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Disappearing Acts

Herculeah Jones

Disappearing Acts by Betsy Byars, 1998.

Herculeah’s friend, Meat, decides to take a comedy class at a local comedy club called Funny Bonz.  While he’s at the club for his class, he finds a dead body in the men’s restroom.  He quickly runs to get help, but when the club’s owner (who is also the teacher of the class), Mike Howard, goes to check, the body is gone.  It happens to be April 1st, so everyone assumes that it was just an April Fool’s Day prank.  However, Meat is sure that what he saw was a real dead body.

He tells Herculeah what happened, and he also remembers that he has proof of what he saw: a blue wallet that he picked from the floor near the body.  The ID in the wallet says is for a woman named Marcie Mullet.  Meat never got a clear look at the identity of the body because it was lying face down, but he remembers that it had a ponytail, so they assume that it was Marcie.  Marcie was supposed to be a student in the class, too, but she never showed up.  Meat and Herculeah assume that the body must have been Marcie.

However, Herculeah is somewhat preoccupied by something else.  She’s been getting strange vibes from a camera that she bought at a secondhand shop.  The camera was cheap, only a dollar, and there’s still a partially-exposed roll of film inside.  The camera was a great deal, but Herculeah’s hair is frizzling, and she senses danger approaching.

When she develops the film left in the camera, she realizes that the camera had once belonged to Meat’s mother, and the pictures show Meat’s father.  Meat has very little memory of his father because his parents separated when he was very young, and his mother has refused to talk about him for years.  Herculeah knows that Meat badly wants more information about his father, but she hesitates to show him the pictures because she doesn’t think that he’ll like what he sees.  He’s imagined that his father could have all kinds of cool professions, and she doesn’t know how he’ll react to his real one.

Self-perception is also very important to the solution to the murder.  Meat is the first to learn the killer’s true identity and is able to get the killer to confess and confide in him.  The killer was tired of the victim’s mean-spirited jokes, all of which were about the killer, who is fat.  The murder was unintended; the person just snapped when the victim gloated about using the mean-spirited comedy routine to become famous.  Meat understands how the killer feels because he hasn’t had a very good perception of himself and knows what it’s like to be fat.  There is a series of fat jokes in this part of the book, the meanest of which (the killer quoting the victim) are about a fat woman’s bra size.

When his father’s true identity is revealed, Meat is actually glad, which surprises Herculeah.  Meat’s father is very different from what he had imagined, but oddly, finding out that his father is a professional wrestler gives Meat something new to aim for.  Meat is sometimes self-conscious of his large size, but seeing his father makes him realize that he can change his fat to muscle and be really impressive.  The two of them meet, and Meat’s father apologizes for leaving so suddenly when Meat was young.  He explains that, much like his own father, he has trouble living anywhere for very long.  His own father had similarly abandoned his family when he was young.  Both of them just reached a point when they had an irresistible urge to pick up and move on.  However, Meat’s father makes it clear that he really does love him and is proud of him and says that he will continue to see him.  It’s a strange explanation, but Meat accepts it and forgives his father.

This book is available to borrow for free online through Internet Archive.

Posted on by TracyC

Tarot Says Beware

Herculeah Jones Mysteries

HJTarotBeware

Tarot Says Beware by Betsy Byars, 1995.

Madame Rosa is a fortune teller and one of Herculeah’s neighbors.  Herculeah has been taking care of Madame Rosa’s pet parrot, Tarot, when she goes out of town.  One day, Herculeah notices that Tarot has gotten loose and is sitting on the porch, so she goes to retrieve him.  When she takes the parrot back into the house, she doesn’t see Madame Rosa.  After investigating further, she finds Madame Rosa dead and calls her father, a police officer.

Herculeah is very upset about Madame Rosa’s death.  She had considered her a friend.  Even Meat said that he once consulted her for information about his father.  She told Meat that his father danced, and Meat’s mother was very angry when she found out because she never wanted Meat to know anything about her ex-husband.  She even said that she “could kill that woman.”  But, who would really want Madame Rosa dead, badly enough to murder her?  Was there someone else who didn’t like their fortune?  Did Madame Rosa know something that someone was afraid that she would tell?

