds with a homemade pipe because he’s too young to buy tobacco. At first, he thinks he’s clever for figuring out how to do that and sneak a smoke without his mother’s knowledge, but it ends up getting him into trouble, and he promises Encyclopedia that he’ll give it up if he helps him out. Encyclopedia doesn’t lecture him, but he does refer to smoking as “burning your lungs”, so it seems that he isn’t in favor of it.

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

Stories in the Book:

The Case of the Marble Shooter

Algernon Kehoe is a master at marbles, but when he beat Bugs Meany, Bugs took all of his marbles, including his best shooters. Can Encyclopedia get Algernon’s marbles back?

The Case of Bugs Meany, Detective

Bugs Meany resents Encyclopedia for interfering with his schemes, but he can’t fight him directly because Encyclopedia’s detective partner, Sally, is the toughest and most athletic girl in their grade at school, and she’s beaten Bugs in a fight before. However, this time, he thinks he’s come up with a great way to get revenge – turn his gang, the Tigers, into a rival detective agency and beat Encyclopedia at his own game.

Someone steals a violin from the kids’ friend, Mario, and Bugs shows off that he can get it back before Encyclopedia and claim the reward for finding it. Of course, the kids’ first thought is that Bugs stole the violin himself. Can they prove it?

The Case of the Underwater Car

Encyclopedia and some friends want to go camping, and his mother tells him that he ought to ask Benny to go as well. Encyclopedia and the other kids like Benny, but they don’t like to camp with him because he snores badly. Sure enough, that night, Benny snores again, and Encyclopedia and the other boys have trouble getting to sleep. Encyclopedia leaves the tent for awhile and witnesses a bizarre car accident. The car misses a turn in the road, and the driver jumps out, screaming for help. The driver claims that he fell asleep at the wheel and that he woke up just in time to save himself. He says that his back is now badly injured, and he’s making a large claim on his insurance. However, Encyclopedia knows how to prove that the whole accident was staged.

The Case of the Whistling Ghost

A boy named Fabius hires Encyclopedia because he thinks his camera was stolen by a ghost. Fabius likes to study bugs, and he went inside the old, abandoned Morgan house to see if he could find any interesting bugs there. He was about to photograph a spider when a white ghost came down the stairs, making scary noises and an odd whistling sound. Fabius got spooked and ran off, leaving his camera behind. Later, when he got up the nerve to go back for his camera, it was gone.

The Case of the Explorer’s Money

A famous explorer dies, and a large amount of his money disappears. With so many people coming to his estate to attend an auction of the explorer’s belongings, how can Encyclopedia figure out how the thief plans to evade the searches being conducted by the police and get the money out of the estate?

The Case of the Coffee Smoker

A friend of the kids is being blackmailed. Someone is threatening to tell his mother that he’s been secretly smoking coffee grounds (because he’s too young to buy tobacco and thinks he’s found a clever way around the problem). He promises to kick the habit if Encyclopedia can stop the blackmailer. It isn’t hard to figure out who the blackmailer might be, but proving it will take more thought.

The Case of the Chinese Vase

A friend of Encyclopedia’s has a job cutting lawns to earn extra money for his family. While he’s working on a job, someone breaks an expensive vase in his client’s house, and they accuse Encyclopedia’s friend of doing it. Encyclopedia knows that it was actually the daughter of the house who did it, even though he wasn’t in the house at the time himself. How?

The Case of the Blueberry Pies

This year, there’s been a change to the pie-eating contest because local mothers think that the usual eating contest is gross and unhealthy. To make it healthier, they’ve limited the eating portion to two pies and added a race portion to the event. (Because running is a good thing to do immediately after eating two whole pies quickly?) However, one of the contestants seems to win too easily. How did they cheat?

The Case of the Murder Man

Cicero, a boy actor, wants to put on a mystery play with himself as the star as entertainment for an interfaith youth gathering. The problem is that he doesn’t have a good mystery story in mind, and he recruits Encyclopedia to write one that the audience can solve along with the characters.

The Case of the Million Pesos

Encyclopedia’s friend, Tim Gomez, is worried about his uncle, who is in jail in Mexico. He’s a famous baseball player, but he’s been accused of robbing a bank. Tim thinks his uncle was framed by a man named Pedro Morales because the woman he loved married Tim’s uncle instead, and he’s jealous. Tim’s uncle has an abili, but it’s not one that would be easy to prove. Even though the robbery occurred in another country, Tim asks Encyclopedia to consider the problem and see if he can think of something that will help.

Posted on by TracyC · 2 Comments

Encyclopedia Brown, Boy Detective

Encyclopedia Brown

Encyclopedia Brown, Boy Detective by Donald J. Sobol, 1963, 1982.

The Idaville police department has an excellent record, but that’s because the chief of police’s ten-year-old son is Encyclopedia Brown. People praise Chief Brown, and Chief Brown doesn’t feel like he can admit how much help his son gives him because he doubts anyone would believe him. Encyclopedia himself doesn’t want to admit to other people that he helps his father figure out tough cases because he doesn’t want to seem too different from the others kids at school. However, Encyclopedia also has a detective business, helping the neighborhood kids to solve their problems for only 25 cents a day, plus expenses.

