Posted on by TracyC

The Castle Mystery

The Boxcar Children

#36 The Castle Mystery by Gertrude Chandler Warner, 1993.

Mr. Alden takes his children to Drummond Castle because an old friend of his is helping to clean and organize the place before it becomes a museum. The Drummond family used to live there, and they had the castle built to look like a castle in Germany. However, the last of the Drummond family has died, so turning the mansion into a museum will give the place new life. When the Aldens first arrive, they think the castle looks more like something from a scary story than a fairy tale, but Mr. Alden’s friend, Carrie, shows them some of the more whimsical elements of the place.

However, Carrie’s assistants aren’t happy about the Aldens helping. None of them really seem like team players, even with each other, and they’re not sure how much help the Alden children can be. There are a lot of things that the assistants won’t let the Aldens do when they try to help. They also seem a little suspicious of each other because a valuable Stradivarius violin that once belonged to the Drummond family has disappeared. Carrie insists that they don’t know that the violin has been stolen. The last of the Drummonds may have just hidden it somewhere, and they will find it when they’ve finished cleaning and organizing the place.

Then, the Alden children begin to notice strange things happening in the castle. They see lights in parts of the castle where no one is supposed to be and hear violin music coming from somewhere. Sometimes, the furniture covered in dust sheets gives them the feeling that someone is hiding under the sheets. When it seems like the kids are poking around the castle too much, the assistants all suddenly find tasks for them to do.

The kids catch one of the assistants, Mr. Tooner, looking for something under the floorboards in their grandfather’s room. He claims that he was fixing the floor, but Mr. Alden says that nothing was wrong with the floor. Sandy, another assistant, seems to know her way around the castle better than the others, but she’s oddly defensive about why she knows the place so well. She also makes an odd comment about how it would be nice to hear the Stradivarius “again”, but she dodges questions about when she heard it the first time. Tom is the antiques expert, and he insists that his work is highly specialized and that he wants to work alone.

The Aldens explore the spooky castle, the girls get trapped in the cave under the castle, and they find a secret, hidden room that brings them closer to the solution of the mystery. Each of these assistants has a previous connection to Drummond Castle that they don’t want to discuss, but only one of them is a thief.

My Reaction

I remember liking this book as a kid, although I’d forgotten what the solution of the mystery was until I reread it. It holds up pretty well, and I enjoyed how everyone associated with the castle has their own secrets and past connections to the place. It makes them all really great suspects and also gives readers some subplots to figure out along with deciding who the violin thief is!

The castle setting is also great! Technically, I suppose that it’s really more of a castle-like mansion, but it has all the trappings of a castle, some fanciful, some whimsical, and some spooky. There is also a cave under the castle, which features in a part of the story where Jessie and Violet get locked inside the cave because there is a gate that closes it off. One of the best parts of the book is the discovery of a hidden room because what castle would be complete without one!

Posted on by TracyC

The Mystery of the Mixed-Up Zoo

The Boxcar Children

Boxcar Children The Mystery of the Mixed-Up Zoo

#26 The Mystery of the Mixed-Up Zoo by Gertrude Chandler Warner, 1992.

Boxcar Children The Mystery of the Mixed-Up Zoo wrong labels on animals

The Aldens are visiting an old friend of their grandfather’s, who owns a zoo. The friend, Edward, lives alone and isn’t very organized, so the Aldens offer to help him straighten up the house and do some cooking. Edward is pleased with their help and few home-cooked meals. However, strange things start happening at the zoo.

First, someone switches around all the signs identifying the animals, so each sign is next to the wrong animal. It looks like a silly prank, but then more things happen. Then, someone sabotages the electricity, making it difficult to keep and prepare the food for the animals. It gets worse when someone sabotages the temperature controls in the animals’ habitats, making it too hot for some animals and too cold for others. The Aldens help the zoo staff to fix the temperatures because the animals could actually be killed by being kept at the wrong temperature! Finally, someone steals the zoo’s monkey! Who could be behind these things?

Boxcar Children The Mystery of the Mixed-Up Zoo monkey in a cage

The man who owns the local bookstore helps the Aldens find books about animals, but he seems oddly reluctant to talk about the zoo. A local woman, Helen Brooks, thinks that the zoo should be shut down because supporting it costs too much money for taxpayers. She doesn’t care what happens to the animals, and although many local people love the zoo, she plans to bring up the issue at the next town council meeting. When someone tries to sell the monkey to the local pet store, the Aldens start to get the answers they’re looking for.

My Reaction

Boxcar Children The Mystery of the Mixed-Up Zoo giving seal water

I thought the mystery was all right, but I had some mixed feelings about the way the villain was handled. We see the villain and get to know the villain’s other role in the story before we know it’s the villains, but I just thought there could have been more build-up about the villain’s connection to the zoo before the person is revealed as the culprit. The attempted sale of the money kind of clinches the identity of the culprit without the Aldens really having to figure out why first.