It turns out that Herculeah’s mother holds an important clue.  Madame Rosa came to see her about a troubling client.  A woman visited Madame Rosa to ask if her son could kill someone.  The woman’s son had threatened her, and she wanted to know if he was capable of acting on his threats.  Madame Rosa had asked her to bring something that belonged to her son, and the woman brought her the knife that the son had used to threaten her.  That was when Madame Rosa had a vision of her own death.  It frightened her so much that she fainted, and when she woke up, the woman was gone.  Herculeah’s mother asked Madame Rosa what she’d like her to do, and Madame Rosa told her that she didn’t think anything could be done.  Later, Madame Rosa was murdered with a knife.

So, now Herculeah suspects that the woman’s son came and murdered Madame Rosa, but she has no idea who the woman or the son are.  Then, when Herculeah and Meat go to snoop around Madame Rosa’s house, Herculeah thinks that she sees Madame Rosa.  Is she a ghost, or could Madame Rosa really be alive?

The title of the book comes from the fact that Tarot the parrot always says “Beware” to strangers, but not to Madame Rosa herself.

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

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Terror By Night

PFTerrorNight

Terror By Night by Vic Crume, 1971.

This book is part of the Partridge Family book series, based on the The Partridge Family tv show.

Shirley has been thinking that she and her children could use a vacation, and her family band’s manager, Reuben Kinkaid, suggests a place where they could have a little vacation and do some rehearsing.  Reuben arranges for the family to rent a large house with several acres of land attached in a small New England town not far from Salem, Massachusetts.  That should have been their first clue.  That, and the fact that the town’s name is Haunt Port.

At first, the Partridges are just thinking about how they can rehearse without disturbing anyone on such a big place, and Danny and Chris want to try camping out.  However, when they arrive in town, they learn that the name of the house they’ve rented is Witch’s Hollow and that it’s close to a place called Hangman’s Hill.  Soon after the family arrives at the house, Keith and Laurie also find a dummy hanging from a tree with a note that says, “Welcome! The Hangman.”  It’s pretty disturbing, but Keith and Laurie decide to hide the dummy and not scare the others.  They don’t know who is behind this awful joke, but they don’t want to give that person the satisfaction of seeing them react to it.

However, the disturbing things don’t end there.  The family’s dog, Simone disappears.  Also, people in town seem to have a strange attitude toward the house’s cook/housekeeper, Mrs. Judbury, and her daughter, Prudence.  Prudence is sullen and anti-social with a habit of catching toads for fun.  Keith has to admit that he can see how Prudence might have gotten a reputation for being a witch, but there’s more behind the strange happenings at Witch’s Hollow than that.

Simone eventually returns, although it’s clear that she’s frightened and hasn’t been fed well, and Mrs. Judbury tells the family the story of her family’s history in Haunt Port.  One of Mrs. Judbury’s husband’s ancestors was one of the accusers at the Salem witchcraft trials, but later, when people began to realize that they had executed innocent people, some of the accusers themselves found public opinion turning against them.  This ancestor decided to leave Salem and go to Judbury Port (the old name for Haunt Port) because he had family there, but he and his wife were never really accepted there, either.  This man later hanged himself in despair (at the place called Hangman’s Hill), and his wife later died alone, also shunned by the town.  Although some of the townspeople might feel bad about how things ended up with the Judburys, the old uneasy feelings about the family have remained, and Prudence’s stand-offish attitude, combined with her mother’s apparent psychic premonitions, has fueled some of the old stories.