This is the very first book in the series and introduces the character and how he begins solving mysteries. It also explains how he meets his detective partner Sally Kimball and his neighborhood nemesis Bug Meany, who is the leader of a gang of boys called the Tigers.

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

Stories in the Book:

The Case of Natty Nat

In Encyclopedia’ first case ever, he helps his father to find the real criminal in a robbery case.

The Case of the Scattered Cards

Deciding after his first success that he wants to be a detective, Encyclopedia starts his own detective business out of his garage. His first client is a boy named Clarence, whose tent has been stolen by Bug Meany and his gang of friends called the Tigers. This is the first time that Encyclopedia meets Bugs, who becomes his neighborhood nemesis.

The Case of the Civil War Sword

Bugs Meany offers to trade a sword that he says dates from the Civil War and was once owned by Stonewall Jackson to a boy in exchange for his bike. A real antique sword would be world a great deal more than a bike, but Encyclopedia can tell that it’s a fake.

The Case of Merko’s Grandson

Sally Kimball is one of the prettiest and most athletic girls at school, and she’s also one of the smartest. She wants to prove that she’s as smart as any boy and challenges Encyclopedia to a mystery-solving contest. It’s boy against girl, with Bugs Meany and the Tigers surprisingly rallying behind Encyclopedia. (Bugs has reason to resent Sally, who beat him in a fight after he was bullying another kid. He resents her more than he resents Encyclopedia.) Encyclopedia solves the mystery that Sally poses for him, but rather than becoming another nemesis, Sally joins Encyclopedia’s detective agency.

The Case of the Bank Robber

Encyclopedia and Sally go down to the bank to open an account for the earnings from the detective business, and they witness a robbery in progress. They see the robber collide with a blind beggar and run off, but when the police catch up with the robber, he doesn’t have the money from the robbery with him. A visit with the blind beggar settles what happened.

The Case of the Happy Nephew

A man with a criminal history is accused of robbing a shop. He says that he’s innocent because he only just returned from a long car trip, but his small nephew accidentally proves that can’t be true.

The Case of the Diamond Necklace

Chief Brown is embarrassed because a necklace that he was supposed to guard was apparently stolen from an event where it was supposed to be auctioned off. Encyclopedia notices an inconsistency in the witness statement that proves what really happened.

The Case of the Knife in the Watermelon

A member of a local gang of kids broke into the storeroom of a grocery store and tried to rob it. (It’s the Lions this time instead of the Tigers. First, I think it’s funny that they have the same name as a benevolent club, and second, I want to make a joke about how there should be a third gang in their town call the Bears – Lions, Tigers, and Bears, oh my!) Fortunately, he was frightened away before he took anything, but in his getaway, he accidentally tripped and stabbed a watermelon with his knife, leaving the knife behind. The owner of the grocery store becomes Encyclopedia’s first adult client (other than his father), hiring him to figure out which kid in the gang it was.

The Case of the Missing Roller Skates

Encyclopedia had Sally’s roller skates because he was fixing them for her, but before he can give them back, they’re stolen from the dentist’s office during his appointment. Encyclopedia tracks down the thief!

The Case of the Champion Egg Spinner

A kid has been winning an egg spinning contest against other kids after convincing them to bet some of their prized possessions. The other kids ask Encyclopedia to find out how he’s been winning.

Posted on by TracyC

The Curse of the Pharaohs

Sherlock Holmes’ Tales of Terror

The Curse of the Pharaohs by Kel Richards, 1997.

This is the first book in a short series of spooky mysteries for children featuring Sherlock Holmes.

One foggy night, a woman named Laura Coffin comes to Baker Street to see Sherlock Holmes, and his friend, Dr. Watson. She’s very worried about her uncle, Professor Sloane Coffin, who is an Egyptologist, living in Scotland. He’s been very ill and is likely to die, but Laura is increasingly alarmed by his mental state. Her uncle has come to believe in the Ancient Egyptian religion and believes that, when he dies, he will return from the dead. He thinks this power to return from the dead and live forever will come from a diamond he found in a tomb in Egypt called the Eye of Osiris. Laura and her uncle’s doctor, Dr. Cabot, have also come to suspect that her uncle’s medical state may be due to poison, although they’re not sure who could be poisoning him. Laura has come to Sherlock Holmes because the local authorities don’t believe her.

The most likely suspects for poisoning the professor would be his lawyer, Mr. Grizzard, who has been staying in his house and seems to have a sinister and unhealthy influence over the professor; the professor’s manservant, who Laura suspects of plotting to steal her uncle’s diamond when he dies; and a mysterious Egyptian man who has been staying nearby and seems to be lurking around the professor’s property for unknown reasons. Sherlock Holmes promises Laura that he and Dr. Watson will come to Scotland and investigate her uncle’s condition. Privately, he tells Dr. Watson that he thinks that there is something else that’s bothering Laura, something that she’s not telling them.

When they arrive in Scotland, Laura is glad to see them, although Mr. Grizzard isn’t. Laura introduces them to Dr. Cabot and her uncle. Dr. Watson doesn’t recognize the disease that the professor is suffering from, and Dr. Cabot says that he can’t figure out why the professor is so sick. Based on the tests he’s done, the professor really shouldn’t be this bad, but he does look like he’s dying. The professor accuses his niece and everyone else of only being concerned about his diamond. The professor confirms that he believes everything that his niece said earlier. He says that he believes in Ancient Egyptian gods (he calls them “gods of darkness”, which doesn’t seem scholarly), and he believes that, through his diamond, they will bring him back to life, and he will live forever.

