Posted on by TracyC

When Clay Sings

When Clay Sings by Byrd Baylor, illustrated by Tom Bahti, 1972.

This children’s picture book is a salute to the ancient makers of Native American pottery, dedicated to these makers and the museums that preserve their work. It’s written as free form poetry with images of the American Southwest and designs from Native American pottery.

The story sets the scene on a desert hillside, where pieces of ancient pottery are buried. Sometimes, Indian (Native American) children dig up pieces of old pottery, and their parents remind them to be respectful of what they find because they are pieces of the past and of lives that went before. Sometimes, they’re lucky enough to find pieces that fit together or even a bowl that isn’t broken.

They reflect on the time and skill that went into making the pottery and how strong the pottery would have to be to last well beyond the lives of the people who made it. They think about the people who painted the beautiful designs on the pots and what their lives were like. Could their own children have requested favorite pictures painted on their bowls?

Some designs show animals or bugs or hunters, but others show bizarre creatures that might be monsters or spirits. Others show a medicine man trying to cure a child, ceremonies, dancers in masks and costumes, or the traditional flute player. People can reflect on the lives of those long-ago people and how they compare to the lives of people today.

There is a map in the back of the book which shows the areas of the American Southwest (Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, and Colorado) where the pottery designs the book uses originated from and the tribes that used them.

This is a Caldecott Honor Book. It is available to borrow and read for free online through Internet Archive (multiple copies).

My Reaction

I grew up in Arizona, and I remember our school librarian reading books by Byrd Baylor to us in elementary school during the late 1980s or early 1990s. She wanted to introduce us to this author because she wrote about the area of the United States where we lived. In fact, this book about pottery was fitting because, when they were building our school in the 1970s, they found some ancient pottery. They used to have it on display in the school library. Even to this day, it’s common for people creating buildings in this area to have the site surveyed by archaeologists. Finds are fairly common, and the usual procedure is to thoroughly document everything that gets uncovered before burying it again in the same location and constructing the building over it. One of the reason why they usually rebury finds is that, in this dry, desert climate, putting them back into the ground will actually preserve them very well. It’s possible that later generations will find them again (especially with the location documented) when the building is gone or no longer necessary, but they may have better instruments or techniques for analyzing them.

I’m a little divided on how much I like this book, though. On the one hand, I like books about folklore and traditional crafts, and this book focuses on a geographical area that’s very familiar to me. On the other hand, the free verse poetry that reflects on the feelings of people about the pottery doesn’t appeal to me quite as much as books which show the process of making it, like The Little Indian Pottery Maker. I like to see the process and learn more of the known background legends of some of the designs than just try to imagine what things might have been going through the minds of the designers. Toward the end of the book, they show the legendary humpbacked flute player, but they don’t tell you that this figure is called Kokopelli and that there are legends about him. It’s a nice book, but I just felt like there was potential to include more background information.

This book uses the word “Indian” for “Native American” or “America Indian”, which is common in older children’s books.

Posted on by TracyC

The Case of the Gobbling Squash

The Case of the Gobbling Squash by Elizabeth Levy, illustrated by Ellen Eagle, 1988.

This is the first book in the A Magic Mystery series, which is about a couple of kids who like magic tricks. In every book in the series, there is a section in the back with direction for performing the magic tricks in the story.

It’s Thanksgiving, and all of the kids at school are participating in a Thanksgiving Fair. Different kids are doing different things for the fair, and Kate has a booth where she is advertising her services as a detective. Unfortunately, she gets more teasing than people approaching her with mysteries to solve. Then, Max tells her that he needs her help.

Max is an amateur magician, and he keeps a couple of rabbits to use his act. One of his rabbits is missing. When Kate goes to his house to investigate, it doesn’t take her long to figure out where the missing rabbit is … and the rabbit has become a mother, which presents the kids with a new problem to solve. Max’s mother won’t let him keep that many bunnies.

Fortunately, Kate comes up with an idea to use Max’s magic act in their Thanksgiving play at school to provide the bunnies with new homes. However, when she and Max are preparing for the show, the bunnies disappear in a non-magical way. Someone has stolen them! Max points out that they were supposed to give the bunnies away anyhow, but Kate says they can’t let the matter rest until they’re sure that the bunnies are safe in a good home.

Once again, Max and Kate use Max’s magic tricks to expose the bunny thief and to turn their Thanksgiving magic act into something extra special!