At one point, Keith tells Prudence that he knows why she acts the way she does, because it’s much easier for her to keep her distance from people and behave strangely than it is for her to try to learn to get along with them and make friends.  Prudence isn’t responsible for what the townspeople did in the past, but she isn’t helping things in the present.  Jane Parsons, whose family owns the local store, also helps in a way because she and Prudence are cousins, and Prudence joins her in welcoming a cousin of their and his friend when they visit town.  As Prudence becomes friendlier, she and her mother become allies in trying to figure out the mysteries of Witch’s Hollow, which turn out to have less to do with past wrongs than current crimes.

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

Posted on by TracyC

Searching for Dragons

Searching for Dragons by Patricia C. Wrede, 1990.

This is the second book in The Enchanted Forest Chronicles, continuing the adventures of Princess Cimorene, although the story is told from the point of view of Mendanbar, King of the Enchanted Forest.  The Enchanted Forest is no ordinary kingdom, and Mendanbar is no ordinary king.  To be King of the Enchanted Forest means being a skilled enchanter.  Mendanbar can use the forest’s magic directly, making him more powerful than wizards.  Most of the creatures in the forest obey him, and unlike ordinary people, he can find his way around the forest almost automatically, even though things in the forest tend to move around.

At the beginning of the story, Mendanbar’s steward, Willin, pesters him about the subject of getting married.  Mendanbar hasn’t given the matter much thought since his father died three years earlier, but then, there’s been a lot to do.  Queen Alexandra has several daughters, any of which would be considered “suitable,” but Mendanbar doesn’t like any of them.  Mendanbar is annoyed because he’d just gotten the elf clans’ feud settled and was looking forward to a period of relative calm, so he decides that he’s going to give himself the day off, for a change.

He decides to take a stroll by the Green Glass Pool to relax, but on the way, he encounters a princess.  That’s not too unusual for the Enchanted Forest (home to many fairy-tale creatures and the events that make up fairy tales), but this princess strikes Mendanbar as a particularly scheming and ambitious one.  She tells him a great tale of woe in which her wicked stepmother cast her out that Mendanbar can tell is carefully rehearsed and might have even been the idea of the stepmother in question, with the idea of hooking an adventurous prince.  (Royal families do things like that, see the previous book in the series.)  However, Mendanbar is puzzled because the forest usually keeps out people who are obviously selfish.  Then, the princess mentions crossing an area of waste to get into the forest, and Mendanbar is alarmed because there shouldn’t be a wasteland there.  Forgetting about the princess, he hurries off to investigate.

Sure enough, Mendanbar discovers that a section of the forest is actually missing, destroyed to the point where there are just dead stumps.  Even the magic is gone.  Upon further investigation, Mendanbar finds dragons scales.  He isn’t sure why the dragons would want to attack the Enchanted Forest because they haven’t had any quarrels and mostly leave each other alone.  On the advice of a nearby talking squirrel, Mendanbar goes to see the witch Morwen.

After examining the dragon scales, Morwen demonstrates that, although they appear to be different colors and look like they’re from different dragons, they have actually been disguised.  They are actually from one dragon only.  Morwen also doubts that a dragon was really responsible for the damage to the forest.  After all, why would a dragon waste time disguising his scales when he could just pick them up?  Also, healthy dragons don’t shed that many scales.  Morwen is a friend of Kazul, who is the current King of the Dragons, and she advises Mendanbar to go see Kazul. 

Morwen also chides Mendanbar for not visiting Kazul when she became the king the year before.  Mendanbar feels a little guilty, saying that he’s just been very busy, which is true.  However, Morwen points out that what he could use is more effective help to organize things in the kingdom, not just making lists of things for him to do, like his steward does.  It’s part of the reason why people are saying that Mendanbar should get married.

Before Mendanbar can visit Kazul, he gets an unexpected visit from Zemenar, the Head Wizard.  Zemenar says that the wizards have been having problems with the dragons (again, see previous book) and that the dragons will not let them enter the Caves of Fire and Night.  He hopes that Mendanbar will allow them access from the Enchanted Forest.  Mendanbar doesn’t really trust the wizards, and he refuses the request on the grounds that he has something important to discuss with the King of the Dragons himself.  Zemenar tells Mendanbar about Kazul’s princess, Cimorene, blaming her for the the “misunderstanding” between the wizards and dragons.  Mendanbar at first imagines that Cimorene is much like the scheming princess he met that morning, but soon discovers that she’s anything but.  Taking the enchanted sword that only the kings of the Enchanted Forest can use with him, Mendanbar goes to visit the dragons.