Soon after Holmes and Watson meet the professor, he suddenly dies. Mr. Grizzard explains the professor’s will and final wishes. Laura is the professor’s primary heir, but she cannot take possession of the estate until she is 21 years old, so Mr. Grizzard will be in charge of the estate as executor until then. The professor had an Egyptian-style tomb built in his backyard, and his wish was to be buried there, along with his diamond. Mr. Grizzard makes certain that the professor’s requests are carried out, including the requirement that the tomb must be able to unlock from the inside.

Holmes spots a man spying on the funeral. He and Watson take turns watching this man as he seems to be observing the tomb and waiting for something. As Watson watches this man during a storm, he sees the door of the tomb open and the professor come out! Unfortunately, Watson is knocked unconscious by a falling tree branch. When he wakes up, there is no sign of the professor, and the man who was spying on the tomb has been murdered!

Did Watson really see what he thought he saw? Did the professor really rise from his tomb and kill the man watching him? Why was this man watching the tomb in the first place? What will the professor do now, and what does he want?

My Reaction

When I first got this book, I wasn’t quite sure what to expect. Pastiches can take familiar characters in some unusual directions, and I had read a review criticizing this series for adding supernatural elements and Christian themes that weren’t found in the original Sherlock Holmes stories. I thought that the story would probably be a pseudo-ghost story, somewhat like Scooby-Doo mysteries, where it seems like something supernatural is happening, but there’s actually a rational, more physical explanation. However, I wasn’t completely sure for most of the book whether that would be the case or not. There’s room left for readers to wonder whether Professor Coffin has really risen from the dead or not.

For those who prefer the ghosts to have logical explanations … you won’t be disappointed. There is a rational explanation for everything that happens in the story, and there are multiple people who could be good candidates for the villain behind everything that happens. Some of my suspicions turned out to be correct, but there are actually multiple villains involved, which complicates the situation and offers surprises for readers.

The other reviewer was right that there are Christian themes in the story. The Christian themes don’t really come into the story until the end, when Holmes and Watson are discussing the case with Laura Coffin. Laura asks why God allows people to behave wickedly. Holmes and Watson say that it’s not so much a matter of God allowing it as people choosing to commit evil deeds, and reassuring her that, sooner or later, everyone faces the judgement of God. Laura feels disillusioned about some of the people she trusted, but they also reassure her that, as a wealthy young heiress, she has her life still ahead of her to enjoy, and she will find better people. The religious talk and the quote from the Bible do seem a little out of character because I can’t recall the characters focusing on religious morals in the original stories so much as the deductive process, but I didn’t think it was bad. It was just a brief conversation, not overdone. If the characters had talked that way all the way through the book, it might have been a bit much, but it seemed plausible enough for a brief conversation on the subject.

The themes of the story reminded me of the Sherlock Holmes computer game The Mystery of the Mummy, but the story in that computer game isn’t the same one in this book.

Posted on by TracyC

Our Man Weston

Our Man Weston by Gordon Korman, 1982.

Tom and Sidney Weston, a pair of identical twins, are excited about their first big summer jobs as service boys at a fancy resort hotel. Tom is thinking that the work is going to be easy and that they’ll have plenty of time to have fun, but then, he starts worrying about what kind of fun Sidney is going to try to have. Sidney mentions that they might see some interesting people at the hotel, and Tom remembers that Sidney thinks of himself as a detective and is always on the lookout for spies and criminals. It’s a real problem because Sidney is perpetually wrong in his suspicions about everything and everyone he tries to investigate. He’s gotten into trouble before for making false accusations, and because the two boys look alike, Tom sometimes gets blamed for things that Sidney does. Tom is really looking forward to this summer, and he’s determined that Sidney isn’t going to ruin their summer jobs.

Right from the first, Sidney is in detective mode. As the boys are picking up room service dishes, Sidney tries to study the dishes to make deductions about the people in each room. Tom tries to get Sidney to stop because their manager, Walter Parson, is a serious man with little patience, and he’s already annoyed that he has trouble telling the two boys apart. Sidney is excited when a hotel guest complains that her purse is missing, thinking that he’s found a case to investigate, but while he interviews her for details and pressing for details about a primary suspect, Tom just notices that the lady’s purse is still in her room. It wasn’t stolen, just misplaced. Tom uses this incident to emphasize to Sidney that he needs to give up this detective game because it only causes problems.

However, unbeknownst to the boys, there are real spies at the hotel, and they’re interested in the nearby air base, just like Sidney speculated might happen. The readers learn who the spies are right in the beginning, before the boys even know that there are spies. It’s a little like a Columbo mystery, where the identities of the villains aren’t a secret, and part of the suspense of the story is how the heroes will figure it out and prove it. Even though we know right away who the main villains are, Sidney is clueless.

