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The Shimmering Ghost of Riversend

The Shimmering Ghost of Riversend by Norma Lehr, 1991.

Kathy Wicklow is going to visit her Aunt Sharon at their old family home over the summer. The old family home, Wicklow Manor, is in Riversend, California, which is in an area where gold was found years ago. Kathy isn’t happy about the trip. She has to leave her dog behind because her aunt owns a cat. She doesn’t even really know her aunt very well. Aunt Sharon is her father’s sister, and her mother has said that she’s weird (which was not a good thing for her to say, both because it’s insulting and because that’s not something to make her daughter glad about spending time with her). Kathy blames her mother for going back to work. Because her mother is working and won’t be home with her, Kathy has to leave her home, her friends, and her dog for a month!

Although Kathy loves to draw, she doesn’t think that she’ll want to do that in a place she is sure she’s going to hate. She also thinks maybe her parents don’t trust her at home because of the weird dreams she’s been having. Kathy has dreams about things that later happen, although she doesn’t know why.

Her father has nostalgic memories of the old family home where he and Sharon grew up. Sharon has only recently returned there after living on the East Coast. Kathy’s father says that Sharon is looking forward to seeing Kathy again and getting to know her because she hasn’t seen Kathy since she was a baby.

Right from the first, Wicklow Manor gives Kathy the creeps. There’s even a small graveyard nearby where Kathy’s father says their ancestors are buried because people used to be buried close to their homes. When she can actually see the house, Kathy is also shocked to realize that she has drawn that house before! She thought that she had invented the house she drew from her imagination, but somehow, she had a vision of the real house. Her father thinks that she must have seen a picture of it somewhere or maybe was inspired by his descriptions of the place. However, Kathy has also done a drawing of Aunt Sharon’s pet cat, without knowing what it looked like before. When they meet Aunt Sharon, she mentions that she’s glad Kathy is there because the house has been lonely, especially at night. Kathy’s dad starts to ask her if something is still happening, but Aunt Sharon quickly denies it before he can finish the thought. Kathy can tell there’s some kind of secret between them.

Aunt Sharon has turned the family’s manor into an inn, and she’s expecting guests soon. It also turns out that part of the reason why Kathy’s mother says that Sharon is weird is that she’s into health food, and Sharon is aware that Kathy’s mother thinks that she’s a weird health nut. Kathy’s father volunteers her to help in the kitchen, although Kathy is a little worried that she won’t like the health food, although the lemonade that she makes with maple syrup instead of sugar is pretty good.

Still, Aunt Sharon gives Kathy a beautiful room with a balcony. Kathy also meets a boy named Todd who lives nearby with his great-grandfather, who is called Upstream Mike. Todd and his great-grandfather pan for gold in the nearby river, and Mike also takes his burro called Nugget into town so tourists can pay for rides on him and pictures with him. Todd is just a little older than Kathy, and he tells Kathy that he likes to write down stories that his grandfather tells him, especially scary stories about the old Wicklow Manor. Kathy asks if there are ghosts there, and Todd tells her to ask his great-grandfather about it. Kathy asks her aunt about ghosts, and Aunt Sharon tells her that Mike has told scary stories about the place for years that were apparently passed down in his family. Mike’s family lived in the area when the first Wicklows arrived.

Aunt Sharon shows Kathy some of the things in the house that belonged to their ancestors, including a portrait of a pretty young woman, who Aunt Sharon says was Jenny Wicklow, who died young by drowning in the river and was buried in the old family graveyard. One of their ancestors, James Wicklow, made his fortune as a banker during the Gold Rush days, and Jenny was his daughter. There is one room in the house where Kathy isn’t allowed to go, which is the old room in the tower. Aunt Sharon says that the staircase is broken, and she can’t have it fixed yet.

On her first night at the manor, Kathy sees a woman in a cloak with a lantern. When she asks Mike about it, he says that it’s a ghost or spirit of some kind that usually appears to young ladies at the manor, possibly a banshee or similar spirit that is a harbinger of death. Kathy worries about that, and Mike tells her the story about Jenny Wicklow. Jenny was one of three children of James Wicklow. She also had a sister named Lora and a brother named Daniel, and Kathy is a descendant of Daniel. After their parents died, Daniel went to work in the city and left the running of the manor and family farm to his sisters. The two young women hired a handsome young drifter to help them, but he started flirting with both of the sisters. The sisters seemed to develop a rivalry for him and argued with each other about it. Rumor had it that Lora was the one who pushed Jenny into the river so she could have not only her own inheritance but her sister’s as well and get the man they both wanted. After Jenny was dead, it seemed like all of their gold disappeared, and so did Lora. People assumed that Lora ran off with her lover and took the money. Mike thinks that the ghost is dangerous, and that Sharon is the one who’s in danger!

Kathy soon begins to learn that Mike is both right and wrong about the ghost. The ghost is Lora, but she’s not trying to hurt Sharon or anyone else. Something tragic happened at Wicklow Manor years ago, and Lora is trying to tell someone about it, if she can find anyone brave enough to listen … and to discovered what actually happened to Lora herself.

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

My Reaction and Spoilers

For a good part of the story, I wasn’t sure exactly what Lora’s ghost was attempting to accomplish, keeping me in suspense. I did have the sense that Lora wasn’t the one who had murdered Jenny and that she had probably been murdered herself, which was why nobody saw her after Jenny’s body was found.

Mike is correct that Lora is the ghost, but she was not Jenny’s murderer. Like Kathy, Lora was psychic. She has been trying to communicate with different girls in the family over the years to clear her name, but the other girls have all been frightened of her. Sharon claims not to believe Kathy at first about how Lora is trying to communicate with her, but she later admits that it was because she was frightened. She also saw Lora when she was young, and that’s part of the reason why she was afraid to return to the old family home for so long. She was afraid to admit that the house was really haunted and that she was afraid of the ghost. It was a long time before she could even tell her own mother and brother about seeing Lora because she was afraid of being different from everyone else in the family. Sharon is also psychic, and like Kathy was initially, she was afraid of her gift.

Kathy and Todd use the messages that Lora communicates through Kathy’s drawings and Lora’s old diary to learn the truth. Jenny was murdered by the man she loved. Lora didn’t actually love him at all. She saw that he was a violent person and tried to warn Jenny about him, but Jenny wouldn’t listen because she thought Lora wanted him for herself. Lora saw the murder that was going to happen in a dream, and she wanted to stop it by using her own inheritance to pay the man to leave her sister alone. However, Lora was unable to save her sister. After he killed Jenny, the man came after Lora and murdered her, too. Then, he stole both of their inheritances. He hid Lora’s body, which was why everyone thought she must have run away with him.

After Lora’s ghost leads Kathy to where her body is buried in the cellar and she is given a proper burial in the family graveyard, the haunting ends. However, Kathy learns to appreciate her psychic gift because of this experience. She finds it reassuring that she shares her abilities with other people in her family. When she reads in Lora’s diary that Lora thought of her own psychic abilities as a gift, Kathy also comes to think of being psychic as a gift rather than a weird defect or something to fear.

The mystery in the story was good, and I also liked the information about panning for gold that Mike gives to Kathy when he gives her a gold panning lesson. There is also a tie-in with real children’s literature because Kathy mentions that she is reading Down a Dark Hall by Lois Duncan. I’ve reviewed Down a Dark Hall on my site, and it is about girls with psychic abilities at a haunted boarding school who channel the spirits of famous people to complete their unfinished works. The channeling and spiritual possession in that book are dangerous and harmful to the girls doing it, but in this book, Kathy becomes reconciled to her psychic abilities and Lora’s gentle spirit, who needs her help.