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

My Reaction

The mystery is a little cheesy, but I thought that the kids were clever in the way they used concepts from magic tricks to solve their problems. Whether they would work so well in real life is questionable, but I though the concept was creative. The first mystery about where the missing rabbit is was easily resolved, but they have to figure out who took all the bunnies. I thought that the solution to that mystery was also obvious because there was really only one person who seemed to have a reason to mess up their magic act, but the mystery may seem more mysterious to young children.

The story gets some credit from me for being set at Thanksgiving because it’s a less popular holiday for kids’ books than Christmas or Halloween. Like other kids’ Thanksgiving books that aren’t set at the First Thanksgiving, this one is set at a school and involves a cheesy Thanksgiving celebration. The Thanksgiving play in the story involves some of the kids being dressed as Pilgrims and Native Americans, and the Native American aspects are also cheesy and stereotypical. It actually reminds me of actual school plays from my own childhood, which were equally cheesy and embarrassing to me when I was a kid.

I really liked the section in the back of the book that explained how all of the magic tricks in the book were done, even the one for their grand finale! The tricks include a card trick, making a coin disappear, and pulling a rabbit out of a hat.

Posted on by TracyC

The Mysterious Horseman

The Mysterious Horseman: An Adventure in Prairietown, 1836, by Kate Waters, 1994.

This book is part of a loose series of books by Kate Waters, showing child reenactors at living history museums, having adventures in the roles of the characters they play. While most of the books are set in Colonial times at Plymouth and Colonial Williamsburg, the setting for this story is the Connor Prairie living history museum in Indiana, which shows life in a small town in the 19th century.

The story centers around a boy named Andrew McClure. He is the only one of his siblings left still living with their parents. His older sister is now married, and his baby brother died of an illness during the last year. His family is still grieving for his little brother. Andrew’s best friend is a boy named Thomas Curtis, who lives nearby, and Andrew works part time at a local inn to earn some money.

One day, while Andrew is doing some sweeping at the inn, he overhears some men talking in the taproom. He doesn’t hear their entire conversation, but he hears them talking about a mysterious rider without a head who chased a schoolmaster. Andrew is startled, and he wonders if that has something to do with the new schoolmaster who is supposed to arrive in town.

When Andrew is done with his work, he goes to the schoolhouse, and he finds his friend Thomas and Thomas’s sister, helping the new schoolmaster to clean the schoolhouse and prepare it for lessons to start. Andrew wants to talk to Thomas about what he overheard at the inn, but the schoolmaster only wants to talk to the boys about lessons.

Later, Andrew does have a chance to talk to Thomas, and both of the boys are spooked by the idea of a headless rider. They even think that they hear the rider on the road! The frightened boys go see Thomas’s father, the blacksmith, and tell him about the rider. Fortunately, the blacksmith knows what the men were talking about, and he can settle the boys’ fears.

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

My Reaction

I didn’t know about this book until I was looking up Kate Waters’s books for my younger cousins. I was surprised because Kate Waters’s living history museum books are mostly set on the East Coast or focus on the Colonial era. This 19th century book set in Indiana somewhat departs from the theme and has a different feel from the other Kate Waters books, but I enjoyed it. I’ve been to Connor Prairie because I have relatives in the area, and I enjoyed my visit. It’s been years since I’ve been there, so I didn’t immediately recognize the setting. When I read the explanation in the back of the book, I was fascinated to realize that I had visited that location before.

Andrew has a fascination for life on the frontier because he often watches people pass through his town on their way further west, and he daydreams about going west himself. His family is also still coming to terms with the death of his little brother, so the subject of death is still on Andrew’s mind. The deaths of children due to illness were sadly common in the 19th century and on the frontier, and the mourning in Andrew’s family adds to the melancholy and spooky atmosphere of the story.

Most adults and older children will probably recognize what the men at the inn where actually talking about when they were discussing the headless rider who chased the schoolmaster. When the boys talk to Thomas’s father, he immediately recognizes the story as the plot of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving, originally published in 1820, about 16 years before the story in this book is suppose to take place. The men at the inn were just discussing the plot of the story, not something that they saw on the road themselves.

Posted on by TracyC

Arthur’s Halloween

Arthur Adventure

Arthur’s Halloween by Marc Brown, 1982.