Sidney continues investigating various guests as though they’re all spies or criminals, although he doesn’t seem at all suspicious of our real villains. He becomes convinced that Lawrence Waghorn is a spy when he’s actually a television writer who’s working on a script for a show about spies. He convinces the guest who temporarily lost her purse, Miss Fuller, that another guest, Mr. Kitzel, is a suspicious character, and she starts following him around and spying on him. In turn, Mr. Kitzel gets the idea that Miss Fuller either has an awkward crush on him or that she’s investigating him because he cheated on his taxes. He’s very nervous because she keeps following him around and tries his best to avoid her. Sidney steals his boss’s dog because he’s under the false impression that the dog is being trained to help the spies carry out their mission, and he seriously wants to inform the Prime Minister of Canada (where they live) and the President of the United States. Tom keeps trying to thwart his brothers’ various schemes and confiscate the spy equipment that he’s hidden around their hotel room. Confusion abounds, although some of its helps to inspire Waghorn, who has been suffering from a case of writer’s block.

Meanwhile, the real spy, Richard Knight (a pseudonym, county of origin unspecified), is trying to get his hands on a new airplane being tested at the nearby air base. He’s brought along a pilot named Bert Cobber. Cobber actually has military training and trained alongside the pilot testing the plane, “Wings” Weinberg. Weinberg has nerves of steel … except about anything related to his cadet days, having been partnered with Cobber, who is a skilled but reckless flier and nearly got him killed on many occasions while flying drunk, forgetting to put sufficient fuel in the plane, and repeatedly crashing. Weinberg hasn’t seen Cobber for years, but he practically has a nervous breakdown every time he relives those memories. A friend of Weinberg’s assures him that, if Cobber is really as reckless as Weinberg remembers, he probably got himself killed long ago, but Weinberg has the uneasy feeling that Cobber is still around somewhere.

Although many characters have the overall situation wrong, I appreciated those moments when some people got certain things exactly right. When Miss Fuller overhears Mr. Parson yet again mistaking Tom for Sidney and also quizzing him about why he’s getting mail from different government agencies, she steps up to tell him to stop his bullying, reminding him that mail is private and that the boy doesn’t owe him any explanation about his personal mail just because he works for him. She also tells him that he’s talking to Tom, not Sidney, and that he’s a fool for getting that wrong.

I also love it that the different government agencies that Sidney has been writing to already know who he is because Sidney has submitted many other inquiries to these various agencies. They’re all familiar with Sidney’s false accusations, and in their response letters to Sidney, they express both amusement for Sidney’s wild escapades and sympathy for whatever poor sap Sidney is suspicious of today. Sidney is never discouraged by their criticism of his wild theories or their requests for him to stop writing. It’s getting to the point where some law enforcement agencies are so fed up with Sidney that they wish they could find something to arrest him for.

Meanwhile, Richard Knight has noticed Sidney’s investigations, although he is unimpressed because he knows that Sidney is way off base. However, he hasn’t fully reckoned with the lengths Sidney is prepared to go to “save the western world”, and Sidney’s schemes interfere with Knight’s in completely unexpected ways.

My Reaction

I remember reading this book when I was in middle school, and I loved it. I remember thinking that it was really funny, although I’d forgotten a lot of the details since then. As an adult, I find Sidney more frustrating than I remember, and I feel sorry for poor, long-suffering Tom. As with the MacDonald Hall books by the same author but with different characters, Sidney’s crazy schemes end up working out for the best, and he ultimately saves the day, even though it’s largely by accident.

There are a couple of changes that I wish I could make to the story. First, I liked it that, while Mr. Kitzel isn’t a spy or a major criminal, he does have one guilty secret: he cheated on his taxes by claiming his dog as a dependent daughter. He becomes convinced that Miss Fuller is onto him for that. However, I’d like to create even more semi-guilty secrets for various guests at the hotel so that Sidney can be almost correct about some things while still missing the most suspicious person of all. As it is, Sidney is seriously way off base because he’s paranoid and delusional, although in a comedic sort of way. I don’t like characters that are intentionally stupid, so I’d like more secrets and petty crimes among the more innocent guests so Sidney can be almost right about them.

I’d also like to see Sidney develop some self-awareness during the course of the story. He is completely oblivious to his own failings and false conclusions and also to the way other people react to him, even when they tell him, in writing, that they don’t want to be bothered with his wild goose chases anymore. That’s part of the comedy of the story, but I find it a bit frustrating. Sidney does almost come to realize how other people look at him when he tries to persuade Miss Fuller that he was wrong about Mr. Kitzel being a spy, but she’s as impervious to correction as he is, so he ends up just letting her continue barking up the wrong tree. I think it would have shown more character development and maybe even have been more funny if Sidney comes to realize how Tom feels, trying to reign him in, if he had to try to control someone even more overly paranoid and determined than he is. The book ends well, but I think it would have been even better if, at the end, Sidney apologizes to Tom for everything he’s put him through, saying that, while everything worked out for the best, he realizes that he’s done a lot of things wrong and that he still has a lot to learn. Then, just when Tom thinks that things are going to calm down, he can see Sidney seriously reading a book about espionage or interrogation techniques and making notes or signing up for a summer correspondence course in criminal investigation, hinting that Sidney’s adventures aren’t over yet and leaving it open about whether he’s going to really learn something practical or just graduate to the next level of crazy.

Posted on by TracyC

The Case of the Painted Dragon

Brains Benton

The Case of the Painted Dragon by by George Wyatt (Charles Spain Verral), 1961.