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Encyclopedia Brown and the Case of the Dead Eagles

Encyclopedia Brown and the Case of the Dead Eagles and Other Mysteries by Donald J. Sobol, 1975.

The Idaville police department has an excellent record, but that’s because the chief of police’s ten-year-old son is Encyclopedia Brown. People praise Chief Brown, and Chief Brown doesn’t feel like he can admit how much help his son gives him because he doubts anyone would believe him. Encyclopedia himself doesn’t want to admit to other people that he helps his father figure out tough cases because he doesn’t want to seem too different from the others kids at school. However, Encyclopedia also has a detective business, helping the neighborhood kids to solve their problems for only 25 cents a day, plus expenses. Sally, a smart and tough girl, is his partner in the detective business, and Bugs Meany, a bully who’s the leader of a local gang of youths called the Tigers, is their main nemesis, although they also deal with other bullies and criminals.

I always liked Encyclopedia Brown books when I was a kid! There are a couple of instances where modern kids might not understand the solutions to some cases because of certain habits and traditions that modern people don’t follow anymore. There is one case in this book in particular that I didn’t understand when I was a kid, and I wouldn’t expect modern kids to get the answer, either.

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

Stories in the Book:

The Case of the Dead Eagles

Encyclopedia is camping with his friend Charlie Stewart when they hear a gunshot. When they go to investigate, they find a dead eagle. They think they know who’s responsible because this person has killed eagles before. Can they prove it in time to save the mother and babies from the same fate?

The Case of the Hypnotism Lesson

A boy named Dave hires Encyclopedia because he thinks Bugs Meany cheated him. (Always a likely possibility in anything Bugs does.) This time, Bugs charged Dave a dollar for a lesson on hypnotizing lobsters. Dave saw Bugs and his friends cooking and eating lobsters they had caught earlier, and Bugs told him that the secret to catching lobsters is to hypnotize them. However, when Dave gave him the money, Bugs just showed that he could pick up a lobster, and the lobster wouldn’t move. He didn’t actually show Dave any hypnotism and refused to teach him anything unless he paid more money. Dave realizes that Bugs was trying to trick him and wants his money back. When Encyclopedia sees a picture that one of Bugs’s friends took, he knows how to prove that Dave was cheated.

The Case of the Parking Meters

Both Encyclopedia and his detective partner Sally have received phone calls asking them to meet people at different locations, but each time, they waited around, and nobody showed up. They’re starting to suspect that this is another of Bugs Meany’s tricks, trying to get back at Encyclopedia for foiling his schemes. Sure enough, Bugs Meany shows up at Encyclopedia’s house with a police officer, claiming that Encyclopedia is running a racket to get money from people parked at parking meters by putting money in the meters, telling them that they’ve been saved from the fine for an expired meter, and asking them for money for the favor. The police officer isn’t sure that such a thing is actually illegal, although he’d have to inquire with a judge about the matter. Bugs claims that he could prove what happened except that Sally stole the film that he had of Encyclopedia putting money in the meters. When Bugs manages to “find” the film where Sally supposedly ditched it after taking it, Encyclopedia points out why Bugs’s story can’t be true. The solution would make more sense to somebody who understands how reel-to-reel films work.

The Case of the Hidden Will

Encyclopedia’s father, Chief Brown, tells him that a wealthy man named Brandon King has died, but his will is mysteriously missing. Evidently, Mr. King hid the will himself and swore his own lawyer to secrecy about it. The reason for the secrecy is apparently because one of Mr. King’s four sons, who all helped to run the family business, is a thief. Mr. King’s friends knew that was the case, although none of them knew which son it was. Mr. King’s lawyer gave Chief Brown a note written by Mr. King which hints at which son is the thief and saying that his property will go to the other three sons. Chief Brown isn’t sure which of the Kings is considered the “odd King out” until Encyclopedia tells him who it has to be, and Encyclopedia also tells him where the will is.

The Case of the Mysterious Thief

Encyclopedia and Sally go to a restaurant to order a pizza for lunch. While they’re waiting for their pizza, someone attacks the owner’s daughter in the ladies’ room and steals the money she was going to take to the bank. The owner’s daughter is very strong, and it must have taken someone very strong to overpower her and knock her unconscious so quickly and easily. It doesn’t seem likely that it would be a woman, but people would have noticed if a man had gone into the ladies’ room. Sally figures out the answer to this one, but it isn’t likely that modern readers. I didn’t get it when I was a kid, either, because the solution is based on an old piece of etiquette in restaurant seating that I don’t think people observe anymore.

The Case of the Old Calendars

Encyclopedia and Sally hurry over to Butch Mulligan’s house because they hear that Butch is fighting Bugs Meany and the Tigers. Butch is a big, strong 18-year-old, and the Tigers are no match for him. Encyclopedia asks Butch’s younger brother how the fight started, and he explains that Butch’s math teacher recently moved and gave Butch a stack of old calendars with some cool Civil War pictures on them. Then, Bugs claimed that he asked the teacher for those calendars himself, but the teacher forgot. He produced a note supposedly from the teacher that asks Butch to share the calendars with Bugs. Butch was willing to share, but there are an odd number of calendars, and Butch thinks Bugs cheated on the coin flip they had to determine who would get the odd one. He probably did, but Encyclopedia can prove that Bugs faked the note from the teacher, too.

The Case of Lightfoot Louie

Only a few days before the state worm-racing championship, Encyclopedia’s friend Thad accidentally stepped on his prize worm. It’s sad, but as a member of the Worm Racers’ Club of America, Thad can time other people’s worms to be entered in the race. He’s worried because Hoager Dempsey wants him to time a worm, and if he says the worm isn’t fast enough to enter the race, Hoager might beat him up. Thad asks Encyclopedia and Sally to watch the time trial as witnesses to make sure there’s no foul play.

The Case of the Broken Window

John Hall is a wealthy man with an impressive stamp collection. Some of his stamps are worth thousands of dollars. One evening, he calls Chief Brown and asks him to come to his house but to wear a costume because he’s giving a costume party, and he doesn’t want his guests to know that he’s called the police. Chief Brown and Encyclopedia put on their Halloween costumes and go to the Hall estate to investigate the theft of one of Hall’s expensive stamps. Hall thinks one of his guests is the thief, but which one?

The Case of the Gasoline Pill

“Twinkletoes” Willis is a young track star, and he comes to see Encyclopedia about a run-in that he had with Wilford Wiggins, a local high school dropout who’s into get-rich-quick schemes. Wilford has called a meeting of local kids at the city dump to tell them his latest money-making idea, which can only mean trouble. Wilford’s latest money-maker is a pill which he says allows cars to drive thousands of miles if you put it in the gas tank. Fortunately, Encyclopedia knows just how to prove that Wilford is a fraud.

The Case of the Pantry Door

Hilda’s hobby is fly hunting, and she’s a crack shot with rubber bands. She invites Encyclopedia and Sally to a little birthday party that she’s having for her pet frog, who lives in the birdhouse in her backyard. When Encyclopedia and Sally go into the pantry at Hilda’s house for sugar for catching flies, someone locks them in and steals the household money that Hilda’s mother hid in the kitchen. Hilda’s cousin, Lois, says that she saw a boy running away from the house, but Encyclopedia knows who really took the money.

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TACK into Danger

TACK into Danger by Marvin Miller and Nancy K. Robinson, 1983.

This book is part of the TACK mystery series, which is very much like the Encyclopedia Brown series, although it’s not as well known and doesn’t have as many books. In fact, my copy references Encyclopedia Brown on the back: “Move over Encyclopedia Brown … make way for the TACK Team!”