I did think the book was interesting for the way they explain both how some of the pranks at the zoo are actually seriously dangerous to the animals’ health, like changing the temperatures in their enclosures. It also explains how the Aldens help the zoo employees to help take care of the animals, so the book has some educational quality.

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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

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

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

The Four-Story Mistake

The Melendy Family Series

The Four-Story Mistake by Elizabeth Enright, 1942.

The Melendy family is moving out of their brownstone in New York and going to live in a house in the country. The children aren’t happy about moving because they’ll miss their old home. They’re sure that no other house would ever be as good as their old one.

However, when they arrive at the house in the country known as the Four-Story Mistake (because it was originally supposed to have four stories but the original owner ran out of money and only could manage three floors and a cupola at the top), they are fascinated and charmed by its size and peculiarities. For the first time, each child in the family can have their own room instead of having to share, and there’s also a room that they can turn into an office (really a playroom), like the children had at their old house. Their father takes them up into the cupola and points out the different directions the windows face and how they resemble the outlooks of each of the children. He reminds Randy, the one who misses the old house the most, of the importance of looking ahead.

The children start to enjoy exploring their new house and the countryside around it. Seven-year-old Oliver finds a secret room in the cellar with some old things that belonged to past children who lived in the house. He keeps it to himself for a while, enjoying his secret, but he gradually lets the other children in on it. It takes Randy more time to learn how to ride her bicycle than the others, but she is thrilled when she finally masters it. However, the others are still doing better than she is. When she is separated from them on a bike ride and crashes in town, knocking herself unconscious and getting a cut on her head, she causes a stir. She is tended to by a traffic cop and his wife, who have a house full of plants and a pet alligator named Crusty, among other pets.

Gradually, the children settle in at the house and start feeling more at home there. They start making friends at the nearby school, and Rush builds a tree house with help from the family’s handyman, Willie. One day, when Rush is home with a sore throat and a fever, he gets restless and sneaks out of the house to hide in his tree house. He falls asleep and gets trapped there during a storm when the ladder falls, and he can’t get down. Eventually, his family realizes that he’s missing and rescues him, but he ends up with a case of bronchitis from the hours he spent in the tree house in the rain. Even that isn’t so bad, though, because they bring him food and let him read in bed until he gets better.

As winter starts, the kids play in the snow and use the sleds that Oliver found in the secret basement room. They also discover a hidden door behind some wall paper upstairs. It leads to a hidden room with blue wall paper that they had never noticed before even though they realize that they should have noticed that there were windows on the outside of the house that should have told them there was an extra room. The children decide to keep the hidden room secret from the adults until they can explore it themselves. Inside the room, they find a portrait of a girl labeled “Clarinda.” The kids secretly clean up the room and try to learn who Clarinda was. It takes some time before they learn what happened to Clarinda, but it’s a fascinating and inspirational story rather than a tragic one.

Meanwhile, WWII is still going on, and Mona comes up with a plan to help the war effort. She enlists the other kids to help collect scrap materials, learn to knit, and buy war bonds. They’re a little dubious about some of Mona’s plans, but they get more interested when she says that she wants to put on a play and charge admission to raise money. Mona is writing the play herself. It’s a fairy tale type story called The Princess and the Parsnip. Of course, Mona will also play the leading role as their resident actress. She almost quits the play when she accidentally gives herself a bad hairdo, but fortunately Cuffy helps her fix it. In fact, the play is such a success and Mona does so well that she gets her first real acting job – a role in a radio play.

Her father knows that she’s young, and he talks to her seriously about accepting the job. He makes sure that Mona understands that an acting career will involve hard work and some odd hours. He expects her to keep up with her school work and also take some time to be a real person and family member and not to put on airs. Mona acknowledges that and is really happy when she gets the part.

Rush becomes a little temperamental when Mona gets her job, and he admits to Randy that it’s because he feels bad that he isn’t making real money, like Mona is. The war has been on his mind, and he feels like he wants to do something serious and important and to also feel like he’s earning money for the family. The problem is that he can’t think of anything he can do. Out in the countryside, there aren’t as many job opportunities, so he feels useless. Then, Randy gives him a suggestion: he can teach piano lessons. Rush has always had a special talent for the piano, and they know that there hasn’t been a music teacher in town since the last one left to get married. Rush isn’t sure he likes the idea, but Randy says that if he isn’t interested in the job he could do best, maybe he wasn’t really serious about wanting a job at all. Thinking it over, Rush decides to give it a try, and he’s actually more successful at it than he expected. He almost quits after a particularly difficult student causes him to lose his temper and hit the other boy, but a talk with the boy’s father straights things out between them.

The book covers most of the children’s first year at their new house, with changing seasons and changes in the children’s lives. They have a Christmas with homemade Christmas presents and a few special surprises from their father and Mrs. Oliphant (a wealthy woman who’s an old family friend). There are adventures with ice skating, and in the spring, Randy finds a diamond at the brook. They acquire some new pets, including Crusty the alligator, who becomes another of their Christmas presents, having outgrown the bathtub where he was living with the policeman. Crusty later escapes and takes up residence in the brook before apparently migrating to Pennsylvania. Besides Mona and Rush finding their first jobs, the children begin showing other signs of growing up. Mona attends her first dance, although the children make a point that they’re not too grown-up yet. By the end of the book, the children are well-settled in their new home and are starting to become comfortable with the changes in their lives that come with moving and starting to grow up.