Jimmy and Brains are on their way to school when a strange man in a car stops and asks them if they know where he can find a Japanese kid. (He uses the derogatory terms “Jap” and “Nip”, and Brains disapproves. Also, the man is very unspecific about which kid he’s looking for. He offers no names, just that he’s looking for a Japanese boy about their age The town where the boys live is a fairly small college town, so I guess it’s supposed to be reasonable that there would only be one boy matching that description. I grew up in a larger university town, so the idea of there being only one person who could match any description and just expecting random people to know who it is seems really odd to me.) Brains just says that they don’t know anybody with Japanese ancestry, and the man drives away.

After the man leaves, the boy talk about how suspicious he was. They really don’t know who he could be looking for. The last Japanese family to live in their town was the Yamadas, but Mrs. and Mrs. Yamada were killed in a car accident the year before. (It was a point in the book’s favor that Brains doesn’t like derogatory racial terms, but the point is lost quickly when Jimmy is describing Mr. Yamada, who taught art at the boys’ school, and he says that Mr. Yamada “wasn’t one of those ‘inscrutable orientals’ you’re always reading about.” He says that Mr. Yamada was friendly and also coached the school’s swimming team. It’s nice that Jimmy liked Mr. Yamada, but the way he says it sounds a little back-handed. I suppose it’s a sign of the times when this book was written that the author thought it was reasonable for people, even kids, to “always” be reading about “inscrutable orientals”, but on the other hand, I’ve read other books from this time period and earlier that weren’t like that, so I’m inclined to think that it’s not really “always” and everyone.) However, the boys don’t remember the Yamadas having a son their age, so they doubt there’s a connection. They’re concerned because they think that the suspicious stranger might have bad intentions toward the kid he’s looking for.

After the boys get to school, Jimmy sees that stranger driving by the school, and he gets worried. Either the stranger is still looking for the Japanese boy, or he’s looking for Brains and Jimmy. Brains thinks that the best thing to do is try to find the Japanese boy before the man does. However, Brains doesn’t want to tell their principal or teacher about the stranger or the boy. Jimmy worries that maybe the stranger made up the Japanese boy as an excuse to get to him and Brain, and he decides to tell the principal about the stranger in the car, and the principal goes outside and demands that the stranger tell him who he is and what he’s doing, hanging around the school and scaring the students. Unfortunately, he confronts the wrong person in the wrong car, which is an embarrassing situation. (He did the right thing even if he confronted the wrong person. I give him credit for that, but they need to have a reason why the school authorities don’t do anything about the weirdo scouting the students.)

In the boys’ next class, they meet a new student, Mikko, who may be the Japanese boy that the stranger was looking for. The boys make friends with Mikko, inviting him to come to baseball practice with them. They want to warn him about the stranger, but before they talk to him about thr man who seems to be looking for him, they spot the car following them again. Mikko spots the car, too, and the boys ask him if he knows the driver. Mikko says, no, the man is a stranger. Aside from the people at school, the only people Mikko knows in town are Mr. and Mrs. Bevans, the people he’s staying with. Brains makes up a story about why the man might be following them because he doesn’t want to alarm Mikko too much and also because he doesn’t want anybody calling the police until he and Jimmy have had a chance to investigate the situation themselves. (This is a selfish move – Brains just wants a case to investigate, and he doesn’t want to share the case with the proper authorities. But, again, the story needs to provide a reason for Brains and Jimmy to handle the investigation without adult help.)

Jimmy’s mother knows about Mikko’s background and tells him about it when he gets home. It turns out that Mikko is the Yamadas’ son, but until recently, he had been living with relatives in Japan. Mr. Yamada was born in the US, but he worked in Army Intelligence during WWII, which is when he went to Japan and met his wife. Mikko had been born in Japan and was going to school there, but the Yamadas planned to move to the US permanently. Mr. and Mrs. Yamada had come first to get established, but they died in the car accident before they could bring Mikko to join them in the US. However, Mr. Yamada had wanted his son to become an American citizen, like him, and get an American education. The Yamadas had boarded with Mr. and Mrs. Bevans and became friends with them. The Bevanses’ have no children of their own, and they are considering adopting Mikko and giving him the American life that his father wanted him to have.

There is one adult who knows about the mysterious car following Mikko: Yama, an old family servant who accompanied Mikko from Japan to the US to make sure that he gets settled in his new home. Yama is a former sumo wrestler and a formidable man, and when Mikko tells him about the mysterious stranger in the black car, Yama says that he will protect him. However, when the Bevanses’ house is ransacked while the boys are playing baseball and they return and find Yama looking around Mikko’s room, they boys start to suspect that Yama may be involved with the mysterious stranger in some way. At least, he seems to know more than he wants to say about the situation because he refuses to call the police to report the ransacking.

After some further research, Brains and Jimmy learn that the Yamadas’ car accident might not have entirely been an accident, and Brains suspects that everything that has happened may relate somehow to Mr. Yamada’s former work in Army Intelligence.