The books in the series are collections of short mysteries that readers are invited to solve along with the characters before looking at the answers. TACK is an acronym for the names of the main characters. They’re kind of a mystery-solving club of neighborhood kids, although they say that they don’t really have a clubhouse or regular meetings. They just help out members of their community by solving problems whenever they can.

T = Toria – Her full name is Victoria Gardner, but she doesn’t like being called Vicky. She is the one who narrates the stories. She wants to be a newspaper reporter when she grows up, and she considers the journals she keeps of the group’s cases to be good writing practice.

A = Abby – Her full name is Abby Pinkwater. Abby and Toria were best friends before she moved away. Now, Abby is considered their “Agent-on-Remote” because the others still consider her part of the group, and she still comes back to visit and becomes involved with their mysteries, even though she no longer lives close.

C = Chuck – Chuck is the best speller at school, and his participation in a spelling bee is part of one of the stories.

K = Will – His full name is Will Roberts, and he’s the leader of the group, although he leads in a very informal way. Will’s initial is the odd one out. They use ‘K’ in place of his initial both because it makes their acronym easier to pronounce and because ‘K’ stands for “SWITCH” in telegraph language, and they think that’s an appropriate code name for him “because of the way his mind can switch all over the place.”

Overall, I like the characters in the stories, and I think they’re well-written. They would be of interest to people who like Encyclopedia Brown and similar types of Solve-It-Yourself style mysteries.

Stories in the Book:

The Comic Book Caper

Toria and Will are on their way to Will’s father’s hardware story, where they’re supposed to be helping out, when Toria’s sister Holly says that she wants a comic book. Toria takes Holly to buy one so she’ll be entertained while the older kids are helping at the store. While Holly is looking for a comic to buy, Toria overhears a couple of rough sailors talking about someone they’re waiting to meet. They don’t know what the man they’re waiting for looks like, but there’s a code word that he’s supposed to use. Unfortunately, the code word turns out to be the name of the comic Holly wants to buy, and the men start following Holly, thinking that she might be some kind of courier. Toria is afraid of what the men might do to Holly because her comic contains a secret message relating to a boat that’s recently been stolen.

Spelldown!

Chuck is taking part in the county spelling bee, but the bad news is that so is a kid from Monrose, and the Monrose kids are known to be cheaters. The meanest kid at Monrose (and that’s saying something) is Red Jamieson, and he’s made it known that he’s going to do something terrible to Chuck if he doesn’t let the Monrose student win the spelling bee. Will tells Chuck not to worry about that because he’ll come up with a plan to distract Red so he won’t have time to come after him. One thing that Red can never refuse is a chance to bet on something. After the spelling bee, Will offers Red the chance to hit him while the two of them are standing very close together, but only on the condition that he pick the spot where they’ll stand.

The Great Blueberry Pie Robbery

Will and Cyrus are spending the day with Toria’s family. They were going to have a cookout, but they have to change their plans because it rains. Instead, they decide to spend their time inside, reading. However, Cyrus brings Toria’s mother some blueberries, which she makes into a pie. Everyone is looking forward to having the pie after dinner, but when dinner ends, they discover that someone has eaten all of the filling out of the pie. Toria’s mother demands to know who the guilty party is, and this time, Toria is the one who comes up with the solution.

TACK into Danger

Abby comes to visit her friends for the summer, and they tell her about the cases they’ve recently solved, especially the one about the boat theft. As their reward for catching the thieves, they’ve been getting free sailing lessons from the boat owner, Johnny, and Abby gets to join them. However, while they’re out sailing, someone else driving their motorboat recklessly breaks a sign and rocks their boat. The boom swings over and hits Johnny in the face, breaking his nose. The kids need to get Johnny to the Coast Guard station, but how will they figure out which way to go with the sign broken?

Zoo TACT-tics

Will’s aunt takes the kids to the zoo along with her young son, Nicholas. While they’re at the zoo, they spot a dog who has somehow found his way into the polar bear enclosure. Fortunately, the polar bear is asleep, but can they get the dog out without waking the bear?

E-Z Parties, Inc.

Holly’s birthday is coming up, and Toria’s mother is overwhelmed with playing for it. Every year, it seems like Holly’s birthday part is difficult: kids fighting and crying, Holly not wanting to invite certain girls to the party, Holly wanting to buy a wedding cake she saw in a store window, etc. Toria’s mother wishes someone else could handle all the fuss, so she hires Toria and Will to do it. They manage to pull off the party without the kids getting into any fights, although it gets tricky when trying to divide a piece of cake between a set of twins in a way that satisfies each of them.

Halloween Shadows

Toria isn’t happy that her mother made her a haystack costume for Halloween because it feels clumsy and it’s difficult to see out of. As soon as she and Will are finished taking their younger siblings trick-or-treating, she makes herself a ghost costume for when she and Will are going to meet Chuck for more trick-or-treating by themselves. However, while she’s waiting for the boys, she sees someone in a skeleton costume like Will’s with someone dressed like a ghost and follows them into the graveyard, where they climb a tree and just look down at her creepily. At first, Toria thinks the boys are playing a trick on her, but then Will shows up, proving that the kid in the tree wearing a skeleton costume isn’t him. It’s just a coincidence that there are two sets of kids wearing similar costumes. However, some angry adults come along because a kid in a skeleton costume and a kid in a ghost costume just played some nasty tricks at their houses. When the adults see that there are two sets of kids who look alike, can Toria and Will prove to them that the pranksters are the other kids?

Posted on by TracyC

TACK Secret Service

TACK Secret Service by Marvin Miller and Nancy K. Robinson, 1982.

This book is part of the TACK mystery series, which is very much like the Encyclopedia Brown series, although it’s not as well known and doesn’t have as many books. In fact, my copy references Encyclopedia Brown on the back: “Move over Encyclopedia Brown … make way for the TACK Team!”

The books in the series are collections of short mysteries that readers are invited to solve along with the characters before looking at the answers. TACK is an acronym for the names of the main characters. They’re kind of a mystery-solving club of neighborhood kids, although they say that they don’t really have a clubhouse or regular meetings. They just help out members of their community by solving problems whenever they can.

T = Toria – Her full name is Victoria Gardner, but she doesn’t like being called Vicky. She is the one who narrates the stories. She wants to be a newspaper reporter when she grows up, and she considers the journals she keeps of the group’s cases to be good writing practice.

A = Abby – Her full name is Abby Pinkwater. Abby and Toria were best friends before she moved away. Now, Abby is considered their “Agent-on-Remote” because the others still consider her part of the group, and she still becomes involved with their mysteries, even though she no longer lives close.

C = Chuck – The stories in this book don’t explain very much about Chuck and his background compared to the other characters, although he has a dog named Duchess who is the subject of one of the stories.

K = Will – His full name is Will Roberts, and he’s the leader of the group, although he leads in a very informal way. Will’s initial is the odd one out. They use ‘K’ in place of his initial both because it makes their acronym easier to pronounce and because ‘K’ stands for “SWITCH” in telegraph language, and they think that’s an appropriate code name for him “because of the way his mind can switch all over the place.”

Overall, I like the characters in the stories, and I think they’re well-written. They would be of interest to people who like Encyclopedia Brown and similar types of Solve-It-Yourself style mysteries.

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

Stories in the Book:

TACK Secret Service: Operation Goldfish

The kids are getting ready for the science fair at school. They are not looking forward to the arrival of kids from a rival school because they don’t play fair, and a boy called Red Jamieson sometimes deliberately wrecks other kids’ projects. Will is helping a boy named Hugo to protect his project because someone stole the plans for the project the day before. The kids suspect Red and his friend, Lester. As the kids try to maintain surveillance on the exhibits, someone steals one of their walkie talkies and threatens to ruin it if they don’t turn over Hugo’s invention for remotely feeding goldfish.

