Posted on by TracyC

Princess Megan

The Magic Attic Club

Princess Megan by Trisha Magaw, 1995.

Meg and her friends are planning to perform a short play of Peter Pan at a local nursing home. Her friends chose her to be their director, and Megan is really looking forward to it. Then, her mother does something that threatens to derail the project.

Megan’s mother is a lawyer, and she frequently has to work late. The problem is that, this time, she’s going to have to work on Saturday, interviewing witnesses for a trial. However, that Saturday, Megan’s mother was supposed to be at the high school, receiving donations for a food drive. She asks Megan to take care of the food donations, but the problem is that the play Megan and her friends are supposed to perform is also on Saturday. Helping with the food drive would make it difficult for Megan to get to the play on time. Megan’s mother is tired and in no mood to listen to Megan’s objections that it wouldn’t be fair to derail her project with her friends. Her mother just wants Megan to take care of her obligations for her.

While Megan is fuming about the unfairness of the situation and worrying about what to do, she decides to visit their neighbor, Ellie Goodwin. Megan and her friends have a standing invitation to visit and explore her attic, which has the ability to send them to other places and times when they put on different costumes and look at themselves in the mirror.

This time, Megan tries on a purple princess dress, and she finds herself in a Medieval village in France, near a castle. She meets a peasant girl named Michelle. Michelle tells her that there’s been trouble over the matter of the unicorn and the feast.

When Megan asks what she means, Michelle explains that Lord Claude and Lady Helene are hosting a feast and joust at their castle and that the king (who is supposedly Megan’s father in this world) has been invited as an important guest. At the end of the feast, they want to give the king a unicorn’s horn as a gift, but the problem with that is that they have to kill the unicorn to do that. Alternatively, it is possible to befriend a unicorn and get filings from its horn that also have magical powers, but Lord Claude and Lady Helene want to give the king the whole horn. Michelle confesses to Megan that her mother, who works in the castle’s kitchen secretly released the unicorn that they’d captured for the purpose. If they knew she was the one who did it, she would be in serious trouble.

Megan wants to help Michelle and her mother, and as someone who supposedly has the rank of princess, she should have some authority. However, she’s not entirely sure what kind of influence she can have because she knows that she’s not a “real” princess. Everyone thinks that she’s the king’s daughter, but Megan knows that she’s not. Can Megan find another way to save the unicorn’s life and Jacqueline from punishment, without revealing herself as an imposter princess?

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

My Reaction and Spoilers

Some children’s books that involve time travel have real, historical information for educational value, but this one, and others in the series, are pure fantasy. Megan doesn’t visit real Medieval France. This is a fairy tale version of the Middle Ages with a unicorn and an invisibility cloak. There are a few accurate details for the Middle Ages, like the practice of using straw or other plants on the floors and the fact that intricate tapestries took years of work to complete. However, the focus is definitely on fantasy.

The invisibility cloak is critical to Megan’s plan to save the unicorn and make the king realize the value and beauty of the unicorn before someone can kill it on his behalf. When the king sees the unicorn for himself and reads the note that Megan wrote for him, he accepts the living unicorn and its presence as his gift instead of the horn. The problem with the unicorn is resolved pretty quickly, and so is Megan’s situation with her mother.

At first, I was expecting that the situation that Megan encountered in the fantasy world would have more of a direct parallel to Megan’s situation in her regular life, but it doesn’t really. It mostly serves as its own adventure, although it does highlight that Megan is creative when it comes to problem-solving and can be relied on in difficult circumstances. What Megan really needs to do is to explain to her mother why it would be difficult for her to take over her mother’s project without compromising her own. When Megan finally explains, it turns out that her mother didn’t know about her project with her friends. Handling both of their projects requires some careful scheduling and a little help from a friend, but they manage to work it out.

I really like the pictures in the Magic Attic Club books because they remind me of the ones in the American Girls books. They have a similar quality.

Posted on by TracyC

Madeline in London

Madeline in London by Lugwig Bemelmans, 1961.

This book is part of the Madeline series about a little girl at a small boarding school in Paris. The son of a Spanish Ambassador, Pepito, lives next door to the girls. He’s a menace to them at first, but the girls make friends with him. However, in this book, Pepito moves to London because his father has been relocated for his job.

When Pepito and his parents go to London, Pepito is unhappy there because he’s lonely for Madeline and the other girls from the boarding school. With Pepito growing thin and depressed from his unhappiness, Pepito’s father arranges for the girls from the boarding school to visit for Pepito’s birthday to cheer him up.

When Miss Clavel and the girls arrive in London, there’s a happy reunion, but then, they remember that they didn’t bring Pepito a present for his birthday. Madeline remembers that Pepito has always wanted a horse, and they find an old, retired army horse who is still healthy and gentle.

However, when they give the horse to Pepito, they quickly discover that there are complications to owning a horse as a pet. The horse hears a trumpet, and reacting to his army training, he runs off with Pepito and Madeline on his back to join a parade.

Then, they forget to feed him, so he eats everything in the garden, making himself sick. It seems like the embassy in London is no place for a horse, but Madeline and her friends may have room for one at their school!