It’s Halloween, and Arthur’s already getting spooked! His family is putting up Halloween decorations, and his sister, D.W., scares him with her costume when he wakes up on Halloween morning. Arthur is supposed to take D.W. trick-or-treating, although he doesn’t really want his little sister tagging along.

At school, Arthur has trouble recognizing everyone in their costumes. There are Halloween treats and games, though.

That evening, Arthur and D.W. go trick-or-treating with Arthur’s friends. Arthur’s friend, Buster, warns them not to go to a big, old house because a witch lives there, and the last person who went in on Halloween never came out again.

Arthur and D.W. lag behind the other trick-or-treaters, and when Arthur turns around, he sees D.W. going into the witch’s house! What choice does Arthur have but to go in after his sister to save her?

My Reaction

This book reminded me of the Berenstain Bears Halloween book The Berenstain Bears Trick or Treat. It’s another instance of an elderly woman who seems witch-like and scary, but the children enter her house on Halloween, discover that she’s really nice, and get some special treats. Entering a stranger’s house is never a good idea because, in real life, that could be very dangerous. I get the theme that appearances can be deceptive and things that seem scary aren’t so scary when you understand them, but I do quibble that this might not be the best way to demonstrate that to young children. All the same, I do have nostalgia for both the Berenstain Bears and the Arthur books.

I remember reading the Berenstain Bears Halloween book as a kid, but I don’t remember reading Arthur’s Halloween until I was an adult. Because of the similarity in the themes of the stories, I checked the copyright dates. They’re both from the 1980s, but Arthur’s Halloween is the older of the two books. I don’t know if the Berenstain Bears took inspiration from the Arthur story or if they were both inspired by something older or if the similar theme is just a coincidence.

One other odd thing about this story is that old Mrs. Tibble is human. Everyone in the Arthur books is some kind of animal, but not Mrs. Tibble. There is no explanation for this. In the cartoon version of Arthur, Mrs. Tibble is an animal, just like everyone else.

Posted on by TracyC

Happy Haunting, Amelia Bedelia

Amelia Bedelia

Happy Haunting, Amelia Bedelia by Herman Parish, pictures by Lynn Sweat, 2004.

When Amelia Bedelia arrives at the Rogers’s house just before Halloween, she is appalled by all the cobwebs. The house looks like a run-down haunted house, and Amelia Bedelia thinks someone wrecked it. Mr. and Mrs. Rogers reassure her that the house is just decorated for the Halloween party they are having that night. Amelia Bedelia almost forgot what day it was because she’s been busy, helping the local children make their costumes.

When Amelia Bedelia tries to help the Rogers get ready for the party, she demonstrates that she still takes everything way too literally. When Mr. Rogers asks her to both get the hammer and to crack a window, Amelia Bedelia assumes that he means her to use the hammer on the window and actually breaks it. When they ask Amelia to add an extra leaf to the table for the guests, she assumes they mean a tree leaf, and when Mr. Rogers asks her to hand him a witch, she asks him “Which what?”

Amelia Bedelia is enough to drive anyone batty, but she really does her best work in the kitchen. She is a good cook, and she and Mrs. Rogers have fun making a bunch of traditional Halloween goodies. Then Cousin Alcolu arrives with a bunch of pumpkins and a scarecrow for the party. They ask Amelia Bedelia what costume she will wear for the party that night, but she doesn’t have one. Mrs. Rogers says that she has an idea for her and for Cousin Alcolu.

The Rogers’s party that night is a success, and Amelia’s influence is obvious in the literal nature of some of the treats and the costumes she helped the children make. However, nobody can figure out where Amelia Bedelia is. At first, Mr. Rogers thinks that maybe Amelia is offended because he mistakenly called her normal outfit a costume, but then, he is sure that he recognizes Amelia Bedelia in her Halloween costume. Is he right? It certain seems something strange is going on! But, then again, Amelia Bedelia is there.

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

My Reaction

This is one of the newer Amelia Bedelia books, written after the death of the original author. Parts seemed a little cheesy to me, like Amelia Bedelia seeming confused about the Halloween decorations after helping the children make Halloween costumes. Amelia Bedelia is often a little mixed-up, but getting confused about the nature of the holiday just seemed to be overdoing it. Then again, even in the original books, she was confused about ordinary things associated with holidays, like what kind of “star” goes on top of a Christmas tree. It might be more in character than I thought at first, and it just seemed like overdoing it in this book because I read the original books when I was a kid wasn’t thinking that deeply about it back then.