The Locked House Mystery

Will and his brother Cyrus are staying with Toria’s family for a few days while their parents are on a skiing trip. The only problem is that Toria’s family has a cat, and Cyrus is allergic to cats. At first, they think it will be okay because Cyrus has his allergy pills, but it turns out that he forgot them at home, and he also forgot the house key. How can they get his allergy medicine from a locked house when they can’t reach the spare key?

The Pirates of Sandy Harbor

Toria is writing a report about the founder of their town, Simon Hawk, but she needs more information. She goes to the local historical society, but there, she discovers that an old note has been found that indicates that Simon Hawk may not have been the hero that everyone believes he is. Rather than chasing off the pirates that plagued the area, he may have been in league with them! Toria can’t finish her report until she knows the truth, but fortunately, Will spots something about the message that clarifies everything.

The Dance of the Trees

Toria’s sister, Holly, is in a dance recital with her ballet class where the best dancer in class gets to be a fairy, and the other girls get to be living trees. (Holly isn’t thrilled about that until she see the tree costumes, which are pretty cool.) Unfortunately, the girl playing the part of the fairy gets sick, and there isn’t enough time for someone else to learn her part. What can they do?

A Slipper for Ripper

Chuck worries that his mother will give away his dog, Duchess, if she doesn’t stop chewing things. They’ve tried giving her all kinds of chew toys, but she doesn’t like any of them. She just wants to chew things that belong to people. Will’s younger brother, Cyrus, thinks he’s found a solution, figuring out how to make what he calls “dognip.” However, when they arrive at Chuck’s house, Duchess has a slipper belonging to Chuck’s mother. Cyrus hurriedly gets the slipper away from Duchess and throws it into the next yard, but that’s where the violent dog Ripper lives. At first, the kids’ attempts to distract the dog and get the slipper only make the situation worse, but Will figures out how they can retrieve everything from Ripper’s yard safely.

The Case of the Haunted Dollhouse

Toria’s best friend, Abby, who moved away before the beginning of the book, calls Toria to tell her that her family is coming back to town to visit her grandmother, and she can see Toria when they come. However, this isn’t just an ordinary visit. Abby’s family is concerned because her grandmother is acting strangely, and her parents are worried that she might be getting senile. She’s talking about selling the fantastic dollhouse that she’s had since she was little, which is now a family heirloom. She’s become afraid of it because she thinks it might be haunted.

The Haunted Dollhouse – Part II

The kids figure out what’s created the haunting phenomena in the doll house, but when they go to tell Abby’s grandmother about it, they learn that she’s moved out of the old family home where she also runs her antique shop because other strange things have been happening. The temperature in the house inexplicably drops, and she’s been hearing music that seems to come from the dollhouse with no apparent cause. The adults are still concerned about her mental state, but the kids realize that there’s someone who’s behind all the strange things that have been happening. Who is playing ghost?

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TACK to the Rescue

TACK to the Rescue by Marvin Miller and Nancy K. Robinson, 1982.

This is the first book in the TACK mystery series, which is very much like the Encyclopedia Brown series, although it’s not as well known and doesn’t have as many books.

The books in the series are collections of short mysteries that readers are invited to solve along with the characters before looking at the answers. TACK is an acronym for the names of the main characters. They’re kind of a mystery-solving club of neighborhood kids, although they say that they don’t really have a clubhouse or regular meetings. They just help out members of their community by solving problems whenever they can.

T = Toria – Her full name is Victoria Gardner, but she doesn’t like being called Vicky. She is the one who narrates the stories. She wants to be a newspaper reporter when she grows up, and she considers the journals she keeps of the group’s cases to be good writing practice.

A = Abby – Her full name is Abby Pinkwater. Abby and Toria were best friends before she moved away, which happened before the series even begins. Now, Abby is considered their “Agent-on-Remote” because the others still consider her part of the group, and she still becomes involved with their mysteries, even though she no longer lives close. She sometimes comes to visit or writes letters to the others about problems at her new school.

C = Chuck – His older sister Kate gets married in the first story in this this book, and during the field day story, the other kids say that he’s the best cyclist at school. Toward the end of this book, they mention that Chuck has just gotten a puppy named Duchess, which would actually make this book the first book in the series, before the one that’s often listed first.

K = Will – His full name is Will Roberts, and he’s the leader of the group, although he leads in a very informal way. Will’s initial is the odd one out. They use ‘K’ in place of his initial both because it makes their acronym easier to pronounce and because ‘K’ stands for “SWITCH” in telegraph language, and they think that’s an appropriate code name for him “because of the way his mind can switch all over the place.”

Overall, I like the characters in the stories, and I think they’re well-written. They would be of interest to people who like Encyclopedia Brown and similar types of Solve-It-Yourself style mysteries. Many of the problems and solutions to the mysteries in this book are popular logic puzzle concepts.

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

Stories in the Book:

The Case of the Invisible Skunk

Chuck’s older sister, Kate, is getting married. There’s a big tent in the backyard, and his mother is busy making arrangements for the wedding. Then, something unexpected happens that his mother is afraid will ruin everything: a skunk has somehow found its way into their garage. Chuck’s mom doesn’t know how to get the skunk out of the garage without frightening it, and if it gets scared, it will spray and make the whole yard smell terrible. However, Will has another suggestion for solving the problem.

TACK to the Rescue

Will calls Toria and tells her that the light at the Corkhill lighthouse is out. It’s important because the lighthouse helps boats navigate around a dangerous area, and if the light is out, boats might crash on the rocks. Ordinarily, they could just take the ferry out to the light and fix it, but the ferry is also broken down. The man who normally runs the ferry is trying to repair it. The local fishing boats are also out, so they can’t even borrow a boat. The only boat the repairmen have is a little dinghy that will only hold one adult, but both of them are needed to repair the light. How can they use the dinghy to get both men out to the lighthouse before dark?

The Jungle Adventure Adventure

The kids’ class at school is going on a field trip to an amusement park called Jungle Adventure. However, they run into trouble when they encounter a tunnel that the bus is just slightly too high to go through. What are they going to do?

The Disappearing Penny

The town of Sandy Harbor is raising money for a new library. Various people are giving shows and holding sales to raise the funds. The kids are helping with a bake sale when Will’s little brother realizes that he accidentally charged three boys the wrong price for a brownie. He goes after them to give them the correct change, but he runs into a problem. He’s supposed to give them five cents, but since there are boys and the money can’t be divided evenly, he gives them three cents and spends the other two on bubble gum. However, he feels guilty about it and can’t figure out how to make the math of the situation come out right. Toria gives him a suggestion to straight it all out.

TACK Tactics

The fund raising for the new library was a success, so everyone is celebrating. However, they quickly realize that there’s a new problem: they forgot about the cost of moving the books from the old library to the new one. They don’t have enough money to cover the costs and buy the new furniture for the children’s room. Fortunately, Will comes up with a straightforward suggestion to solve the problem.

Holly and Her Pet Pingo

Abby returns to town for a visit, and they all take a trip to the nearby state park. Toria’s little sister Holly insists on bringing her pet ping-pong ball Pingo with her. When Pingo gets trapped in a hole, the kids have to figure out how to get it back.

The Day of the Monsters

The Sandy Harbor kids aren’t enthusiastic about the Fall Field Day because they’re competing against kids from a rival school called Monrose. The Monrose Monsters are known for cheating, so the Sandy Harbor kids know that the contests won’t be fair and that they’re going to lose. Will temporary distracts Red Jamieson, the meanest kid at Monrose, with a bet that he can kick a soccer ball so that it will move away from him and then come back to him on its own.