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

My Reaction

Giving someone a horse for a present without checking with their parents or making sure that they have what they need to take care of a horse isn’t something that people realistically do, but the Madeline books rarely worry about the practicalities of a situation. It’s all fun and adventure!

I was seriously worried about the horse after they forget to feed him and he helps himself to random plants in the garden, especially when they find him with his feet up in the air. Fortunately, everything works out okay, which is characteristic of Madeline books, too. How the trustees of Madeline’s school will react when they find out that the girls now have a pet horse, since they raised a fuss earlier about the girls having a dog, is anyone’s guess, but the story doesn’t worry about that, either.

Like other books in this series, the pictures in the book alternate between limited color images, mostly in black and yellow, and full color images.

Posted on by TracyC

Madeline

Madeline by Lugwig Bemelmans, 1939.

“In an old house in Paris
that was covered with vines
lived twelve little girls
in two straight lines.”

The Madeline stories are considered children’s classics today, and these words, which are the opening lines in other books in the Madeline series, introduce Madeline’s school. Madeline is a little girl who lives in a small boarding school in Paris, tended by Miss Clavel.

Madeline is the smallest girl at the boarding school. She’s a brave girl, who isn’t scared of either mice or lions at the zoo, and she sometimes does daring stunts that frighten Miss Clavel.

One night, Miss Clavel wakes up because Madeline is crying. She calls the doctor, who examines Madeline and rushes her to the hospital because she needs to have her appendix removed.

After the operation, Madeline has to stay in the hospital for a while. Miss Clavel brings the other girls from the school to visit her, and they are impressed by all the candy and presents that Madeline has received from her family. Even more impressive, Madeline now has a scar that she shows to the other girls.

After the other girls return home and go to bed, Miss Clavel wakes up to find them all crying. Madeline has made having her appendix out look like so much fun, they all want to do it!

My Reaction

I wouldn’t say that I was a particular fan of Madeline as a kid, but I did read at least some of the books in the series. As an adult, I had forgotten that they were told entirely in rhyme, even though I still sometimes get those opening lines stuck in my head.

I remember thinking as a kid that I wouldn’t want to have my appendix out! Even if you get presents and an impressive scar, having an operation always sounded awful to me. It didn’t occur to me until I was older, but the Madeline cartoons and movie tended to portray Madeline as an orphan, but she isn’t. She’s just a student at a small boarding school. This book is one of the stories that mentions her family, with her papa sending her a dollhouse as one of the presents she receives while she’s in the hospital.

I also didn’t realize, until I was researching this series for the blog, just how old the first Madeline book was. It was originally published in 1939, on the eve of WWII. I don’t think the books ever have anything in them to tie the stories to any particular events, and they seem almost timeless, although I suppose that the girls’ school uniforms are a little old-fashioned. This timeless, idealized portrayal of Paris was popular with the book’s original audience of Americans during WWII.

I was curious about the author, Ludwig Bemelmans. He was born in Austria and grew up in Austria and Germany during the late 19th century and early 20th century. As a young man, he was apprenticed to his uncle, who owned a hotel, but Bemelmans was difficult to manage and got into trouble while working there. He later told a story about shooting and wounding a headwaiter who whipped him, although that might have been just a tall tale. Eventually, however, his uncle decided that he couldn’t deal with him, so he told him he would either have to go to reform school or go to the United States, where his father was living after having left him and his mother years before. He moved to the United States and lived there during WWI. He spent some time working in a series of hotels and restaurants. He eventually joined the US Army in 1917, although they wouldn’t send him to Europe because the US was at war with Germany, and he was German. He became a US citizen in 1918, and he developed an interest in art. He worked as a cartoonist before writing and illustrating children’s books. He wrote the first seven of the Madeline books, and the last one was published after his death. Since then, his grandson, John Bemelmans Marciano has written other Madeline books.

Posted on by TracyC

Meg Mackintosh and The Mystery at the Soccer Match

Meg Mackintosh Mysteries

Meg Mackintosh and The Mystery at the Soccer Match by Lucinda Landon, 1997.

Meg and her brother Peter play on opposing soccer teams, the Hawks and the Panthers. Peter is brags about how good he is at being a goalie, and Meg hopes that, in this game, she can score a few points off him. There are prizes for this soccer team, and the winning team will get to keep a medal that Coach Lee won playing international soccer until next year’s game. Everybody admires the medal, which is displayed on the awards table.

Meg’s teammate, Alex, is less thrilled about the game. He has an injured leg and can’t play, and his mother is busy campaigning against awarding prizes for children’s soccer. She thinks that giving prizes isn’t fair and hurts the feelings of kids who don’t get prizes.

It’s true that there is some pressure from the parents for their children to play harder to win prizes than the kids really want. Peter accidentally collides with one of his teammates, Heather, and they both end up with scrapes and are temporarily removed from the game for first aid. Heather’s father pressures her to get back in the game as soon as possible and win, but Heather privately admits to Peter that she doesn’t really feel like playing anymore. She only does it because she knows her dad would feel bad if her team doesn’t win.