At Kazul’s cave, Mendanbar meets Cimorene, who informs him that her official title is now Chief Cook and Librarian.  She tells him that part of the point of advertising this title is that it cuts down on the number of princes who come around.  Lots of princes want to rescue a princess, but few people want to rescue a Chief Cook and Librarian.  Mendanbar finds Cimorene a surprising change from the other princesses he’s met.  Mendanbar also makes a positive impression on Cimorene by using his sword to fix a broken sink, even if she describes the magic as being a bit “flashy.”

However, all is not well among the dragons.  Although Cimorene is reluctant to admit it at first, Kazul has mysteriously vanished.  She was planning to go out and search before Mendanbar showed up.  Kazul had been visiting her grandchildren when she decided to go by the Enchanted Forest to investigate someone growing dragonsbane.  Mendanbar shows Cimorene the dragon scales he found, and she indentifies them as belonging to Woraug, a dragon who was changed into a frog in the previous book.

It doesn’t take the two of them long to realize that the wizards are back to their old tricks and scheming.  However, what would they really have to gain by setting the Enchanted Forest and the dragons against each other?  And where is Kazul?

Like the other books in this series, this book is full of humor and a touch of mystery.  There are many parodies on fairy tale tropes, including an Wicked Uncle who’s not very wicked and does both a favor and an evil deed for his nephew by sending him to boarding school instead of abandoning him in the forest to have an adventure, as he’d hoped.  There is also romance between Cimorene and Mendanbar.  As you might have guessed, Cimorene is just the kind of practical princess Mendanbar needs to help him manage the magical chaos that is the Enchanted Forest and Mendanbar is the kind of king who is happy to find an intelligent princess who can do magic and rescue dragons.

The book is currently available online through Internet Archive.

Posted on by TracyC · 1 Comment

Magician’s Ward

Magician’s Ward by Patricia C. Wrede, 1998.

This is the sequel to Mairelon the Magician.  When the book begins, it has been about a year since Kim and Mairelon’s previous adventures.  Kim has been living with Mairelon as his apprentice, and he has been teaching her both reading and magic.  (In the previous book, Kim was living on the streets of early 19th century London.  She did not know how to read, and at the end of the previous book, she learned that she had the ability to become a wizard, prompting Mairelon to take her on for training.)  Although Kim enjoys spending time with Mairelon and appreciates what he’s teaching her, other aspects of life with Mairelon’s wealthy family are less appealing.  Kim gets bored reading by herself while Mairelon continues his work with the Royal College of Wizards, and Mairelon’s aunt, Mrs. Lowe, is trying to turn Kim into a proper young lady.  The pressures of the social niceties and obligations wear on Kim, and even more worryingly, Mrs. Lowe has been considering Kim’s marriage prospects.

In order to be socially-acceptable, Mrs. Lowe thinks that Kim should be considering a socially-acceptable marriage for her future.  For most of her life, marriage was about the last thing on Kim’s mind.  She spent most of her youth pretending to be a boy in order to be safer on the streets.  Since she became Mairelon’s apprentice, the challenges of reading and magic have occupied most of her time.  When Mrs. Lowe brings up the subject of marriage, the idea seems ridiculous to Kim.  With her poor background, she can’t imagine what kind of “respectable” man would want to marry her, and she can’t imagine anyone among the upper-class people of London she would want to marry.  However, she sees Mrs. Lowe’s point that she won’t be able to stay Mairelon’s apprentice and ward forever.  At some point, she will need to decide what to do once her training with Mairelon is complete.  It’s a little worrying to her that Mairelon (known to most people by his real name, Richard Merrill) hasn’t discussed the future with her and doesn’t seem to be making any plans.

