Posted on by TracyC

The One Hundredth Thing About Caroline

The One Hundredth Thing About Caroline

The One Hundredth Thing About Caroline by Lois Lowry, 1983.

Eleven-year-old Caroline Tate knows that she wants to be a paleontologist when she grows up, but she is also fascinated with her friend Stacy’s dream of becoming a great investigative reporter. For fun, the two girls begin investigating the people who live in their respective apartment buildings.

Caroline’s investigation focuses on the mysterious Frederick Fiske, who lives on the fifth floor of her building. In a wastebasket, she finds a letter written to him by a man she’s never heard of telling him to “eliminate the kids.” Also in the wastebasket, there is an overdue notice for Fiske from the library, and the book is about poisons. From this evidence, Caroline comes to believe that the strange Mr. Fiske is planning to murder some children.

The situation becomes worse when Mr. Fiske begins dating her divorced mother, and Caroline fears that the children Mr. Fiske is planning to murder are her and her brother, J.P.. Can Caroline, J.P., and Stacy prove that Mr. Fiske is a cold-blooded murderer before his relationship with the Caroline’s mother can go any further and before he succeeds in poisoning them?

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

My Reaction and Spoilers:

It’s a bit of a spoiler, but this is one of those stories where the mystery is largely based on a series of misunderstandings. The book is a comedy mystery.  Mr. Fiske isn’t really a murderer, although he has done some things which make the children suspicious.  It’s a humorous story, and the kids’ antics as they try to further their investigation and collect “evidence” against Mr. Fiske are hilarious.  Along the way, the kids end up helping Mr. Fiske with a problem he’s been having, and the kids realize that they’ve made a mistake about him and his intentions.  Whether Mr. Fiske learns of their suspicions about him or not is left to the imagination, although something at the very end of the story may bring everything out into the open.

The title of the book comes from a joke between Caroline and her mother.  Caroline’s mother is always talking about the things she loves about Caroline, giving them different numbers.

Posted on by TracyC

Lauren’s New Address

Sleepover Friends

SFLaurenNewAddress#28 Lauren’s New Address by Susan Saunders, 1990.

Lauren is not happy when her father announces that their family is moving to a new house a couple of miles from their old neighborhood. Her father works in real estate and wants to have his own office in their home. Their old house wasn’t big enough, so he found a new house for them.

Lauren hates the new house because it’s old and looks like a haunted house on tv. Plus, she’s afraid that she won’t see her friends as much because she’ll be living farther away from them. Her friends try to cheer her up by pointing out that she’ll have a swimming pool in her backyard and will be living down the street from one of the cutest boys in school, but nothing seems to help.

Then, Lauren learns that one of her new neighbors may be a princess from another country.  The girls hear that a young princess, Marina, from the European country of Osterburg has lost her parents in a car accident and is coming to live in their town with her American aunt and uncle. The only picture they’ve seen of the princess is blurry, but it looks a little like the young girl, Maya, living next door to Lauren in her new neighborhood. Stephanie suggests to Lauren that she try to find out more about the girl because if she is really a princess it would make a great story for their school newspaper.  At first, Lauren is doubtful, but then she overhears something that makes her think otherwise.

Things in Lauren’s neighborhood might not be quite what they seem at first, but her friends find some creative ways to help her adjust to her new house and learn ways of dealing with change, like keeping busy.  In the end, although Lauren is still getting used to her new house, she is happy because there are some good points about it, and she knows that her friends will still be there for her.