It starts to rain during the game, and the adults and kids cover the awards table with a blanket. When they remove the blanket later, the gold medal is gone! Who could have taken it? Meg invites Alex to join her detective club and help investigate the mystery while she plays soccer!

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

My Reaction

Meg inviting Alex to help her investigate the case and consider motives makes this book a little different from other books in the series, where Meg usually does that herself. The mystery is good because there are several suspects to consider, each of whom was seen near the table and left signs of their presence there. Did Heather’s dad take the medal because he once almost won a similar soccer medal and was jealous that Coach Lee won the prize he didn’t? He certainly seems very prize-oriented. Did Alex’s mother take it because she disapproves of sports prizes and wanted to make a statement about it? Could one of the children have taken it, either because they wanted to claim the prize they didn’t think they could win honestly or because they wanted to impress one of their parents?

As with other books in the series, readers are given the chance to review the evidence Meg and her friends have collected and see if they can spot the clues along with them in pictures taken at the scene. There was a clue that I thought was pretty obvious in one of the pictures but which Meg and the other kids didn’t spot at first. They only notice it when another clue makes them take a second look at one of the pictures. I think many young readers might also spot the clue I did, although if they do, it might make them feel clever for noticing something before Meg and her friends do.

When I first noticed that clue, I was inclined to think the solution to this mystery was too obvious, but there is another twist to the story that makes it more interesting. The medal was actually stolen twice. After the original thief put it back, someone else took it again, so there are two thefts to figure out instead of one.

Posted on by TracyC

The Mystery of Castle Croome

The Mystery of Castle Croome by Hilda Boden, 1966.

Molly Stewart, an American college student attending Oxford, is an orphan who is barely scraping by when she suddenly receives word that she has inherited an ancient castle in Scotland from her great-uncle, who has recently died. Molly’s friends, a pair of twins called Pat and Penny Roderick (short for Patricia and Penelope), go with her to have a look at the place, but right from the beginning, it seems like nobody wants her there.

Although the lawyer, Mr. Harding, is aware that Molly has been attending Oxford, he also knows that she is planning to return to the United States when she finishes her degree. He also knows that her great-uncle, Sir Malcolm, disapproved when her father married an American and moved to the United States himself, so he was surprised when Sir Malcolm’s will left his estate to his nephew or his nephew’s heirs. Mr. Harding had expected that Sir Malcolm would leave the estate to Jamie Campbell instead because Jamie has been the caretaker for years. The estate doesn’t come with much of an income, and the farms attached to it don’t have tenants, so they’re not bringing in rent money. It would take a lot of work to restore the estate. Since Mr. Harding would rather deal with Jamie Campbell anyway, he thinks that Molly would find it a better deal to just sell the castle to Jamie and use the money to finish her degree and go back to the United States. Molly asks why Jamie Campbell would want to buy the castle if it’s not worth much and needs so much work to restore. Mr. Harding says he might buy it out of sentiment, but Molly wants to have a look at the castle before agreeing to sell it. After seeing it, she might decide that it isn’t the kind of place where she could live, but she won’t know for sure until she sees it herself. Mr. Harding agrees and says that he will tell Jamie Campbell that she’s coming.

When Molly arrives with Pat and Penny, they see that the castle is isolated and rather eerie. Inside, it is run down, and living conditions are primitive. Jamie Campbell, an elderly man, isn’t happy that they’re there. There is no other staff, and while Jamie was happy to serve the old laird and nurse him through his final years, he has no intention of serving this young American grand-niece. Although there is an electrical generator at the castle, Jamie says that it hasn’t worked in years, and he and the old laird used oil lamps and candles. If Molly and her friends think he’s going to go to special efforts for their comfort, they can think again. Molly refuses to be intimidated by his disrespect, and she tells him that, because this castle has been his home for years, he is welcome to continue staying there, although Jamie Campbell thinks that she’s only extending that invitation to get a free caretaker.

Molly is studying engineering at college, and her friends think that she could probably fix the generator, but Molly tells them that she would like to wait to look at it. She hasn’t had much practical experience yet, so she wants to take time to study the situation before she does anything. She also tells her friends not to mention to Jamie Campbell that she has any engineering knowledge. She doesn’t trust Jamie, and she thinks it might be better for him to think that they’re more helpless than they actually are.

Molly sees definite signs that Jamie Campbell hasn’t been honest with them about the real condition of the castle and about even the contents of the castle at the time that her uncle died, and she can tell that he’s deliberately trying to make life harder for them to drive them away from the castle. After Jamie Campbell tells them that there is no running water at the castle, the girls notice that soap next to a sink is still wet, indicating that Jamie has very recently washed his hands there. The girls think that he probably shut off the water right before they got there, and they also think there is probably nothing wrong with the generator, that Jamie probably just turned it off. He tries to keep them from even looking at it, and he’s reluctant to hand over the keys to the castle to Molly. Many pictures are missing from the walls of the castle, and Jamie says Molly’s uncle sold them for money, but another painting disappears during their stay, showing the girls that Jamie is the one looting artwork from the castle. Molly realizes that nobody seems to know exactly what was in the castle at the time her uncle died, making it difficult to prove that Jamie is stealing things. When Molly tries to search her uncle’s desk, she finds that it’s been completely cleared of even routine papers, and Jamie admits in a cagey way that he may have tidied up a little.