Then, one night, Kim overhears someone breaking into the library in their house.  At first, Kim can’t imagine what someone would want in the library.  She interrupts the thief, and he manages to escape.  After colliding with her in the hallway, the thief leaves behind one of his buttons and a small piece of wood that seems to be magic.  When Mairelon examines the wood, he says that it appears that someone stored a spell inside it temporarily, to be used by someone else.  Also, whoever put the spell together didn’t do a very good job and probably didn’t really know what they were doing.

As for what the thief was looking for in the library, Mairelon discovers that he was particularly looking through a collection of books that his father purchased years ago from a French wizard who had come to England after fleeing the French Revolution.  In particular, the thief seems to be trying to obtain the memory book that belonged to the wizard’s wife.  A memory book is exactly what it sounds like – a book that that keeper would carry around with him or her and use to record certain things that he or she would particular want to remember, a little like a journal but often containing bits of important instructions, like notes about favorite recipes or cold remedies (not necessarily the entire recipe, just general reminder notes) or, in the case of a wizard, notes about important spells.

As they investigate further, they learn that the wizard and his wife were part of a larger society of wizards in France before the Revolution and that someone has been trying acquire all of their old books and notes to learn the secret of one of their spells, specifically a spell for sharing magical power.  The person who wants this knowledge has a nefarious purpose for it, and when Mairelon tries to interfere with his plans, he uses the knowledge he has acquired to block Mairelon’s own magic!  This spell and its power-hungry master has already harmed other magicians, and now, Mairelon is in danger, too.

Meanwhile, Mairelon and his family have decided that, in order for Kim to truly be accepted in society, she must have a coming out party.  The mystery and intrigue of the story mix with Kim’s new lesson in dancing, fashion, and social etiquette and the unexpected attention that she receives from young men as she begins truly mingling with the upper classes of society.  Part of the mystery actually does involve the tensions between social classes, social mobility, and the extent to which birth and natural ability influence both.  As Kim discovers that she is more acceptable in society and desirable to at least some of the upper-class young men, she also finds herself becoming jealous of the attention that Mairelon receives from young women in search of a good husband.

Like the first Mairelon book, this one is a nice mixture of mystery, fantasy, history, and comedy of manners.  Both of the Mairelon books are a fun mixture of intrigue and humor, and this one also has a nice romantic element as Kim realizes that the only man she could ever see herself marrying is Mairelon.  He’s eccentric and sometimes aggravating, but she loves him, and he has loved her all along, from the time when she was just a thief in the marketplace to her beginnings as a wizard and her transformation into a young lady. The book ends with Kim and Mairelon engaged to be married, and I’m sorry to say that there are no more books in the series after that. I really wish that there were because I think that there’s a lot more room for character development.

The villain’s plot in this book hinges on the earlier established principle that wizards are born, not made.  Only certain people have the ability to use magic.  For some people, like Kim, the ability to use magic can lift them to higher positions in life, and it can be a source of real power.  For a person who is unable to use magic, there aren’t as many options.  The villain in this book thinks that he’s found a way around the problem, but as Mairelon guessed from the first, he doesn’t really know what he’s doing.

Even though this book has been a favorite of mine for years, I noticed something this time that hadn’t really occurred to me before.  Mairelon’s aunt and mother in the book look at fashion and social obligations in a similar manner to people in high society and the business and legal professions (categories that overlap) in modern society, whereas Mairelon, who is considered pretty eccentric for a man of his family’s social standing, and other wizards seem to look at fashion and social obligations more like modern day academics, engineers, computer programmers, and other tech experts (at least, the ones I know because those are the kind of circles I tend to move in).  Within each of these categories, some of these characters are more knowledgeable about fashion or more socially adroit or intuitive, but I noticed that there are two basic schools of thought going on here.  For the high society types, fashion is essential and social activities are their main focus in life because that is how they build their connections, make the best possible marriage matches, gain support from others, and generally move up the social scale, always aiming to do a little better that they did before or set the stage for their children to move up.  For the wizards and academic types, fashion and social obligations are of secondary importance because what makes the biggest difference in their lives is knowledge and skill.  They even say that wizards are always considered socially acceptable because of their abilities and professional standing.  Because of that, they’re socially allowed some eccentricities in personal habits and dress, and many of them take those liberties as much as possible because most of them are kind of socially introverted and prefer either the privacy of their own studies or the company of others who share their professions and interests. 