The Day of the Monsters – Part II

As the Fall Field Day continues, the Monrose Monsters are up to their usual tricks. The Monrose players kick the Sandy Harbor players during the soccer game, and Red Jamieson uses a mirror to blind the Sandy Harbor goalie so Monrose can score more goals. When the kids try to tell their gym teacher about it, she doesn’t really listen to them and tells them not to be sore losers. The kids realize that they’re on their own to deal with Monrose. The last race of the day is a bike race, and Chuck has to compete against Monrose mean girl Gretchen. However, there’s a twist to this contest: the gym teacher says that the winner of the contest is the one whose bicycle finishes last. How is that going to work?

The Case of the Telltale Tattletale

At the end of the tortuous field day, Red Jamieson jumped off the bleachers on top of Will, who was sitting nearby, breaking Will’s leg. The adults are convinced that Red must have fallen, but the kids who witnessed the incident know better. Will has to stay home and rest while his leg heals. His friends bring him his schoolwork and letters from the other kids at school. Soon, Will is bored and restless. He’s tired of the puzzle books his friends have given him because he wants a real puzzle to work on. Fortunately, a letter from Abby brings him the mystery he’s looking for. Someone at her new school is writing nasty notes to her teacher about all the bad things people say about her behind her back. Some of the criticism of their teacher is true, but the other kids in class never meant to make her feel bad because they don’t like her jokes or think she looks funny. They’re also offended that one of the other students is spying on them and revealing things that they said in confidence. Some of the students are being punished by their parents for rude things they’ve said about the teacher, so they have reason to resent the class tattletale. All of the notes are signed with an odd ink blot. Can Will figure out who the poison pen tattletale is from his bed, 300 miles away?

Posted on by TracyC

Book List Updates

Just a quick update that, lately, I’ve been updating my Book Lists, the section of the site where I keep lists of books with specific themes.

Since I’ve been getting into the fall spirit, I’ve been updating my list of Halloween books, and I’ve added two new lists because I’ve been hearing a lot about these aesthetics online:

Cottagecore Style Nostalgic Children’s Books

A list of vintage and nostalgic children’s books that fit the cottagecore aesthetic.

Dark and Light Academia Nostalgic Children’s Books

Nostalgic children’s books which fit the aesthetics of dark and light academia, focusing on a love of books, learning, knowledge, and self-discovery.

Not everyone will agree with how I’ve categorized some of the books on these lists, but some of it is a bit subjective. As always, this site is a work in progress, so there will be changes and additions to all of these lists later. Hope you enjoy!

Posted on by TracyC

Blackbeard’s Ghost

Blackbeard’s Ghost by Ben Stahl, 1965, 1976.

This is the novel that the live action Disney film Blackbeard’s Ghost from 1968 was based on. My copy is a later edition designed as a tie-in with the Disney movie, based on the cover, but it contains the text of the original story.

The story begins with a prologue that explains how Blackbeard the pirate evaded execution for piracy by offering to collect tolls from ships on behalf of the colonial governor, Governor Eden, in the town of Godolphin. However, instead of collecting tolls from the ships, he decided to use his position for his own benefit. Knowing that he would eventually need a source of stability on land instead of spending the rest of his life at sea, he looted wood from various ships and used it to build a tavern for himself called the Boar’s Head. He hired a woman rumored to be a witch, Aldetha, to tend the tavern for him. In the end, though, Blackbeard was killed by someone who wanted to collect the bounty on him for piracy. After his death, the poor woman who tended his tavern was burned at the stake for witchcraft.

(Note: The witch burning is historical inaccuracy because no witchcraft executions in North America involved burning, at least not in English-controlled parts of the American colonies. Accused witches in North America were typically hanged. None of this story is meant to be historically accurate, but I always feel compelled to point that out in stories that make that mistake. The town of Godolphin and the Boar’s Head Tavern are fictional. In real life, Blackbeard did receive a pardon from the real Governor Eden in Bath, North Carolina, and he was eventually killed in 1718 in a battle with Lieutenant Robert Maynard and his crew, as he did in this story. However, in the book, the tavern is now owned by a descendant of Maynard’s, and in real life, Maynard didn’t have any children.)

Most of the story takes place in the 20th century, when two 14-year-old boys, J.D. and Hank, talk about how the old Boar’s Head Tavern is about to be torn down because the former owner sold it, and there’s going to be a gas station built on the land instead. They think it’s a shame because they’ve heard ghost stories about the place and think the old tavern is fascinating. The boys go to watch the workmen tearing down the old tavern, but the workmen haven’t made any progress so far. Although they’d love to loot some of the expensive woods from the old tavern, they just can’t seem to dismantle the building. They’ve been able to dismantle some of the newer additions to the building, but somehow, they can’t seem to touch the original structure. The site has been plagued with mysterious accidents. Their equipment fails, heads fall off the ends of their hammers, and workmen keep getting injured in small accidents, not enough to seriously hurt anyone but enough to keep them away from their work for days at a time.

When J.D. and Hank see the workmen leaving the building in frustration soon after arriving, they decide to go inside and look around to satisfy their curiosity and see if there’s anything of value that they can salvage before the tavern is demolished. They don’t find much of value, but they do find their way into Blackbeard’s secret dungeon under the tavern. There, they find a piece of old parchment with a satanic curse written by Aldetha. (So, apparently, people were actually right about her being a witch. Plot twist!) Inspired by this creepy message from the past, the boys realize that they can make money from other kids by capitalizing on the ghost stories about the old tavern and holding seances to contact the spirits. They don’t really believe that seances are real, but they figure that, if they can get enough ghost-story fans to come to their seances, they can make a profit from this enterprise.

Of course, the boys’ seance awakens the ghost of Blackbeard. Blackbeard is invisible to everyone except for the boys, but he’s a solid ghost, who can manipulate physical objects. The boys quickly realize that Blackbeard can be a dangerous ghost, and he’s not at all happy when he finds out that a descendant of the man who killed him wants to have his tavern torn down.

The book is available to borrow and read for free online through Internet Archive. The Disney movie is available to buy or rent through YouTube or Amazon Prime. There is also a sequel to this book called The Secret of Red Skull, which involves spies and is also available online through Internet Archive.

My Reaction and Spoilers

There is some humor in this book because only the boys are able to see and hear Blackbeard, but by the end of the story, adults become aware of Blackbeard’s ghost, too. The boys’ history teacher is helpful in finding a way to appease the ghost by helping him to negotiate to buy back his tavern using his hidden treasure. When it becomes obvious both to Maynard and the company he tried to sell the tavern to that it’s haunted, they’re willing to accept pirate gold in exchange. The company also sees that it can use the building for public relations purposes by sponsoring a pirate museum in the old tavern. It’s good news for the teacher, too, because he gets to be the director of the museum. There, he can show off his collection of pirate memorabilia and indulge his love of pirate history. The tavern continues to be haunted by the ghosts of Blackbeard and his witch friend, leaving the story open for the sequel.

As expected of Disney films, the Disney movie version of the story is quite different from the book. In the movie, the person who can see the ghost is a college track coach who is staying in the old inn, which is still being operated by elderly descendants of Blackbeard’s old crew. There is a track meet in the movie that never appeared in the book, and at the end of the movie, Blackbeard disappears, having been freed from his haunting by performing a good deed.

I prefer the concept of the boys being the ones who accidentally summoned Blackbeard’s ghost, but the boys got on my nerves at first. In the early part of the book, they bickered a lot and didn’t seem to like each other enough to be best friends, although they seemed to be friendlier with each other later, when they were both trying to figure out what to do about Blackbeard. I think the teacher character was my favorite. He takes the matter of the ghost in stride, coming up with a practical solution that helps everyone.