Things improve for Molly and her friends when they set out to buy some food and make contact with other people outside the castle. Jamie refuses to even feed them, saying that he barely has enough for himself. He says that he might have been able to provide something for Molly if she was alone, but he can’t be expected to feed her friends, too. Fortunately, the girls have some provisions with them that get them through their first night at the castle. When they set out in the morning to buy more food, they can’t take their care because there’s a large nail in one of the tires. They can’t prove that Jamie sabotaged the car, but they all suspect he did. They decide to set out on foot to find somewhere with a telephone or somewhere they can buy some food. They meet up with a scout troop camping nearby, and they save the girls from stumbling into a bog. They share a meal with the girls, and the girls tell them what’s been happening at the castle.

The scout leaders don’t like the sound of Jamie and the things happening at the castle, and they tell the girls that they will send a mobile shop to the castle to sell them food. There’s a van that travels among the farms in the area, selling groceries, sort of like a food truck, and it carries a surprising variety of goods. The scouts also tell the girls how they forage for wild foods, and they offer their services for changing the car’s tire and other things they might need.

That night, Molly has a frightening encounter with a ghostly white figure, although she believes that it’s just Jamie, trying to frighten her away from the castle. The next day, Molly and her friends confront Jamie about the missing painting, and he tells Molly that her great-uncle sold that painting years ago. He tries to convince her that the only reason why she thought she saw it is that she has “second sight.” He says that it was a favorite painting of her great-uncle’s and that she only saw it because she’s a member of his family and has psychically sensed the memory of the picture. Molly knows that can’t be true because her friends also saw the picture. Molly also asks Jamie about a strange roaring noise that she heard at night that sounded like machinery of some kind, and Jamie tells her that it’s the “Roar of the Stewarts.” He says it’s a bad omen, and that Stewarts hear it before something bad happens. Although none of the girls admits to having seen a “ghost” the night before, Jamie also tells them about the “Specter of the Castle”, and he insists that all of these bad omens are signs that Molly and her friends should leave the castle because it’s dangerous for them.

Molly and her friends know that Jamie badly wants to frighten them away from the castle, and part of that might be that he’s been looting objects from it since Molly’s great-uncle died, but what is the real cause of the machine noises in the night? Then, suddenly, Jamie welcomes a pair of unexpected guests into the castle as paying guests. Mr. and Mrs. Smith claim that they’re traveling tourists who think it would be exciting to stay in a real castle. Molly tries to discourage them from staying by charging them more than anyone might expect from staying in a run-down castle with primitive living conditions, but the Smiths insist that they would enjoy an authentic experience. Molly and her friends are immediately suspicious, especially when they realize that the Smiths don’t seem to have a car, and there’s no obvious way they could have even reached this out-of-the-way castle. Who are they really? Are they confederates of Jamie’s? What has Jamie really been doing at the castle, and what is he so afraid that Molly and her friends will discover if they stay?

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

My Reaction

I found this book recently at a used book sale, but I recognized the title because I tried to find this book when I was a kid. I wanted it because it was on a list of suggested books in the back of another mystery book I read and liked as a kid. Actually, I think I enjoyed it more as an adult than I would have has as a kid. As a kid, I would have liked the notion of a girl inheriting a spooky old castle that might be haunted, but in this story, it’s pretty obvious right away that Jamie is behind all the mysterious things happening.

This story is not like other mysteries where you have to wonder who among the suspects could be responsible for the mysterious happenings because Jamie is the only suspect from the beginning. The real mystery, for both the characters and the readers is why he’s doing it. It’s a “whydunnit” more than a “whodunnit.” Although it would have been fun and atmospheric if Molly and her friends believed that the castle was haunted and were scared, I have to admit that I loved how unimpressed the girls were when Jamie awkwardly makes up his spooky stories and excuses about “second sight”, the “Roar of the Stewarts”, and the “Specter of the Castle.” They know that he’s just making it all up. They just don’t kick him out of the castle immediately because he’s an old man who’s been there for years, and they also want to know that he’s up to.

It turns out that part of what he’s up to is obvious and part actually resembles the mystery book that had this listed as a recommended book. Readers can figure out the more obvious part themselves, but there’s a revelation later that Jamie is also involved in another crime that he can’t explain away as any misunderstanding. There’s a suspenseful part of the story where the girls are trapped in the castle with Jamie and his confederates and need to figure out how to escape or summon help. I thought that the ending part wrapped up a little quickly, but overall, I liked the story. I think I enjoyed the book more now than I would have if I’d found it when I was a kid.

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 · 3 Comments

Cookies and Crutches

Pee Wee Scouts

Cookies and Crutches by Judy Delton, 1988.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

My Reaction

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

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

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

Posted on by TracyC

Then There Were Five

The Melendy Family Series

Then There Were Five by Elizabeth Enright, 1944.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

My Reaction and Some Spoilers

The Darkest Book in the Series

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

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

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

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

The Lighter Side

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

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

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

Posted on by TracyC

Dig for a Treasure

Dig for a Treasure by Dean Marshall, 1949.