I did like it that Amelia Bedelia’s tendency to be overly literal is going strong in this book. Besides the mistakes she makes while helping Mr. and Mrs. Rogers get ready for their party, I enjoyed seeing the costumes that Amelia helped the children make. They’re all puns and literal interpretations of common expressions. Amelia Bedelia’s own costume is a fun twist!

Posted on by TracyC

The Vanishing Pumpkin

The Vanishing Pumpkin by Tony Johnston, pictures by Tomie dePaola, 1983.

An 800-year-old man and a 700-year-old woman live together in a little house. One day, they realize that it’s Halloween, and that means that it’s time to make pumpkin pie. However, when they go to get the pumpkin from their garden, it’s gone! Who could have taken it?

They set out in search of the pumpkin thief. The first person they meet is a ghoul, and they assume he’s the pumpkin thief. They demand to know where the pumpkin is. The ghoul looks all over the place, but doesn’t see any pumpkin. The old man threatens to do him a trick, and the ghoul says he wants to see him do one. The old man turns the ghoul so thin that he can look right though him, but the ghoul doesn’t have the pumpkin.

The old man and old woman set off again to look for the pumpkin thief, and the ghoul comes along to see more tricks. The next person they encounter is a rapscallion. When they ask him where the pumpkin is, the rapscallion looks around and can’t find any pumpkin, so he offers them a mushroom. The old man does another trick, turning the rapscallion upside down, but no pumpkin falls out.

The group, including the rapscallion, sets off in search of the pumpkin thief again. The next time, they encounter a varmint, and the old man turns him into a black cat with fleas. Yet again, the varmint doesn’t have the pumpkin, so they all set off again.

The pumpkin pursuit finally ends with the person who actually has the pumpkin. The wizard has turned the pumpkin into both a jack-o’-lantern and a pumpkin pie!

My Reaction

I remember someone reading this book to me when I was a little kid. I think it might have been the school librarian, but I’m not completely sure now. We don’t really know the story behind the 800-year-old man and 700-year-old woman, who is presumably his wife. They seem to be magical because of their ancient age and the fact that the old man seems capable of magic, but they aren’t described as being a witch and wizard or anything specific. It’s just left to readers’ imaginations. I think, when I was little kid, I assumed that they were witches or something similar.

The story is just for fun. It’s one of those repetition stories, where the characters encounter more people/creatures, similar things happen each time, and each new person/creature joins the group, until they finally figure out who has the pumpkin. Part of the fun of the story is the unusual people and creatures the meet. Most of them are not typical Halloween creatures, like a witch, a ghost, and a monster, although they are Halloween-ish. The words that describe them are real words – ghoul (which is a mythological creature), rapscallion, and varmint – but at the same time, it’s not entirely clear what type of creatures they are, and the book doesn’t explain. We can only go by what they look like in the pictures. The “varmint” looks like a large rat, the “ghoul” is a little green guy in a top hat, and the “rapscallion” is a little guy in a dark robe and hood.

Posted on by TracyC

Meg Mackintosh and The Stage Fright Secret

Meg Mackintosh Mysteries

Meg Mackintosh and The Stage Fright Secret by Lucinda Landon, 2004.

The mystery club at Meg’s school is putting on a play, and Meg’s friend, Liddy, says that they should try out for parts. The play is a Halloween mystery called The Trick or Treat Mystery with a detective called Sureluck House. Meg is nervous during the try-outs and rushes through her lines, so she doesn’t get the part of the detective. However, the club’s advisor, Ms. Morse, gives her the role of announcer. The announcer is like a narrator, introducing scenes of the play. Meg still wishes that she had a regular part in the play, but being the announcer gives her a chance to be involved.

The kids begin assembling costumes and props. Meg creates signs for each scene, including signs to invite the audience to figure out clues during the performance. Once the play gets started, the story takes the form of the play itself. All of the dialogue is presented as part of the play and other information as stage directions, and Meg’s signs invite readers to figure out clues to the mystery.

In the play, Sureluck House gets a letter from Old Jane, a woman who lives in a spooky cottage near a cemetery, asking him to find who stole her stuffed raven. The raven has glowing red eyes, and Old Jane likes to put him on her porch on Halloween to scare away trick-or-treaters.