My Reaction

This is the last book in the Brain Benton series, but it’s also more of a mystery than the previous books. In most of the books, it doesn’t take the boys long to realize who the villains are, and the mystery is more about how they’re going to prove it and stop the bad guys. However, in this book, Brains and Jimmy really do start off completely in the dark. First, they have to learn who the Japanese boy is that the strange man is looking for, and then, they have to learn the history of Mikko and his family. Brains and Jimmy do genuine investigative work, starting with old newspaper stories about the accident that killed Mikko’s parents. Little by little, they begin to reconstruct the past and learn why someone is looking for Mikko and what Mikko has that they want. Even when the boys know who the bad guys are and what they’re after, there is still the puzzle of where Mikko’s father hid it before he died.

I enjoyed the mystery in the book, but I didn’t like some of the ways Jimmy talked about Japanese people. I think it was good that he noted that derogatory terms are inappropriate, and I appreciated that he liked Mikko pretty quickly and pointed out good things about him. Those are good points. It’s just that, sometimes, even when Jimmy speaks favorable about some of the Japanese people in the story, it comes off sounding a little back-handed, like when he says that Mr. Yamada was actually a really nice and friendly guy and not “inscrutable” like characters Jimmy has heard about. I can see that it’s a positive point that someone who has been given a negative impression about certain types of people can consciously notice that the reality is both different and better than what he’s heard before. I think Jimmy is moving in a good direction in his attitudes. It’s just that compliments sound flat when they’re accompanied by a negative or implied negative. It’s like the difference between saying “He’s a really nice guy” vs. “He’s a really nice guy for being the kind of person I’ve always heard was really sinister.” It just adds an uncomfortable twist on the sentiment. I know that the reason Jimmy talks like this is because this book was written during the 1960s, when racial attitudes were changing, and the author probably felt like it was necessary to acknowledge old stereotypes, but I still don’t like it.

Posted on by TracyC

Susannah and the Blue House Mystery

Susannah and the Blue House Mystery by Patricia Elmore, 1980.

Susannah Higgins and her friend, Lucy, live in Northern California. Susannah loves mysteries and she’s asked Lucy to be her partner as a detective. Susannah loves mysteries and is always looking for a mystery to solve, but so far, the girls haven’t found anything worth investigating. Susannah finally finds the mystery she’s been looking for when another friend’s grandfather fails to meet her at the bus stop. Shy Juliet Travis, who is largely shy because people at school have made fun of the burn scar on her face, meets her grandfather at the bus stop every day, and then, they walk home together. When he fails to show up one day, Juliet is sure that something is wrong. Susannah and Lucy, finding Juliet upset, try to reassure her, saying it’s probably nothing and that her grandfather probably forgot the time or his clock stopped. They offer to walk Juliet home to see if her grandfather is there.

Juliet and her mother live in a small apartment house next door to the old, once-grand Blue House. Her “grandfather” is the last of the old Withers family. (Juliet and her mother aren’t actually related to Juliet’s “grandfather” at all. He’s just a family friend who likes to treat Juliet and her mother like family because none of them really have any close relatives. Mrs. Travis got divorced when Juliet was a baby, and Juliet hasn’t seen her father since. Mr. Withers’s only relative is a niece named Ivy.) The Withers family was once one of the richest families in the area, but they haven’t been really wealthy for some time. Ivy Withers has some money and is a social climber, but the Blue House mansion where Mr. Withers lives has fallen into severe disrepair. Ivy pays Mrs. Travis to be her uncle’s cleaning woman, and that’s about all of the attention either the house or Mr. Withers receives.

Juliet’s mother, Mrs. Travis, cleans houses and is also an artist. When she first meets Susannah and Lucy, she comments that she’d like to do a sketch of Susannah because her face would be good for an African princess. (Susannah is African American, and this is the first mention of it in the book.) Juliet asks her mother about her grandfather, and her mother says that she thinks he went to see his friend Joe. Juliet feels a little better, thinking that her grandfather just lost track of time with his friend, but by the next morning, Mr. Withers still hasn’t come home. Susannah and Lucy go to visit Juliet again, but she and her mother don’t know much about Mr. Withers’s friend, Joe. They don’t know his full name or where he lives to see if he’s really seen Mr. Withers. Susannah says that they should take another look around the Blue House, even though Mrs. Travis has already looked there.

In the Blue House, they discover that Mr. Withers took his good coat instead of his old one and left his wallet with his identification behind. Mrs. Travis also remembers that he was carrying an umbrella, even though it wasn’t supposed to rain that day. From this information, Susannah deduces that he went to another city, where there was a chance of rain, but it couldn’t have been too far away because he didn’t take luggage or his wallet with him, and he was planning to be back to meet Juliet that afternoon. Also, since Mr. Withers doesn’t have a lot of money, he probably went by bus. After making a call to bus station to check the bus schedule for buses leaving around the time he left, they decide that the most likely place he would have gone was Sacramento. Then, the customer service agent tells them that the bus returning from Sacramento arrived late because an old man had a heart attack. Realizing that the old man could have been Mr. Withers, who couldn’t be identified because he left his wallet at home, they begin phoning hospitals to learn where he could have gone. Sadly, they learn that Mr. Withers was the man who had the heart attack and that he died in the hospital.