This is the second book in The Invisible Island series. It begins with the arrival of the Lennox family and their two children, Hugh and Barbie. The Lennox family has been staying with various relatives since the father got out of the army, but now, they’ve found a house to rent in the small town of Anchorage, Connecticut. The children are looking forward to having a yard to play in, and the mother wants to have a garden.

Unfortunately, when they arrive they are shocked to see that the house they were going to rent has been destroyed by fire. Their landlord, Mr. Prentice, is also on the scene, and he regretfully tells them that the fire just happened, although they don’t know the cause, and that there are no other houses in the area to rent. At first, they think that they will have to go back to staying with relatives, but Mrs. Lennox says firmly that they won’t. The family has had enough of staying with relatives, and they desperately need a place of their own. It’s summer, so her idea is that they can camp out on the property of the burned house for a few months while they look around for another place to rent. The children are excited about the idea of a camp-out. Mr. Prentice says that he wouldn’t have any problem with the family camping on the land, and he returns their rent deposit to them, saying that they can stay at his house that night and get some camping equipment the next day.

While Hugh and Barbie are exploring the area and looking for their cat, who ran off, they meet the children from the first book in the series. Hugh is about the age of David Guthrie, and Barbie is about the same age as Winkie Guthrie, the youngest of the children who play on the island they call “The Invisible Island.” Since the previous book in the series, they have finished their stone hut, and it has a grass and sod roof and four built-in beds for the four Guthrie children. Mr. Guthrie is an architect, and he helped the children build the house.

Hugh and Barbie admire the hut, and they say that they wish they had a stone house like that because it couldn’t catch fire. They explain to the other children what happened to the house that their family was going to rent, and they ask the children if they would consider renting the stone hut to their family until they can find another place to live. Mr. Lennox isn’t really happy about the idea of camping in tents because he lived out of tents when he was in the army.

At first, the Guthrie children and the Leigh children aren’t sure that they want to rent out their stone hut. They spend a lot of time there, and they’ve been trying to save up money to add improvements. The hut really belongs to the Guthries, who built it, but they want to add an extra room for the Leighs. However, after thinking it over, they realize that they can earn more money as rent from the Lennox family than they can by just doing chores, and while the Lennox family stays in the hut, they can camp out on other parts of their little island, like the woods that they call “Sherwood Forest.”

Since the little hut is just a one-room hut with no bathroom or other amenities, the children aren’t sure at first whether the Lennox adults would want to stay there or not. However, staying in a stone hut does sound better than in a tent, where they would also have no bathroom or amenities. Mr. Lennox is also intrigued by the pond, where he can go fishing. The children and the Lennox family talk things over with Mr. Prentice and the Guthrie children’s parents, and they all agree to renting the stone hut to the Lennox family.

The Lennox family still isn’t sure whether or not they’ll find another house for sale or rent in the area. They want to stay in the area because Mr. Lennox has a job nearby and Mrs. Lennox knows that some of her ancestors used to live in the area, although she doesn’t know much about them. However, Anchorage is a small town, and most of the houses already have people living in them. There is only one empty house in the area, but the owner has always refused to rent it or sell it. Mr. Prentice explains that the owner believes that there is a treasure in the house or nearby, a necklace that once belonged to a queen, and she’s been looking for it for years. Mr. Prentice doesn’t think that there really is a necklace or, if there once was, it’s probably long gone, but the owner insists that it exists and is still there, somewhere.

The children are fascinated, and they ask Mr. Prentice to tell them the story of the queen’s necklace. He says that during the time of Queen Elizabeth (Tudor), the ancestors of the Winthrop family who owned the house did something for Queen Elizabeth that caused her to reward them with a golden necklace that was passed down through the family for generations. When the Winthrops came to the colonies in America around 1650, they brought that necklace with them. However, when they came to this area and settled there, they had problems with the local Indians (Native Americans).

Mr. Prentice says that he can’t blame the American Indians for resenting strangers coming and taking over their lands and hunting grounds or for them trying to stand up for their rights, but the situation escalated with increasing violence. David Guthrie protests that American Indians scalped people and that, if he’d been there at the time, he’d “show them.” Mr. Prentice explains that was exactly the problem – everybody who was there at the time thought he’d “show them”, and that’s why the violence escalated. As for the scalping, Mr. Prentice says that white people committed their share of atrocities, too, and when David is older and learns more about it, he might not feel so proud of his side in this battle. (I thought that was an amazingly honest and self-aware interlude about European colonization and its effects on Native Americans for a book written in the late 1940s, when cowboy and western shows were becoming popular, and American Indians were mainly portrayed as violent enemies to be defeated. I was a little concerned at first when “Indians” entered the story, but I was relieved that the author took this attitude.)