At first, Mairelon doesn’t do much about Kim’s social education because it is not a subject that’s important to him and he knows that she can go pretty far in the field of magic by putting most of her efforts into building her magical skills.  However, what Mairelon’s mother and aunt try to impress upon both Mairelon and Kim is that they both need some social skills in order to function in wider society.  This is kind of like how tech experts may have some great ideas for creating new software or a new form of online business, but in order to get their ideas off the ground, they have to have some business knowledge or connections.  Wizards may be allowed to be a little less social or more eccentric than other people, and it’s generally understood and expected, but they do much better if they learn to balance their preferences with society’s expectations.  Because the people who normally occupy high society love the latest fashions and attending prestigious social events, they can’t understand why other people don’t. As the story says, they would leap to the assumption that a wizard, who is always acceptable in society, would naturally want to participate in society, and if the wizard didn’t, it must be that they are either not really a wizard or at least not a good one.  In other words, they would assume that something was wrong with the person or their skills, not recognizing that their choices are simply a matter of personal taste.  In order for Kim and Mairelon to truly rise in their professions, they also have to learn to manage their social obligations.

In the book, Renee is an example of a character who has learned this type of social, professional, and personal balance.  She is a wizard, and as a single female, is regarded as something of an eccentric, but she understands that social skills are important.  She is a longtime friend of Mairelon’s, and she lectures him somewhat on his social obligations and acts as something of a big sister/fashion mentor to Kim, along with Mairelon’s female relatives.

The book is currently available online through Internet Archive.

Posted on by TracyC

The Secret of Stonehouse

Stonehouse

The Secret of Stonehouse by Lynn Hall, 1968.

Heather has lived her entire life (as far as she can remember) in Scotland with her grandmother and her uncle, Donald.  Donald has raised her since she was small.  He’s been like a father to her, and she loves him like a daughter.  However, he recently decided to move the two of them to the United States, taking them to a small town in Wisconsin.  Heather can’t understand the reason for the move, and for the first time in her life, it seems like Donald is keeping secrets from her.

Donald seems oddly concerned that Heather shouldn’t tell people that she is adopted, something that he’s never seemed concerned about before.  Heather has asked him about her parents before, but all he can tell her is that his wayward brother Ewen brought her to the family farm in Scotland, saying that she was his daughter and that her mother was dead.  Ewen simply left her with Donald, never trying to see her or talk to her again and never sending her any money. Heather also knows that, although says that he’s going out to search for a new job, he’s been hanging out in other places, spending time with the mysterious Mr. Worley.

Heather makes friends with a boy named Gus who lives nearby.  Gus lets her ride one of the horses that his family owns, Cloud, and invites her to go riding with him sometimes and participate in local riding events called “shodeos.”  Heather loves horses and enjoys their rides together.

On one of these rides, the two of them go near a large, old, stone mansion that gives Heather a strange feeling.  Gus’s family tells her the tragic story of the family who used to live there, the Selkirks.  They were wealthy, but young John Selkirk was killed in an accident the day that his beautiful young wife, Molly, gave birth to their only child, a little girl named Hebron.  John’s parents never recovered from the loss of their son and passed away soon after, leaving just Molly and the baby.  However, when Hebron was only three years old, she was apparently abducted for ransom and later murdered, and her mother died soon after.  The story makes Heather uneasy, and the house gives her a strange feeling, like she’s drawn to it.