That would be the end of the mystery of the disappearing grandfather, but it turns out to be the beginning of a greater mystery. Susannah is disappointed that the mystery seems to be over just when she wanted to investigate some odd points of the situation more deeply. Lucy thinks that sounds heartless to be thinking of Mr. Withers’s disappearance and death as just an exciting adventure like that, but Susannah explains that there are still some aspects of the situation that seem strange. They still don’t know why he went to Sacramento. Apparently, it was something important because he felt the need to dress up in his nicer coat. (It couldn’t be to see a doctor because his Medicare card was one of the cards he left behind in his wallet.) They also don’t know who “Joe” is because this friend didn’t turn up at the funeral. Nobody else seems to know who “Joe” is, either.

Susannah also begins to suspect that Mr. Withers may have made a second will, leaving something to Juliet. Mr. Withers didn’t have much to leave, and it’s publicly known that he promised his house to Ivy because she helped him pay the taxes on it for years. Mr. Withers lost most of his money years ago due to a bad investment, and thieves also stole many of the valuable antiques that he used to own. However, on the morning of the day he died, he told Juliet that he was going to leave her a “treasure.” Juliet says that this “treasure” was supposed to be a book of some kind, and he emphasized to her that she should “see a good man.” What is that supposed to mean, and did Mr. Withers really have a treasure to leave to Juliet? Someone else must think that Mr. Withers had something of value because someone has been sneaking around the Blue House at night.

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

My Reaction

I read this book years ago, when I was in elementary school, but for a long time, I’d forgotten the name of it and much of the plot, which made it difficult to find it again. As with so many other things, I found it again by accident while looking for something else on Internet Archive.

The part that stuck with me the most from when I read it as a kid was the scene where Susannah and Lucy meet Juliet’s mother, who is an artist. Mrs. Travis likes to do sketches of people she’s just met so she can use their faces in paintings later. When she first sees Susannah, she takes her by the chin and studies her face. She compliments Susannah’s bone structure and says that her face would be great for an African princess, which is a rather odd thing to do and say to somebody on first acquaintance. I liked the quirkiness of Mrs. Travis, and I kind of wished somebody would tell me that I looked like a princess. (I don’t, and I never really did. I look more like somebody’s teacher or librarian. I’m not either of those, but I just look like somebody who would be.)

The scene with Mrs. Travis is also the first mention in the book that Susannah is black. She is shown as black on the covers of the books in this series, but Mrs. Travis’s description of her as having the look of an “African princess” is the first indication of it in the text. The reason why I like that is that, before we get to that point, Susannah is described by her friend Lucy as an aspiring detective, an “amateur herpetologist” who dreams of buying the snake called Beelzebub in the pet store, and one of the few people who can draw out shy Juliet and get her to talk before we are given any indication of her race or appearance. I like it that readers are drawn into Susannah’s own quirky and distinctive personality before she is described physically, so she isn’t typed by race or appearance.

Further on in the book, Lucy describes more of Susannah’s appearance, saying that she has glasses and wears her hair in two clumps on her neck. They didn’t always get along because they’re in the same academic group at school, and of the two, Susannah is really the better student. She got on Lucy’s nerves by constantly nagging her to do her homework and improve her grades so their group could get the school’s Top Scholar Award. Susannah complained that Lucy actually could do better at school if she just tried and called her a “clown” and a “dumb blonde” (the first indication of what Lucy looks like) for not even trying to do better. Lucy retaliated against this criticism by drawing unflattering cartoons of Susannah. They started to resolve their differences when they got into an argument over something Lucy said to another classmate about Susannah. Lucy said that Susannah “prevaricates”, which means to lie, but what she really meant was “pontificates.” At first, Susannah was mad at Lucy for calling her a liar, then she laughed when she realized that Lucy mixed up words that were vocabulary words for their class, and then, she realized that there was some justification to Lucy’s criticism of her, that she does sometimes act like a know-it-all. Realizing that someone else had a justifiable criticism of her caused Susannah to soften her own criticism of Lucy, and their relationship improved.

I liked the description of how Lucy and Susannah came to be friends, and it also fits in with how the girls become better friends with Juliet. Appearances are important to Juliet because the burn scar on her face has made it difficult for her to make friends with people. They never explain how she got the scar, but she is very self-conscious of it because of the teasing she got about it early in life. She is very shy and has a habit of turning her head to the side as she talks to people because she doesn’t want them to look at the scar. Lucy thinks to herself that the scar isn’t really so bad. As she spends more time with Juliet, she realizes that she hardly notices it anymore, just like most of the time, she hardly notices anymore that Susannah wears glasses. It’s common for people to have various types of imperfections, and Lucy herself has crooked front teeth. The only reason why Juliet’s scar really matters is that it matters to her because it makes her feel bad about herself. What Juliet wants most of all is an operation to remove the scar tissue so the scar will be less noticeable, but her mother can’t afford it. By the end of the book, she can afford the operation, and she goes ahead with it, although part of me wanted to see her rethink it because she sees that she can make friends anyway, whether she has a scar or not.

Deceptive appearances are a large part of the mystery because things in the Blue House, Mr. Withers’s treasure, and even Mr. Withers himself weren’t quite what they seemed to be. Mr. Withers was unfortunate for losing his money and most of the beautiful antiques that he loved, but he didn’t lose everything. Ivy thinks that he was a lonely, bitter hermit who rejected all of his old friends because he was too proud to see them after he lost his money, but Lucy realizes that the truth is that Mr. Withers just made new friends who wouldn’t judge him because he was now poor. Mr. Withers wasn’t lonely, and he was even happy with the new people in his life and the secret he was keeping. Even the mysterious “Joe” and the “good man” were not what everyone assumed they were at first. As I read through the book, I remembered what Mr. Withers’s trick was, but it took me some time be sure of the villain. I thought I knew who it would turn out to be, but the author does a good job of making multiple people look guilty.