Posted on by TracyC

A Ghost of a Chance

A Ghost of a Chance by Joan Carris, 1992.

Punch (real name Philip) Wagner and his family are spending the summer by the sea in North Carolina, and his parents have let his friend Tom Ellis come with them. The 12-year-old boys are looking forward to exploring the area by themselves, but Punch’s father has arranged for the son of a friend of his to be their guide. At first, Punch isn’t thrilled about his father arranging for them to be led around by a boy they don’t know. Punch’s father has a very different personality from Punch. His father is a professor, very academic, so Punch doesn’t feel like he can take his father’s word that they’ll get along with this new boy. Punch and Tom particularly wanted their independence and a chance to make some plans of their own.

However, Punch is surprised to discover that his father’s old friend is a laid-back, jovial man who calls his father “old crawdad.” His son, Skeeter Grace, is a little younger than Punch and Tom, which makes Punch even less enthusiastic about having him as a guide. Skeeter Grace doesn’t seem to be any more excited about hanging out with Punch and Tom as they are with him, but the adults suggest that Skeeter take the other boys for a boat ride. Punch’s pretty older sister, Lila, says that she’d like to go with them. Punch warms up to Skeeter when he finds out that he participates in dolphin watches run by Duke University because he loves dolphins, although he considers Skeeter a bit of a know-it-all.

When Punch tries to ask Skeeter if he plans to work with the dolphin researchers when he grows up, Skeeter becomes oddly touchy. Punch mentions it to his father, and his father explains that nobody in Skeeter’s family has been to college before. His father is a carpenter, and it isn’t expected that Skeeter will attend college, either. Punch’s father points out that it must be difficult for Skeeter to want something that he doubts he’ll ever be able to get.

Punch is particularly interested in an old house nearby where Blackbeard once lived. He tries to persuade Skeeter to come with him and Tom to check it out, but Skeeter warns them not to go there. For one thing, that house is owned by somebody who wouldn’t like them trespassing, and for another, Skeeter is firmly convinced that the house is haunted by the ghost of Blackbeard. Lila says she doesn’t know why the boys are so interested in Blackbeard because he was a horrible person who killed people and “used women” (no details given, but you get the idea). Punch’s main interest is the stories about Blackbeard’s hidden treasure. He wants to be the one to find it.

The boys go by Blackbeard’s old house, now called Hammock House, and they’re started by the sound of something hitting the roof and dropping down to the ground. When Punch picks up the small object, he discovers that it’s a small plastic skull with glittering red eyes. It’s startling, but it doesn’t seem likely that a real pirate ghost would toss them a plastic skull. Tom thinks maybe it’s some kind of warning, but Punch thinks that Skeeter probably tossed the little toy skull in the air when they weren’t looking, just to scare them.

Punch eventually persuades Skeeter to help him and Tom search for the treasure by pointing out to him that he would be able to afford college if they found Blackbeard’s treasure. He sees how badly Skeeter wants to go to college when Skeeter jumps on the project, bringing along a metal detector and helping the other boys dig and do research. At first, Punch just thought of the project as a fun summer adventure, but when he realizes what a big difference it would make to Skeeter to really find the treasure, the hunt becomes much more serious. Punch knows that searching for the treasure is a long shot, and it would be disappointing if they never found anything. Since it will be several more years before Skeeter will be old enough for college, they don’t have to succeed this summer, and the boys discuss making it an annual project every summer.

To make the most of this summer, they want to spend some time camping out and searching for treasure. Punch’s mother is reluctant to let the boys do that until Lila says that she’ll go with them. Lila knows that the boys are searching for treasure, and she encourages them to get into the mindset of being pirates as much as possible.

While the boys are using a metal detector, they find an old metal box. The contents don’t look like pirate treasure, but they appear to be someone’s treasure. There’s an old Bible, some jewelry, and a couple of tarnished silver baby spoons. On one hand, the boys are pleased to have found something, but on the other, it’s not as grand as what they had hoped to find. Lila says that the jewelry could be valuable, and the boys think that the local historical society might be interested in the old Bible. Skeeter explains that there used to be an old whaling community in the area they’re searching, but it was often damaged by storms. He says people sometimes buried valuables, knowing that their homes could be damaged or destroyed by storms. He figures that the owner of this particular box could have been killed in one of the storms, which is why he never returned for his box. They find some other boxes that appear to have been lost in a shipwreck, including one with spices and one with bottles of alcohol, but none of them are what they’re really looking for.

More and more, Punch becomes convinced that the only place where they should be looking for Blackbeard’s treasure is around his old house. He finally persuades Tom and Skeeter to come with him and have a look.

However, the house doesn’t seem as empty as the boys assumed it would be. Punch’s dog seems afraid of the house, and they still don’t know where the little plastic skull came from. Then, the boys hear a frightening scream, like the screams of a girl who was supposedly murdered by Blackbeard years ago. Is the house really haunted?

My Reaction and Spoilers

For most of the book, the boys are doing things like watching the dolphins, camping out, and digging for treasure in various places. The question of whether or not Blackbeard’s old house is haunted is the main mystery of the story, but the story doesn’t really become about that until almost the end of the book. Punch has the little skull to puzzle over before that, but it isn’t until the boys return to Hammock House to look for buried treasure that they become truly concerned with the ghosts that seem to be haunting the place.

There is a logical explanation behind the hauntings, at least some of them, making this the kind of Scooby-Doo Pseudo-Ghost Story that I always liked as a kid. In a way, this story is also a kind of MacGuffin story. It’s not so much what the kids find as the adventures that they have during the search that are important. The boys’ fathers understand because they later confess that they also hunted for Blackbeard’s treasure when they were young. It seems that, even though Punch thinks of his professorial father as being very different from him, when he was young, he was much the same sort of boy that Punch is now. Skeeter’s dreams of studying marine biology also do not depend on finding Blackbeard’s treasure. When his father finds out that’s what Skeeter really wants to do, he’s supportive, and Punch’s father, as a professor, offers some useful advice about scholarships.

There is some alcohol use in the book. There is a part of the story where the boys find a box with old liquor bottles and drink the contents, pretending like they’re pirates drinking rum. The boys get drunk and make themselves sick, and when Lila catches them, she lectures them about how they could have died. My first thought was that only an idiot drinks from random bottles that they just find. Even though they thought they were probably whiskey bottles, “probably” doesn’t seem good enough to just start drinking it. Also, Lila is right that they could have killed themselves from drinking too much. It is possible to die from alcohol poisoning by drinking way too much liquor of any kind all in one sitting, as kids they would be hit much harder than full-sized adults, and not having any prior experience with alcohol, they have no sense of their own limits. I’ve heard of college parties where people have died from alcohol overdose because they were new to drinking, didn’t know when they were going too far, and were in an environment where people were encouraging drinking to excess rather than learning restraint. What I’m saying is that the boys were in real danger because they were too young and inexperienced to understand the danger they were in. Fortunately, the boys learn their lesson without any lasting harm, and making themselves sick means that they’re unlikely to make the same mistake again.

Posted on by TracyC · 1 Comment

The Secret of Skeleton Island

The Three Investigators

The Secret of Skeleton Island by Robert Arthur, 1966.

In the original editions of The Three Investigators, their cases were introduced by Alfred Hitchcock. Later editions of the books were rewritten to remove Alfred Hitchcock, but I’m using the version of this book that includes Alfred Hitchcock for my review.