However, other sinister things start happening.  Someone in a car that looks disturbingly like Donald’s tries to run her and Cloud off a bridge.  When Donald spends the night away from home “on business”, someone sneaks into the house.  Heather begins to realize that someone is out to get her, some mysterious person means her harm.  Memories, dangerous ones, are beginning to surface in Heather’s mind, and someone is determined to try to keep her from remembering.

Part of the mystery is pretty obvious (at least, I thought it was, and you might guess it from my plot description), but the part that I didn’t guess was who was behind it all.

Posted on by TracyC

The Camp-Out Mystery

The Boxcar Children

#27 The Camp-Out Mystery by Gertrude Chandler Warner, 1992.

The Alden family has decided to go on a camping trip to a campground at a state park.  From the moment that they arrive, though, strange things seem to be happening.  When they stop for supplies, a woman Mr. Alden knows, Doris, seems oddly evasive when he tries to ask her about her sister, Hildy, and she makes the odd comment that she hopes nothing will spoil their trip.  As they pull into the state park, they discover that the arrow on the sign pointing to the rangers’ station has been reversed to point the wrong way.  Mr. Alden shrugs the incident off as a prank, but it’s only the beginning of the strange happenings.

The Aldens get to their camp site and notice that the place is a mess.  Either the previous campers were pretty messy, or they left in a hurry.  The Aldens clean up the site and set up their tents.  (The description of how they set up camp is actually somewhat educational because they talk about things to look for when choosing a campsite, how they have to check the ground for rocks and tree roots before setting up their tents and why they should avoid places where it looks like rain water might pool and why it can be dangerous to set up a tent under a tree if there is a lightning storm.)  Later that night, Violet is woken by the sound of music.  At first, she thinks that it must be some nearby campers, but it sounds too loud and too close.  When she and Jessie get up to investigate, the sound stops.

Later, the kids see strange lights in the woods, and things disappear or are moved around at their campsite.  When Mr. Alden realizes that someone has been sneaking into their camp and taking things, he suggests that they might want to leave the park, but the kids say that they’d rather stay because they’re still enjoying themselves.  Then, Mr. Alden injures his ankle when he’s startled by another blast of loud music and part of the path he’s on gives way because the dirt was loosened by rain.  The children are prepared to leave when their grandfather is injured, but to their surprise, Mr. Alden says that he’d rather stay, too.

Who is doing all of these things and why?  Is it the unfriendly Hildy, who lives alone in a cabin and wants everyone to leave her alone?  Or maybe her seemingly-helpful neighbor, Andy, for reasons of his own?  Could Doris be responsible?  What about the Changs, a family camping nearby who seemed disappointed that they didn’t have the campground to themselves?

There are some environmental themes and lessons in the story.  The Aldens frequently pick up litter that other campers and hikers leave behind.  There is also an explanation that the reason why part of the path Mr. Alden was on collapsed due to erosion because there are no trees along that section of path; tree roots help secure the soil so that it doesn’t wash away.  After the mystery is solved, Mr. Alden decides to donate some trees to the park, and the kids talk about adding more trash cans and a recycling center to help solve the litter problem.

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

Posted on by TracyC

The Mystery of King Karfu

The Mystery of King Karfu by Doug Cushman, 1996.

Seymour Sleuth, an Australian wombat living in London, introduces himself as “the greatest detective in the world.”  His friend, Abbott Muggs, a mouse, is a photographer who assists him in his cases and documents them.  When the story begins, Seymour receives a telegram from his friend Professor Slagbottom, who is working on an archaeological site in Egypt.  Someone has stolen one of their finds, the Stone Chicken of King Karfu, and he needs Seymour’s help to find it!  Seymour and Muggs head for Egypt!

King Karfu was a wealthy pharaoh and a wonderful cook, and the Stone Chicken may provide clues about the Lost Treasure of King Karfu, the nature of which is unknown.  When they reach the dig in Egypt, Professor Slagbottom explains that he was researching a message in code on the outside of the Chicken when it was stolen.  The suspects are the other people on the dig, who may be trying to steal King Karfu’s Treasure.