One other thing I’d like to add is that apparently none of the children in this book live in a two-parent household. Books featuring children of divorced families were becoming increasingly common in the 1980s and into the following decades, and there are three children in this book who live in single-parent households. Juliet’s mother is divorced. Lucy lives with just her father, and to her horror, she eventually discovers that he’s starting to date the divorced mother of the most annoying boy in her class (who actually proves to be very helpful in their investigation). Susannah also appears to live with her grandparents. This book doesn’t explain why, but she always talks about her grandparents and not her parents.

Posted on by TracyC · 1 Comment

The Green Toenails Gang

Olivia Sharp, Agent for Secrets

The Green Toenails Gang by Marjorie Weinman Sharmat and Mitchell Sharmat, 2005.

Olivia’s best friend, Taffy, who left San Francisco and moved to Carmel just before the beginning of the first book in the series, writes a letter to Olivia and invites her to come for a visit.  In her letter she mentions that there is a club in Carmel that she doesn’t want to join.  Olivia senses that Taffy is upset about something and decides to visit her for the weekend.

When Olivia visits Taffy, Taffy tries to persuade her at first that nothing is bothering her, but Olivia correctly guesses that the club she was talking about is one that refuses to let her in and that she’s upset about it.  Taffy calls the club “stupid,” and Olivia says that “lots of clubs are stupid. Like, if three people have green toenails they form a green toenails club and leave everybody else out.” (I like the way Olivia puts things.)  Taffy is inspired by what Olivia says, and she suggests that they should really form a green toenails club and exclude everyone, including the members of the other club.  Olivia thinks that the idea is interesting, but the problem is that there is only the two of them (three, if they can persuade Olivia’s chauffeur to join them) and that when Olivia goes back to San Francisco, Taffy will be the only member of her club in Carmel.

Olivia questions Taffy about the members of the other club and what they do.  Taffy says that a lot of it is secret, but the members are all girls her neighborhood, and they all wear shirts with their first initials on them.  Olivia and Taffy begin to spy on the girls to learn more about them and to see how they can help Taffy to fit in with their club.

When they see the girls riding bicycles, Olivia thinks that they must be a bicycle club.  She buys Taffy a bicycle and teaches her how to ride it.  Riding a bike works to get the other girls’ attention.  Olivia and Taffy ride their bikes past the other girls and stop to talk to them.  The other girls seem friendly enough, and they invite Taffy to go riding with them later.  However, to Olivia’s surprise, one of the club members calls her later and invites her to join the club, not Taffy.  The girl, Nettie, tells her that they aren’t really a bicycle club and that only members are allowed to know the true purpose of the club and the conditions for joining.  Olivia fits the conditions, but they’ll only explain it to her if she agrees to join.  Nettie also says that they all like Taffy but that they’re “not ready for her” and that they’ll be one step closer to inviting Taffy if Olivia joins.  What is this club really about, and how will Olivia joining help Taffy to join?

I guessed, even before Olivia did, that names are important in the club.  The girls were very interested when Olivia told them her name, and there is a reason why they all wear shirts with their first initials on them.  The five girls in the club are: Jasmine, Katrina, Leah, Millicent, and Nettie.  In order to get Taffy in, Olivia has to point out that Taffy’s last name is Plimpton.  (Get it?)  There, I was a little surprised because I had expected that the name Taffy would turn out to be a nickname and that Olivia would tell them that her real name is Patricia or something.  I had forgotten what Olivia said her last name was.

I thought that Olivia made some good points about the nature of clubs and exclusivity.  The reasons for a lot of exclusive groups are really silly and arbitrary because the main point of those group is just to be exclusive, not to fulfill any other purpose.  That this particular club rides bikes could have been their main purpose, and that would be a purpose that actually involves doing something, but their real requirement for joining is much more arbitrary and is mostly based on random chance, making it very difficult for them to ask new people to join even when they want to invite them.  Taffy would have had exactly the same problem if her name had been Abigail or Wendy.  I’m not really sure what they would have done if she had been Jessica or Linda.  Either they’d have to allow some duplication, or they might say that they couldn’t have her at all.

Olivia says, “I hate clubs. All those secret handshakes and pins and meetings and all that rot.” To Olivia, the whole thing is just silly, and she thinks that they should just be friends with people without all the silly secrecy and ritual.  I liked that stuff more when I was a kid myself, and I remember forming clubs with varying degrees of secrecy with kids in elementary school, but to tell the truth, none of them did very much or lasted very long because they had little other purpose to them besides just being a club and the routine of meetings with all the trappings that annoy Olivia take more effort to maintain than they’re worth. The best solution to having a lasting club would probably be to give the club a purposeful activity or set of activities that all of the members could enjoy and that would allow them to recruit new members easily.  If this club eventually focuses more activities like bicycling, it would be likely to last longer and leave them open to more members than they currently have whenever they want to add them.

The book is currently available online through Internet Archive.