Sureluck and his friend Witson visit Old Jane, who tells them that three trick-or-treaters have visited her: a witch, a mummy, and a pirate. Then, Old Jane got distracted, chasing one of her kittens, and when she returned to her porch, the raven was gone. She thinks one of the trick-or-treaters stole it. Sureluck and Witson interview the three trick-or-treaters and point out evidence that each of them left at the scene, but they all deny taking the raven.

Then, there is a spooky part of the play where the actors are scared by lightning and thunder, and the lights go out. Readers and the audience can tell that the actors are also confused at this part of the play, and the Ms. Morse sticks her head out from behind the curtain to say that they’re experiencing technical difficulties.

When the lights come back on and the curtain opens again, Sureluck is lying on the ground, having apparently fainted from fright, and only Witson and Old Jane are on the scene. Witson says he thinks he can solve the mystery and invites the audience to guess which suspect stole the raven and where it is. When the audience says where they think the raven is. They guess the correct suspect, but the raven isn’t where it’s supposed to be. Also, Meg has suddenly disappeared, leaving her sign behind. Now, everybody, audience, actors, and Ms. Morse seem really confused.

Has an actual raven theft occurred in the middle of the play? Is Meg the culprit? Where is she?

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

My Reaction

I liked the unusual format to this book, having most of the mystery be in the form of a play within the story. Like other books in this series, readers are given the opportunity to spot the clues and solve the puzzle along with Meg. Because of the play format, we are also like part of the audience, watching the play and trying to figure out where the mystery in the play leaves off and where the mystery that Meg needs to solve begins. The ending is a little unusual because Meg seems to disappear briefly. I didn’t think it was too hard to figure out where Meg went, but I still enjoyed the story, and I though a spooky mystery play was a nice idea for a Halloween story!

Posted on by TracyC

The Pumpkin Head Mystery

The Boxcar Children

#124 The Pumpkin Head Mystery by Gertrude Chandler Warner, 2010.

The Aldens are getting ready for Halloween, and they go to the Beckett farm to get some pumpkins. Mr. Beckett has been having trouble this year because he broke his leg. He’s been letting a hired assistant, Bessie, handle the pumpkin patch, but she is short-tempered and not very good with customers. Mr. Beckett fired her once before, but he had to take her back this year because he was desperate for help.

Mr. and Mrs. Beckett’s daughter, Sally, has been trying to persuade them to sell their farm and come live near her and her children in Florida. She thinks they’re getting too old to manage the farm by themselves and that this recent injury of Mr. Beckett’s proves it. The Becketts say that they don’t want to give up their farm and that they’re not ready to retire. Then, one of the farm hands, Jason, says that Mr. Beckett broke his leg while chasing a pumpkin-headed ghost, but Mr. Beckett denies that it exists.

Later, someone trashes the pumpkin patch and smashes a lot of pumpkins, and for some reason, Bessie faints. The real estate developer who is pressuring the Becketts to sell their farm, Dave Bolger, shows up again and tries to persuade the Becketts to sell. Sally thinks her parents should take the offer, but they still refuse. The Aldens help clean up the pumpkin patch in time for the next hayride, so the Becketts won’t have to cancel it, and Sally tells them that the farm is haunted and that the stories Jason has been telling about the pumpkin-headed ghost are true.

A glowing pumpkin has been seen floating through the fields at night, seemingly with no body underneath it. When it appears, they hear scary voices, telling them to leave the farm and leave the spirits in peace. Mr. Beckett did injure his leg while trying to chase after it on his horse. The Aldens think this sounds scary, and they ask Sally if the farm was always haunted. Sally admits it wasn’t, but she is serious that she thinks her parents should sell the place and move closer to her and her family.

The Aldens want to help the Becketts, and they start doing some seasonal work at the farm, making flyers for their hayrides and dressing up in costumes as part of the spooky attractions. Then, someone steals the scarecrow that Benny made from the Aldens’ house, and a new pumpkin-headed ghost appears on the farm!

Are there actually any ghosts, or is someone pulling a trick on the Becketts? Is it one of the people trying to pressure the Becketts to sell the farm or someone else, for a different reason?

My Reaction

I enjoyed this spooky mystery! The author did a good job of making multiple characters look like good suspects for playing ghost on the farm. Mr. Bolger and Sally both want the Becketts to sell the farm, and scaring farm workers and visitors away from the farm would add pressure to the Becketts. Bessie isn’t very good at her job, but the Aldens discover that she needs money because her husband is sick. Could she have been paid to commit some sabotage on the farm or could she be trying to get back at the Becketts for firing her last season? Jason has worked on the Becketts’ farm for years and seems to love the place, but he’s been arguing with Mr. Beckett about the way he runs the farm. Maybe Jason wants the farm for himself! There are some good possibilities for suspects.