This is the second 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

This story starts out as a story about kids adjusting to moving to a new house but also turns into a humorous story with Cottagecore elements. The house in the country known as the “Four-Story Mistake” is the stuff of many children’s dreams. It’s large enough for every kid to have their own room plus the room they call the “office”, which is a play room or activity room that all the kids in the family share. Their fabulous house has plenty of rooms to explore, including a cupola and a hidden room with a mysterious backstory.

One of the things I like about this book and others in the series is that there isn’t anything tragic or upsetting in the stories. They’re good books to relax with. When the kids hear the story of the secret, hidden room in their house, there’s an element of drama to the story (one of the stories-within-the story that often appear in this series), but nothing truly tragic. At first, I had thought maybe the original owner of that room had died young, and her family had sealed it up out of grief, but that’s not the case. It turns out that she had dreams of becoming a dancer, so she ran away to pursue her dreams. Her father disowned her and closed up her room after she left, but she actually did achieve her dream, so things worked out for her, and the Melendy kids find that inspiring.

There are woods and a stream nearby, so the kids have outdoor adventures. Even when something goes wrong and the kids have a hard time, like when Rush is sick and gets trapped in his tree house during a storm, it doesn’t end too disastrously, and the hardships are treated more as part of their exciting adventure. Even though Rush suffered during the incident, and Rush’s illness gets worse from being out in the storm, he kind of enjoys the fussing he gets afterward and the time when he’s allowed to stay in bed, reading, while he recovers.

The part where Rush lost his temper with a piano student and hit him surprised me, although how the student’s father reacted to it was even more of a surprise. I think most modern parents would be angry about Rush using physical violence against the other boy, no matter how he was provoked, but that’s not how the father in the story feels. The father knows his son very well, and he understands how he provoked Rush into losing his temper. He also knows why the son was being provoking. The boy wanted Rush to quit as his piano teacher because the boy doesn’t really want to take piano lessons at all. He’s only having piano lessons because his mother wants him to learn to play the piano. Rush handles his loss of temper as professionally as he can, admitting to the boy’s father what happened and offering to resign from the job, but the boy’s father, knowing his son and his son’s motives, refuses to accept that offer. If the father allowed his son to get away with provoking someone else to a fight and then rewarded him by giving the son what he wanted (the end to the piano lessons), the son would learn a bad lesson, that he could get what he wants by behaving badly and being too difficult to handle. It isn’t a good idea to give a kid the idea that acting out gets rewards because it provides an incentive for the kid to continue acting out to get his way.

Instead, the father acknowledges Rush’s professional authority as the piano teacher and says that the boy’s mother wants the piano lessons to continue. Because Rush is the professional authority here, he authorizes Rush to use whatever methods he deems necessary to deal with his student. The father says that he will have a word with his son about this. We never hear exactly what he says to his son, but the son at least grudgingly behaves himself from that point onward, so it seems that the father made it clear to him that bad behavior wouldn’t get him what he wants. It’s true that hitting people isn’t good, but neither is provoking people to a violent reaction, and I was glad that the father acknowledged the provocation and didn’t let it slide. Considering the context of the situation and the character and motives of the people involved, the father’s solution to the problem seems to have been an effective one.

There are coming-of-age elements in the book, partly because the kids are settling into a new home, but also because they’re generally growing up. Some children’s book series have characters who never age, but the Melendy children do age throughout their series. In this book, the two oldest Melendy children get their first jobs, and Mona attends her first dance. I did like it how, after Mona gets home from the dance, she and her siblings run outside to have fun because they want to make the point that they’re not too grown-up yet.

As in the first book in the series, WWII is happening in the background because the series is set contemporary to the time when it was written. The children undertake activities to support the war effort, and their knowledge that the war is happening does cause them to think a little more seriously about life, about doing their part, both for their country and their family. I thought it was an interesting choice for the author to write about children’s thoughts concerning the war while it was happening and the outcome of the war was still unknown. The author seems to be promoting children taking part in civilian activities to support the war, like raising funds, buying war bonds, and collecting useful scrap materials. I think that was probably the attitude of many adults in the 1940s, wanting children to make themselves useful and to show patriotism, and I can see those motives in the choice to let the war be part of the children’s reality. With the story’s other themes of moving, exploring the countryside, growing up, and finding fun and adventure in a new home, I can see how the author could have chosen to focus on those elements and left the time period of the story vague, but I appreciated how the author faced the reality of child readers, acknowledging the war and giving them suggestions for how they could handle their feelings through useful support activities. The countryside in the story isn’t a place where the children hide from the troubles of the world around them but where they can find their own way dealing with them creatively.