Continuing with the local legend, Mr. Prentice explains that the colonists received warning one day that the local tribe was going to attack. In preparation for the attack, some families hid valuable items that they didn’t want stolen or destroyed in the coming battle. Some people buried valuables, and others hid their valuables in wells or caves. Presumably, the Winthrops hid their necklace, called the Queen’s Chain, during this time, but nobody really knows what happened to it. The colonists fled the area, and the American Indians burned the entire village to the ground. Every man-made structure was destroyed during this attack. Although people later returned to the area and rebuilt the town, it’s unknown what valuables they retrieved or when or if they ever retrieved them from their hiding places. Because all the buildings and some of the trees were burned, many landmarks were destroyed, so some people might not have found their hidden valuables again, even if they managed to return to look for them.

Mr. Prentice is related to the Winthrop family, and so is his cousin, Lizzie, who currently owns the rebuilt house known as the Winthrop house. Lizzie is firmly convinced that the Queen’s Chain is still there, somewhere. She thinks it was never hidden during the attack that destroyed the first house and was passed down through the family but hidden by a later generation, which is why she won’t sell or rent the house. Mr. Prentice, on the other hand, thinks that the necklace is lost forever. He thinks that either the necklace was hidden with other valuables that were never retrieved after the attack or that the family found the necklace and sold it to get money to rebuild the farm that was destroyed. Mrs. Prentice, on the other hand, sides with Lizzie, saying that nobody in the Winthrop family would have sold the necklace because it was part of a family trust.

The children are fascinated by the story, and they immediately begin thinking about searching for the necklace themselves. They talk to Miss Lizzie about the story Mr. Prentice told them and use some of the descriptions that she gives them of the old Winthrop property and the plants that once grew in their herb garden to see if they can pinpoint the exact location of the original house and the hiding place that the Winthrops might have used for their valuables. Even though everything manmade was destroyed in the attack, some plants have a way of coming back, and the remains of the old herb garden might still be there, even almost 300 years later.

The treasure hunt takes on greater importance when the Guthrie children learn that their family might not be able to buy the island from Mr. Prentice. Mr. Prentice is also the Guthrie family’s landlord, and the family has been saving up to buy their house from him. They had also hoped to be able to buy the island where the children have been spending so much time, but Mr. Prentice is reluctant to sell it. Lumber is valuable, and he’s thinking of cutting down the pine trees on the island to sell the wood. The children are horrified at the thought that their beloved “Sherwood Forest” might be cut down! Perhaps, if they can find the missing treasure, they can persuade Mr. Prentice to sell the land to them and Miss Lizzie to rent her house to the Lennox family.

The book is available to borrow and read online through Internet Archive (in audio form!).

My Reaction and Some Spoilers

There isn’t as much imaginary play as “castaways” in this book as their was in the first book in the series, but the theme still shows up in some ways. The kids still go camping on the island. They use tents when the Lennox family is living in their hut. The children’s search for treasure also offers plenty of outdoor adventure, and I really enjoyed the element of mystery in the story.

The children approach the treasure hunt from the assumption that the necklace is still hidden wherever the Winthrops hid their valuables. They do find that spot and recover some relics of the 17th century, but the necklace is not among them. Readers probably won’t guess exactly where the necklace has really been hidden, but there are a few clues to notice along the way. Mrs. Lennox says at the beginning that her ancestors were from this town, even though she doesn’t know much about them. I had guessed that they might have a connection to the Winthrops, especially when Miss Lizzie explains that the name of the girl who hid the family’s valuables before the attack was Elizabeth, and there are other Elizabeths in the family. Besides Miss Lizzie, Mrs. Lennox is called “Betty” when her husband addresses her by her first name, and Betty is another nickname for Elizabeth. When Barbie recognizes something that Miss Lizzie has as being like something her family owns, Miss Lizzie realizes that the Lennox family is related to her. By comparing what each of them has and what Miss Lizzie knows about their family, they figure out what really happened to the necklace. It not only solves the mystery of the necklace, but once Miss Lizzie realizes that the members of the Lennox family are relatives, she’s happy to have them living in the old Winthrop house.

The problem of what will happen to the children’s island and the trees on it is solved when the children win a bet with Mr. Prentice. In the first book, the children called their island “The Invisible Island” because it isn’t obvious at first that it really is an island, surrounded by water on all sides. So far, the children have kept the knowledge to themselves and their parents. When the children accidentally refer to the island in Mr. Prentice’s presence and realize that Mr. Prentice isn’t aware that it’s really an island, they start to explain. Mr. Prentice can’t believe that there’s actually an island on his land, and he says that he will give up ownership if they can prove that it’s really an island. The children easily demonstrate that it’s truly an island, showing him all of the waterways and bodies of water around it, and Mr. Prentice says that they’ve won. The Guthries end up with control of the island and the trees on it.

Posted on by TracyC · 1 Comment

Swallows and Amazons

Swallows and Amazons by Arthur Ransome, 1930.