There were some clues that I thought were obvious, like the connection between the disappearance of Benny’s pumpkin-headed scarecrow and the sudden appearance of a new pumpkin-headed ghost on the farm, but child readers may find the mystery more challenging. Even though I thought some parts were obvious, because there were several suspects, each of which seems to be doing something sneaky that they want to cover up, I wasn’t sure whether some of them might be working together or not.

The book has the right amount of spookiness for a Halloween story without being too scary for kids. In some ways, like with all Scooby-Doo style pseudo-ghost stories, I thought that it was a little silly for the plot to frighten people away from the farm to succeed. My reasoning is that, since this story is set in the Halloween season and some parts of the farm are deliberately set up as haunted attractions with people running around in costumes, I would think most farm workers and visitors would just attribute the pumpkin-headed ghost to either a Halloween prank or just part of the act at a spooky attraction.

One of the possible motives that they never discuss in the story is that the ghost act could be a publicity stunt to draw more visitors to the park. While the premise of the story is that people are being scared away, in reality, there are a lot of curiosity-seekers who would want to go to a supposedly haunted attraction to see what all the fuss is about. Publicity isn’t the real motive of the fake ghost, but I’m just saying that it could have been a real possibility that was overlooked. There are a lot of places, like hotels and restaurants in historic buildings, that capitalize on any potential ghost stories to attract curious thrill-seekers.

Something I appreciated is that the real estate developer is Dave Bolger, which is a homage to Ray Bolger, who played the role of The Scarecrow in the 1939 movie of The Wizard of Oz. Is that a hint? I’ve decided not to spoil the solution of the mystery!

Posted on by TracyC

The Zombie Project

Boxcar Children

#128 The Zombie Project by Gertrude Chandler Warner, 2011.

The Alden children are staying in a cabin at Winding River Lodge because their grandfather is friends with Maude Hansen, who owns the lodge. They’re enjoying the fall weather in the woods, and Violet is taking pictures and videos of their trip with their new camera.

There are other people staying at the lodge, too. A newspaper reporter named Madison can’t help but stay on top of the news while she’s there. She tells everyone about a wealthy businessman, Matthew Donovan, who vanished after apparently stealing millions of dollars from his company’s investors. Surprisingly, the charity golf tournament he sponsors is still taking place in his absence. Madison also has a blog about haunted places, and she tells Maude that she’d like to include the Winding River Zombie on her blog. Maud says that the zombie is only a story that her great grandfather made up and that it doesn’t really exist. Benny asks what a zombie is, and his older siblings reluctantly tell him that it’s an undead monster from the movies that eats people. They hope that the idea of the zombie won’t give Benny nightmares.

That evening, when people are telling stories around the campfire, Maude’s teenage grandson, Jake, tells everyone the zombie story. He says that there used to be an old hermit who lived in the woods, and one day, his great grandfather found the old hermit dead. He reported the death to the local sheriff, and they tried to locate the hermit’s family, but they never found out who he really was or where he came from. With no one else to make funeral arrangements, the Hansens arranged for the old hermit to be buried in a nearby cemetery. Then, not long after, a camper had a frightening encounter with a strange man who tried to grab him and bite his arm with bloody teeth! The Hansens found out that someone had dug up the old hermit’s grave and that the body was gone. People believed that the old hermit had turned into a zombie and still lurked in the woods. Jake’s teenage friends love the zombie story, and Jake claims that he’s seen the zombie before.

When Benny thinks he sees a zombie in the woods and lights in the woods at night, the Aldens wonder if the zombie story could be true or if something else is going on. Do the Hansens fake the appearance of the story to keep the legend alive? Could Madison be faking the zombie or getting someone to play zombie so she’ll have a more exciting story for her blog? Or is there something or someone scarier lurking in the woods?