At the beginning of the story, Alfred Hitchcock himself brings the boys a new mystery and an acting job. Of the three boys, only Jupiter has done any acting before. However, Alfred Hitchcock knows that Pete’s father is a movie technician and that he’s working on a new suspense film. When Hitchcock speaks to the boys, Pete’s father is helping to restore an old amusement park on an island off the southeast coast of the United States that will be used in the movie. The name of the island is Skeleton Island because it’s shaped like a skull, and other formations around it look like part of a skeleton. It was once a place where pirates hid out. Sometimes, people still find buried bones there, and the island is supposedly haunted. The problem is that someone has been stealing equipment from the movie company and sabotaging their boats. Hitchcock wants the boys to discover who is behind the theft and sabotage. As their cover for the investigation, the boys can take part in a short film being shot at the same location, about a group of boys searching for pirate treasure.

When the boys arrive at Skeleton Island, they hear about the Phantom of the Merry-Go-Round. Supposedly, years before, there was a girl who was riding the merry-go-round at the amusement park when there was a terrible storm. The girl, Sally, refused to get off the merry-go-round with everyone else, and she was killed when the merry-go-round was struck by lightning. Since then, the merry-go-round supposedly runs by itself, and Sally’s ghost rides it. The amusement park has been abandoned for years, but people still report seeing Sally’s ghost and the running merry-go-round.

The man who was supposed to bring the boys to the island, Sam, maroons them in the wrong place at night during a storm. They are rescued by Chris, a young diver who originally came from Greece, who was hoping to get work in the movie industry and is currently looking for treasure because he needs money to help his father. He says that he has sailed the area many times in his boat, and he tells the boys the legend of the pirate who was executed there, Captain One Ear. Nobody was able to find his treasure, and he went to his execution saying that Davy Jones had it. People have believed that the treasure is lost at sea, dumped overboard by Captain One Ear, and occasionally, a gold doubloon washes up on shore on the island, which seems to indicate that’s what happened. (ch 3)

As the boys approach the island with Chris, they see what looks like the lights of the merry-go-round with a pale figure among the horses. It looks like a girl in a white dress, and they hear the music of the merry-go-round. The Three Investigators want to go see the ghost and investigate, but Chris refuses. Instead, he takes the boys to the boarding house in town.

When the boys tell Pete’s father and the other movie people about their night’s adventures, they learn that Sam is known as a local prankster and troublemaker, and he’s been in trouble with the law before. Could he be behind the thefts, sabotage, and apparent hauntings? Some people suspect Chris because he’s a foreigner, local people don’t trust outsiders, and everyone knows that Chris needs money for his father, who has health problems. Maybe he could be stealing from the movie company to get money. On the other hand, the movie people are suspicious of some of the local fishermen. Some of the local people suspect that the movie people are secretly looking for pirate treasure instead of making a movie. Then, the boys learn about a robbery that took place in the area years before and are told that the robbers have recently been released from prison. It seems like there’s no end of suspicious people!

The Three Investigators think that the culprit behind everything is someone who was to drive away the movie company and keep people off the island. Who could that be, and what is there on the island that someone wants to protect?

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

My Reaction

I enjoyed this book because of its abundance of suspects! I kept changing my mind about what was really happening and who was behind it. Because there were several mysterious things happening at once – lost pirate treasure, ghost at a haunted amusement park, sabotage of the movie crew, old robbery with the money never found and the robbers recently released from prison, and suspicious locals suffering from a failing local economy – it occurred to me that there might even be multiple plots being staged by multiple people. There is one main scheme, and it is the one that I thought would be most likely, but there’s plenty of adventure and plot twists along the way. In the end, things are wrapped up neatly without any hanging plot threads.

Posted on by TracyC

Mystery of the Haunted Pool

Mystery of the Haunted Pool by Phyllis A. Whitney, 1960.

At the beginning of the story, Susan Price is traveling alone to visit her Aunt Edith. Her father is in the hospital, and her mother and brothers are tending to things at home. Her family wants her to make a good impression on Captain Daniel Teague, who lives in Aunt Edith’s town. Her father’s doctor has advised him to move to the country, where there is less air pollution, and the family would like to move to the small town along the Hudson River where Aunt Edith owns an antique store. However, the only available house that would be big enough for the family would be the Teague house, and Captain Dan hasn’t decided whether to rent or sell his house to them or not. Before Susan arrives, she isn’t sure what’s going on with Captain Dan and the arrangements regarding his house, but it turns out to be a complicated situation involving her aunt’s antique business, the Teague family history, and Captain Dan’s grandson, Gene.

When Susan’s bus reaches the bus stop, Aunt Edith isn’t there to meet her, so she walks to her aunt’s store. Aunt Edith apologizes for not meeting her. The reason why she didn’t is that a woman named Altoona was hanging around her shop, and she didn’t want to leave Altoona there alone. Lately, Altoona has been acting suspiciously, snooping around the shop as though she’s looking for something but doesn’t want anyone to know. Aunt Edith doesn’t know what Altoona is looking for, but it’s making her nervous. In particular, Altoona seems interested in a barrel of old books that Aunt Edith is selling on commission for Captain Dan, but Aunt Edith doesn’t want her looking through them until she’s had a chance to examine them herself.

Aunt Edith says that she’s known Altoona since they were children. Altoona was raised by her father and an older sister, both of whom were strict and unloving. Altoona led a very restricted life until her father and sister both drowned in a boating accident. Since then, Altoona has been indulging herself by spending her inheritance on antiques. However, rather than being a good customer of Aunt Edith’s, Altoona has turned into competition. She seems to delight in trying to beat Aunt Edith to some fascinating antique. Altoona seems to be on the trail of some new discovery, but Aunt Edith doesn’t want to give her the chance to poach something that might be right under her nose in her own shop.

Since Aunt Edith’s husband died years before, she’s been living in a back room of her shop. With her brother and his family wanting to move to the country, she’s planning on helping them get a house and living there with them. Aunt Edith has her eye on a particular house owned by Captain Daniel Teague, but he’s been reluctant to sell, which is why it would help if Susan made a good impression on him. Captain Dan has been living in a big old house with his grandson, Gene, but it’s an expensive house to maintain for just the two of them. He’s been considering renting it to Susan’s family with an option for them to purchase it later. However, he’s been dragging his feet on making a final decision because he wants to make sure that he approves of the Price family and that Aunt Edith won’t sell any of the antique furnishings from the house in her shop without permission. Also, Gene is upset at the idea of moving, and Captain Dan is concerned about Gene.

Aunt Edith explains that Gene is just a little older than Susan and that he was injured in an accident a couple of years before. He was hit by a car, and he’s been in and out of the hospital for treatment. Even now, his leg is stiff, and he has to wear a brace. Susan witnesses his frustration when she watches him trying to play basketball alone the first time she meets him. She can tell that he’s been trying really hard to overcome his disability, but things are still very hard for him. Susan is touched by Gene’s struggles and his stubborn efforts to succeed. She also discovers that he has strength and coordination in his arms, even though his left leg is very weak. When she asks Gene to teach her how to shoot baskets so she can impress one of her older brothers, she begins to realize that sometimes Gene tries too hard, and it makes his situation harder on him. When he gets tense, he has more trouble than when he’s relaxed.

Gene confesses to Susan that he feels guilty about being hit by the car, not only because he got hurt but because of what it’s done to his family. He admits that it was his fault for not looking more carefully before crossing a nearby highway. He feels terrible because his grandfather has spent most of his savings to pay for the hospital and doctors’ bills, and his mother had to get a job in New York City to pay the rest. Gene’s reluctance to move out of the family’s old home is that he knows how much his grandfather loves it, and he would feel even more terrible if his family lost the house because of his careless accident. The two of them seem to be getting along until Susan tries to climb a nearby rock, and Gene angrily tells her not to.