Roger Walker is staying at a farm near a lake for the summer holidays in 1929 with his mother and siblings. His father is away on a ship, a destroyer, and the family write letters to him. The children are particularly waiting for a reply from their father because they’ve asked him for permission to do something special, and their mother says that they will be allowed to do it if their father agrees. What they want is permission to sail the family’s sailboat, the Swallow, by themselves and to camp out on an island in the middle of the lake. They are all thrilled when their father agrees that they can do it! Roger is especially thrilled because, until their littlest sister, Vicky, was born, he was the baby of the family, and he was often left out of things that the older children were allowed to do.

There are a couple of conditions on the permission for the children to go sailing and camping by themselves. The first is that the two oldest children, John and Susan, are in charge. Roger and their other sister, Titty, will have to follow their orders. Before the children can camp out, their mother also makes them tents to use, shows them how to set up the tents, and takes them on a sailing trip so she can make sure that the children know what they’re doing. The excited children prepare for their sailing and camping expedition, giving themselves sailing roles, working out ship’s articles, and gathering supplies. John will be the captain of their ship, while Susan will be the mate and cook. Roger is a cabin boy, and Titty is an able seaman.

When the children go to the island, they find a nice place to set up their camp and a harbor for their boat. Surprisingly, they also discover signs that someone else has been on the island before them, but they don’t know who that is. They begin to think of the mysterious people who have been there before as “Natives” of the island, and they also start to think of their mother and other adults who help them as “Natives.” Their mother plays along with it, as if she’s part of one of the stories the children have probably been reading. When their mother comes to bring them some supplies, the children also mention seeing a man with a parrot on a house boat. The man helping their mother, Mr. Jackson, says that the man often has his nieces with him, but they don’t seem to be with him this time. The children’s mother tells the children where to go to pick up milk, and she says that she wants the children to talk to her every couple of days so she will know they’re all right and so they can pick up more provisions from her.

The children continue with their camping and fishing, and they continue to notice the man on the houseboat, who they think of as being like a “retired pirate” with his parrot. They also notice that he has a small cannon on his houseboat. One day, the children spot another boat approaching the island, sailed by a pair of girls. The children hide and watch the boat. Then, it sounds like the cannon on the boat goes off, and the “retired pirate” is on the deck, appearing to shake his fist at the girls in the boat. The children from the Swallow think that the man on the houseboat might be firing at the girls! The girls also run a flag with a skull and crossbones on it up their mast. The girls are being pirates! The children try to follow the girls’ boat, the Amazon, to see who the girls are and where the boat docks, but they lose track of the Amazon.

The lady who gives the children their milk talks to them when they come to get their supplies. She tells them not to bother Mr. Turner, the man on the houseboat. The children realize that Mr. Turner thinks of them as a nuisance, although they don’t know why. The crew of the Swallow takes it as the “retired pirate” stirring up the “Natives” against them. Then, someone steals their boat, the Swallow, and the children are set upon by the pirate girls at their camp!

There is a battle at the camp between the Swallows and the Amazons, but one of the Amazons asks for a “parley.” The crew of the Swallow confronts the Amazons about the theft of their boat, and the Amazons confront the Swallows about the campers trespassing on “their” island. The crew of the Amazon says they’ve been coming to this island for years, and they’re the ones who built the little fireplace the Swallows found when they started setting up camp.

During their “parley”, the children sort of continue their imaginary roles as explorers and pirates in their talk, but they also reveal some of their real backgrounds. The two girls from the Amazon explain that Mr. Turner on the houseboat is their Uncle Jim. At least, they say that sometimes he’s their uncle and is nice to them. They’ve been visiting the island for years, and their uncle is the one who gave them their boat. However, this year, their uncle is a hostile “native” and their enemy. The Swallows say that Mr. Turner has apparently been complaining about them to the local adults, “stirring up the natives” against them, so he is their enemy, too. The Amazons, Nancy (real name Ruth) and Peggy (Margaret) Blackett, suggest a truce between the Amazons and the Swallows and an alliance against their shared enemy, the “pirate” Jim Turner, characterized as a Captain Flint type character. If the two crews are allied, it won’t matter who technically “owns” or controls the island because they have a shared mission against their enemies, particularly Uncle Jim, aka “Captain Flint.” The Amazons admit that they really have wanted to be allies all along. The Swallows agree to this plan, and the two crews sign a treaty with each other.

As the two crews celebrate their new alliance, the Amazons explain how their uncle came to be their enemy. Usually, their uncle likes playing with them when they visit during the summer, sailing and exploring with them and teaching them things he knows about sailing. However, this year, he’s writing a book about his travels, and he doesn’t have time for them. He gets upset when they disturb his work, and the girls’ mother has told them to leave him alone when he’s working. The girls feel betrayed that he isn’t paying attention to them and gets annoyed by them. The day when the crew of the Swallow thought the man on the houseboat fired his cannon at them, the girls say that it wasn’t the cannon. They set off a firecracker when Uncle Jim was asleep as a prank, and that’s why he was shaking his fist at them as they fled in their boat.

It sounds like the Blackett girls have been a nuisance to their uncle because they’re hurt that he’s not spending time with them, and they’re trying to get his attention. Still, the Swallows enjoy their new alliance with the Amazons. Each of the crews has some experience sailing, the Amazons having learned what they know from their uncle and the Swallows having been taught by their father. John is impressed by what the Amazons teach them, but there are a few things that they know that the Amazons don’t. The two crews learn from each other, and they begin planning war games with their two ships to practice for a battle with their sworn enemy. In between, they enjoy their camping and exploring activities.