My Reaction

I was a little surprised at the zombie theme of the story because, although The Boxcar Children series has other spooky stories, the lumbering, cannibalistic undead seems more gruesome than this series normally gets. The unusual darkness of the subject shows in Benny’s siblings’ initial reluctance to explain to Benny what zombies are, for fear that he’ll have nightmares. However, the story doesn’t get overly scary, considering the theme. They don’t explain, for example, that zombies in movies typically want to eat human “braaaaiiiiiiinnnnns!” It’s scary enough that they might just generally want to eat people. Maude is also careful to say from the very beginning that there was never any truth to the story. It was always just something her family made up for the benefit of the tourists.

As some readers might guess, the missing businessman has something to do with the appearance of the “zombie”, but that’s not the entire explanation. There are multiple people involved in the so-called zombie sightings, which confuses the issue for the Aldens. I thought the other people involved were obvious because of some of the things the characters said, but younger readers will probably still find the story thrilling. It’s very much a Scooby-Doo style pseudo-ghost story mystery, not too gory or gruesome, but exciting for kids who like things a little spooky.

Posted on by TracyC

The Vampire Mystery

The Boxcar Children

#120 The Vampire Mystery by Gertrude Chandler Warner, 2009.

The Alden children are introduced to a local author by their grandfather. Charles Hudson lives in an old house that his family has owned for years, next to a graveyard. He is known for writing a book about a vampire, and he explains to the Aldens that he was inspired to write the story because there are local stories about a vampire in that graveyard. He grew up hearing those stories, and he used to scare his brother with them when they were kids.

Mr. Hudson is now trying to sell the house. He doesn’t really want to, but he’s getting older, and the house is really too big for him to easily maintain it by himself. However, strange things have started happening since he decided to sell. His For Sale signs have been stolen and vandalized, people have been hearing strange sounds coming from the cemetery, and one of his neighbors, Mrs. Fairfax, found what looks like blood on her porch. His nervous realtor, Josh, seems to think that the vampire stories are real and that the vampire is trying to stop anyone new from moving into the house. He got that idea from the author’s book, where the sale of a house near a cemetery awakened the vampire’s wrath. Of course, Mr. Hudson and Mr. Alden say that’s just a story, but it’s still spooky to the Alden children. When they went outside to explore the cemetery, they also saw a mysterious figure lurking around. Mr. Hudson worries that the stories about the vampire will make it hard for him to sell his house.

The author says that he needs to out of town to meet with a movie producer about making a movie based on his book, and he’s a little worried about not having anyone to look after the house while he’s away. The Alden children offer to look after his house while he’s away, watering the plants and keeping things tidy for potential buyers. Mr. Hudson gratefully accepts their offer of help.

However, the next time the children go to the house to check on it, they find that the police are already there because someone vandalized the house during the night. The vandal ripped out some flowers in the garden and left a threatening message painted in red on the porch: “Leave me to rest in peace or you will be sorry.” The neighbor, Mrs. Fairfax accuses the children of doing the vandalism because she doesn’t like kids. Fortunately, Josh the realtor is there and vouches that the children are friends of Mr. Hudson and are just helping him with some things while he’s away.

At a local bake sale, the children have an odd experience when Benny bumps into a man who looks a lot like Mr. Hudson. In fact, he thought for a moment it was Mr. Hudson. The man left quickly, and he dropped a vial of something red, which the kids think looks a lot like blood!

Who could be behind the vandalism at Mr. Hudson’s house? Is Mrs. Fairfax so worried that a family with children will move in that she would fake the return of the legendary vampire to prevent anyone from buying Mr. Hudson’s house? Is Josh really as scared of the vampire as he pretends, or does he have his own reasons for wanting to sabotage the sale of Mr. Hudson’s house? What about the mysterious man who looks a lot like Mr. Hudson? Was that really blood in that vial, and could he actually be … the vampire?

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

My Reaction

I enjoyed this mystery! It’s mildly spooky, but not too scary. The children and the adults around them, for the most part, are pretty sure that whoever is doing these things isn’t a real vampire. They’re just not sure who’s pretending to be a vampire. There are some spooky moments, where someone is lurking around the cemetery, and later, someone enters Mr. Hudson’s house during the night, and the kids almost catch that person there. The person does some things to scare and distract them, but nobody gets hurt.

I had a couple of theories about who was doing what, and in a way, they both turned out to be right! It’s a bit of a spoiler, but there are two people who are doing secretive things in the story, and they’re not working with each other. They have separate motives for what they’re doing. Their separate plots just kind of build on each other’s, further building up the legend of the vampire.

It’s a fun, mildly spooky mystery that would be fun to read about Halloween, although it’s not specifically a Halloween story.