Captain Dan turns out to be a nice man. He’s called Captain because he used to be a river boat captain. He comes from a long line of sailors. When Susan tells him about meeting Gene and how Gene got angry at her for trying to climb a rock, Captain Dan tells her not to try too hard to accommodate Gene and his moods. He says that Gene’s biggest improvements have only come recently, when he started pushing Gene to work harder to improve. He thinks that Gene was a bit coddled up to that point and that he was too discouraged by the doctors’ predictions about what he wouldn’t be able to do anymore without really trying to test his limits and see what he could do for himself. In a way, Captain Dan is actually in favor of the Prices moving into their big family home because he knows that Susan has brothers. He thinks that having other boys around will be good for Gene, getting him to participate in more activities and push himself a little more.

One thing that’s making Captain Dan hesitate is the idea of having Aunt Edith in his house. He admits that he finds it difficult to say no to her when she wants something, and she’s been urging him to let her sell some of his old things in her shop. He’s concerned about what she might talk him into parting with next if she were living in his house. When Gene finds out that Aunt Edith talked his grandfather into parting with that barrel of old books, he gets angry again and talks back to his grandfather.

Susan is surprised at Gene’s rudeness and disrespect, but his grandfather says that part of that comes from Gene not liking himself much right now. Because Gene is unhappy with and disparaging of himself, he’s unhappy and disparaging with everyone. That’s part of why Captain Dan has been pushing Gene to improve himself, to give him more confidence and self-respect because he will see that he still has the ability to improve. Captain Dan also realizes that Gene has an intense attachment to their family home and family heirlooms because he takes more pride in their family’s history than in himself, thinking that he’ll never be able to be proud of himself now. Aunt Edith says that Gene’s father, a pilot who died in a crash, was also a decorated pilot during WWII. When Gene was younger, before he was injured, he was a much more active boy, and his father was proud of him for it. Aunt Edith thinks that Gene worries that his father would be ashamed if he saw his current condition.

Susan likes Captain Dan for his kindness and understanding of Gene. She’s not sure how much help her brothers would be with Gene, though. Her brother Adam, the closest in age to Gene, probably wouldn’t have much patience with a boy like him. That’s probably why Susan’s family decided that Susan would be the best person to break the ice with Captain Dan and Gene.

Susan tells Captain Dan that she saw Altoona watching the house when she came up to see him, and he says that he knows about Altoona’s obsession with antiques. He’s not sure what Altoona is looking for, but he thinks it must be some kind of antique. Mrs. Bancroft, Captain Dan’s housekeeper, says that the family has a secret. Aunt Edith says that rumor has been around their small town for years, but she doesn’t know what sort of secret it’s supposed to be, and with a town full of people who all know each other and each other’s family history, she can’t imagine what could still be secret about the Teague family.

Then, Susan finds an old ship’s log book in the bottom of the barrel of books that Aunt Edith got from Captain Dan. It’s the log book for the Flying Sarah, the ship that one of the Teague ancestors sailed. Aunt Edith returns the log book to Gene because she knows it must be a family heirloom, more valuable to the Teague family than anyone else. However, Gene is still sore about Aunt Edith having the barrel of books, and Susan catches him sneaking into the shop one night while Aunt Edith is out. He says that he wants one of the books, but he refuses to say which one he wants or why. Susan thinks that Gene knows more about his family’s secret than he’s telling and that his concern about the books has something to do with it. It seems like Gene may be on the trail of the same thing Altoona is searching for, but what is it? Captain Dan also seems to know, but he tells Gene in Susan’s presence that it doesn’t matter.

Susan gets a hint from Altoona when Altoona tells her that the old Teague house is haunted by the ghost of Sarah Teague, the wife of the captain who sailed the Flying Sarah, which was named for her. Altoona says that Sarah’s husband was murdered on the Flying Sarah and that Sarah took over the family’s shipping business after his death. Then, Sarah drowned in the little pool in the woods near their house. Altoona says that Sarah promised to come back and haunt the house if things didn’t go her way, but what does that mean?

Susan does some research in an old book about ships and discovers that the captain of the Flying Sarah had been carrying a valuable shipment of jewels for a friend when the ship was attacked by pirates. He died from the wounds he received from the pirates, and the pirates apparently took the jewels along with other valuable objects from the ship. After her husband’s death, Sarah Teague insisted on taking responsibility for the lost jewels and repaying the owner for their loss, which was financially crippling for the family. The book also repeats the story about Sarah Teague haunting the old family home. Soon after Susan and Aunt Edith move into the Teague house, someone break in during the night, apparently looking for something. Susan goes to look at the pool where Sarah drowned and thinks that she sees a strange face looking back at her from the water. What message from the past does Sarah Teague have for them, and what secret has the Teague family been hiding for generations?

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

My Reaction and Spoilers

For much of the book, the exact nature of the Teague family secret is a mystery to Susan, although readers can probably make a pretty good guess at what Susan eventually finds. Part of the difficulty is that the Teagues themselves don’t seem to quite understand what they really have. They know part of the secret, but only part of it. When Susan discovers the rest, it changes things for Captain Dan and Gene. Susan’s brother, Adam, helps Susan with the mystery for part of the book, but Susan is the one who makes the final discovery.

Altoona is kind of a rival/antagonist for solving the mystery, but not an evil one. She appears to be going through a kind of finding herself phase since the deaths of her father and sister. Her family was repressive, so for the first time in her life, she is taking advantage of opportunities to get involved with community activities and indulge her own whims. She dresses in strange ways because she’s trying out all of the things her father and sister would have never allowed her to wear when she was younger. She volunteers at the local library, but she has trouble deciding which books to recommend to the children who visit the library because she’s never read many of them herself. When Susan suggests to her that she should read some of the children’s books herself so she’ll know what they’re like and what they’re about, Altoona balks at the idea of an adult reading children’s books at first. However, she decides that maybe Susan is right, and when she tries some of the children’s books that Susan recommends, she says that she likes them.

Altoona’s pursuit of the Teague family secrets isn’t malicious. It seems to come from her newfound sense of independence and adventure. Figuring out the old mysteries of the Teague family is a sort of personal challenge for her and something that has fascinated her for her entire life, a fascination that she is now free to indulge. She almost messes things up by taking something that doesn’t belong to her, but it turns out to be an innocent mistake because of something Gene did, and she makes things right in the end. Altoona also comes up with a solution to the Price family’s housing problem. She says that she’s always wanted to travel, and at Adam’s encouragement, she’s decided to take an extended international trip for a year or so. While she’s away, she rents her house to the Price family so the Teague family can have their house to themselves again.

The book mainly focuses on self-discovery for Gene as a side plot to the story. At the end of the book, Gene’s problems aren’t completely solved, but he has become more reconciled to his condition and has a better understanding of things he can and can’t do because of the children’s adventures. By learning to get along with Susan and Adam, Gene becomes more ready to face other people and their reactions to his disability. When things improve for him and his family, he also seems less inclined to keep beating himself up over his accident. Things aren’t perfect for him at the end, and he’s probably never going to have completely normal use of his bad leg again. Still, there are signs that he’s mending, both physically and emotionally, and that things will get easier for him.

I like books that mention other books. In this book, the barrel of books that Aunt Edith gets from Captain Dan includes classics, like Little Women and Treasure Island. There are also books by Washington Irving, Gene Stratton Porter (known for A Girl of the Limberlost), and Harold Bell Wright and some “novels about an imaginary kingdom called Graustark.” These are all real authors and books. Aunt Edith says that some of them aren’t old enough to be considered real antiques, but this book was written more than 60 years, so modern standards would be different. Part of the story also includes books that have hidden pictures drawn on the fore-edges of the pages, which can only be seen when the pages are held at an angle. This type of fore-edge drawing or painting is something that can be found in real antique books.