It turns out that Mr. Turner on the houseboat has been blaming the children from the Swallow for his nieces’ pranks with fireworks, which is why he’s been complaining about them to local people. When Mr. Turner leaves a complaining note at the Swallows’ camp, John realizes why he resents them. John knows that he could tell Mr. Turner the truth about who had the fireworks, but he doesn’t want to tattle on the Amazons because of their alliance and because Mr. Turner is angry and offensive and accuses him of being a liar when he insists that he and his siblings didn’t do what he’s accusing them of doing.

The Swallows and the Amazons start a daring war game with each other, a contest for them to try to capture each other’s ship. The winning crew will have their ship declared the flagship of the fleet! The Swallows attempt to capture the Amazon after dark, but their attempt is foiled because the Amazons sneak out of their house and head for the island that night. Titty, left alone on the island to mind their camp, realizes that the Amazons are on the island and decides on a risky plan to take their ship herself!

However, the children aren’t the only marauders abroad that night. When Titty takes the Amazon, she overhears some men in another boat. Some charcoal burners told the children from the Swallow earlier that Mr. Turner should make sure that he locks up his houseboat securely because they’ve heard some talk that someone might try to break in, but they never delivered the message because Mr. Turner accused John and his siblings of setting off the fireworks, and they forgot they were going to tell him what the charcoal burners said. The men that Titty overhears are suspicious, and they seem to be hiding something. After the Swallows win the mock war, the Swallows tell the Amazons what the charcoal burners said, although the Amazons are reluctant to tell their uncle to lock up his boat because they want to stage their own raid on it.

The Walker family will be heading home in only three more days and bad weather may be coming, so the children have to hurry to make the most of their adventures as Swallows and Amazons. Titty tells her siblings about the men who seemed to be hiding something, and she thinks it’s some kind of treasure. Her older siblings think that she probably dreamed about hearing men hiding something because she fell asleep on the Amazon, but Titty persuades Roger to come with her to find the treasure.

The book is available to borrow and read for free online through Internet Archive. This is the first book in a series, and it’s been adapted for film and television multiple times.

My Reaction

The author of the story, Arthur Ransome, named the character of Roger after Roger Altounyan, who he met when the real-life Roger was a child, visiting grandparents in the Lake District of England with his sisters. (Real-life Roger Altounyan later became a doctor and pharmacologist, known for a pioneering treatment for asthma.) The names of the fictional Roger’s siblings are also based on the real-life Roger’s siblings. The name “Titty” is odd, but it’s actually a nickname. The real-life Roger had a sister, Mavis Altounyan, who was called “Titty” as a nickname after a children’s story, Titty Mouse and Tatty Mouse by Joseph Jacobs. The character of Titty is sometimes called “Kitty” in some adaptions of the story.

Although the story explicitly states the year as 1929 when the Swallows and Amazons sign their treaty with each other, most of the book could take place at just about any time during the 20th century and into the 21st century because the children are dedicated to camping and sailing and don’t use any form of technology that would firmly date the book. The book has a timeless quality, and it’s the sort of independent adventure that many children dream of having!

The books in this series have been popular in Britain since they were first published, and they have also inspired other books for children on similar themes, having outdoor adventures with minimal adult help or interference. Enid Blyton wrote several series for children on these themes after Swallows and Amazons was published, such as The Famous Five Series and Enid Blyton’s Adventure Series, and Elinor Lyon started her Ian and Sovra series in the 1950s, explicitly stating that she wanted to write books with similar adventures for children but with child characters who weren’t as competent as the children in Swallows and Amazons. The children in Swallows and Amazons are very knowledgeable about sailing and camping and seem to do almost everything right, and Elinor Lyon thought it would be more realistic if the children in her stories didn’t entirely know what they were doing but somehow managed to muddle their way through anyway. There are also similar books by American authors written after Swallows and Amazons, like The Invisible Island by Dean Marshall.

The children in the story take their inspiration for their imaginary play from books they’ve read, like Robinson Crusoe and Treasure Island. All of the children in the story seem familiar with sea stories and books about exploration and island adventures, and they make references to aspects of them and use those aspects when they’re playing. For example, they refer to adults and anyone who is unfamiliar to them as “Natives” and “savages”, and they call their bottles of ginger beer “grog”, while tea is “hot grog”, lemonade is “Jamaica rum”, toffee candy is “molasses”, and tins of corned beef is “pemmican”, living out their fantasy that they’re sailors exploring unknown territory. Later, they compare Jim Turner, the man on the houseboat, to Captain Flint and call him that for most of the story. Some of the language that the children use, like “natives”, “savages”, and the phrase “Honest Injun” are racially out of date and can have some offensive connotations. The children probably got those phrases from the books they’ve been reading, and they seem to think of them innocently, as part of their imaginary play, living out the stories they’ve read, but modern readers should be aware.