Seymour interviews the suspects one at a time and considers their connection to clues found at the scene of the crime.  As an adult, I figured out who the culprit was pretty quickly, but for the benefit of child readers, Seymour provides notes about the clues and suspects to help them understand the connections. The pictures in the story also provide important clues.  After Professor Slagbottom’s decoder is stolen, Seymour realizes who the thief is.

After they get the Stone Chicken back, readers can use the decoder provided to solve the code and learn where the Treasure is.  It turns out that the Treasure is actually a recipe, written in the same substitution code – for peanut butter and jelly sandwiches!

I always like mysteries that involve codes and puzzles, and this cute animal mystery would be fun and challenging for young kids.  With the key provided, it would be a good introduction to substitution codes for kids who have never seen them.  There is one other book with Seymour Sleuth, The Mystery of the Monkey’s Maze.  The author, Doug Cushman, is also the author of the Aunt Eater Mysteries.

The book is currently available online through Internet Archive.

Posted on by TracyC

The Valentine Mystery

The Valentine Mystery by Joan Lowery Nixon, 1979.

Someone leaves a mysterious, unsigned valentine for Susan Connally at her apartment on Valentine’s Day. Even though everyone was home at the time that the valentine was delivered, the only person who saw the person who brought it was Susan’s little, two-year-old brother, Barney.  All Barney can say about this person is that “He had watches on his tennis shoes.”

Susan and her other brother, Mike, decide to ask some of the other people who live in their apartment building if they know anything about the valentine or a strange person who wears watches on his shoes. 

Nobody knows a person who wears watches on their shoes.  Most people aren’t even wearing tennis shoes.  They’re wearing boots because it’s snowing outside. The questions the kids are asking about people with watches on their tennis shoes sound so strange that one of their neighbors, Mrs. Pickett, thinks that the kids are trying to find the solution to a riddle and keeps guessing things like “a spotted dinosaur who has time on his hands?”  (Mrs. Pickett is one of my favorite characters in this book. All of her solutions involve a spotted dinosaur, for some reason.)

There is a boy named Pete who lives in their apartment building.  His family has only moved there recently, and he’s in Susan’s class at school.  Susan thinks it would be nice if the valentine turned out to be from him, but he’s not wearing tennis shoes or watches.  He’s also wearing boots with round buckles on them.

The breakthrough comes when the kids discover that their little brother is going through a phase where he calls all kinds of shoes “tennis shoes.”

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

I read this book when I was a kid and then spent years trying to remember what book involved a kid who thought someone had watches on his tennis shoes before I found it again. It’s a cute, fun Valentine’s Day mystery story, and I love all of Mrs. Pickett’s guesses about who would wear watches on their tennis shoes.

Posted on by TracyC

The Case of the Cat’s Meow

The Case of the Cat’s Meow by Crosby Bonsall, 1965.

Four neighborhood friends, who call themselves by the nicknames Wizard, Skinny, Tubby, and Snitch, have their own private detective club.  Their club meets in a backyard clubhouse.  One day, Snitch gives them a case when he becomes worried that someone might try to steal his cat, Mildred.  The other boys think that’s unlikely because Mildred is noisy, and the other boys don’t think that she’s that great, but Snitch loves her and is worried.  The boys decide to keep her in their clubhouse with a special booby trap rigged up in case anyone tries to abduct her.

However, the next day, Mildred disappears.  Snitch is convinced that someone stole her, although the others don’t believe it.  The boys start asking around the neighborhood to find out if anyone has seen her.  When that doesn’t work, they try putting food out for Mildred, but they end up with every cat in the neighborhood except Mildred.

Eventually, they realize that Mildred has been coming back at night to visit her food bowl.  When they keep a watch for her, they discover where Mildred has been hiding and the reason why. 

Seeing Mildred’s adorable new kittens makes the other boys discover a new love of cats and take back all the disparaging things they said about Mildred earlier.

The book is currently available online through Internet Archive.