Mystery of the Silent Friends by Robin Gottlieb, 1964.
Nina Martin loves her father’s antique store. Although selling antiques is how her family makes their living, there are some that Nina finds it difficult to let go of when someone wants to buy them. Nina especially doesn’t want her father to sell the two automatons that she calls Henri and Henriette. The automatons are beautiful mechanical dolls that each do something special. Nina calls the boy doll “Henri” because he writes the name “Henri Bourdon” on a piece of paper. (Her father points out that it might be the name of the maker, not the doll itself.) The girl doll, Henriette, is a little more complicated and draws a series of different pictures. Most of the pictures seem to be of a little Swiss village, although one of them is oddly of a monkey that looks like the “speak no evil” monkey in the saying “hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil.”
For a time, it seems like there’s no risk of the automatons being sold because no one seems particularly interested in buying them. Then, suddenly, two different men come to the shop and ask to buy the dolls. Weirdly, each of them tells the same story to Nina’s father: that their name is George Ballantine the Third, that their family once owned the automatons, that the dolls are actually part of a set of three, that they own the third doll (a girl doll that plays the spinet), and that they want to purchase the other two in order to reunite the set. Nina’s father is bewildered by these two men with identical stories and identical names and refuses to sell the automatons because of his daughter’s attachment to them and because he doesn’t know which of the two men to believe and doesn’t trust either of them.
Nina comes to think of the two men as “Red Ballantine” and “Brown Ballantine” because of their different hair colors. Brown Ballantine seems to be the more credible of the two. He invites Mr. Martin and Nina to his home in order to show them the third automaton and, hopefully, persuade Mr. Martin to sell him the other two. They visit Brown Ballantine’s apartment in an old brownstone, and he shows them the beautiful, spinet-playing doll as well as the rest of his collection of mechanical toys. However, Mr. Martin still refuses to make the sale.
Nina tells her friend, Muffin, about the two mysterious Ballantines. The two girls are curious about which of the men is the genuine George Ballantine the Third and decide to investigate. When “Red Ballantine” comes to the shop again, trying to persuade Mr. Martin to sell the automatons, the girls ask if he would consider showing them the automaton he owns as a test. At first, the red-haired man is hesitant, but then he agrees that they can come and see his doll. Mr. Martin is embarrassed at the girls’ forwardness in asking, but he admits that he is also curious about the two Ballantines.
At first, they all expect that Red Ballantine won’t be able to show them the third doll and will give up trying to buy the other two, but to their astonishment, he takes them to the same apartment where Brown Ballantine said that he lived and shows them the exact same doll they saw before. Instead of clearing things up, the identities of the two men seem to get all the more confusing. However, Muffin notices something strange about the tune that the doll plays on the spinet that gives them a clue as to why the three dolls are so important. Later, someone breaks into the antique store and uncovers a hidden secret about Henri as well.
Together, the three automatons are hiding a secret, and only by considering the message that each of them offers can the girls discover what it is.
The book is currently available online through Internet Archive. There is also a sequel to this book called Secret of the Unicorn, which involves a secret message hidden in a tapestry.
My Reaction
Although I was pretty sure which of the two Ballantines was the genuine one, I was never completely sure until almost the end. In a way, I was a little disappointed by the dolls’ final secret because I though it was something that was especially old, from when the dolls were first created, but the secret messages were actually a more recent addition to the dolls’ repertoire by an eccentric man with a treasure to hide and a taste for practical jokes and riddles. Muffin is a habitual practical joker, and that partly figures into the solution of the mystery.
I thought it was kind of interesting, too, that Mr. Martin has the habit of walking around with a cigarette in his mouth that he never lights, like Inspector Cramer in the Nero Wolfe mysteries.
The Witch and the Balloon
Monkey Business
Jonathan and the Jack-o’-Lantern
Jilly was sick on her birthday and couldn’t have a party, so she and Peanut decide to hold an haunted house party, just for fun and invite all the kids in their class. The girls’ nemesis, Jennifer, and her friends are in another class and won’t be invited to the party, but when they hear about it, they make it a point to tell Peanut and Jilly how childish it sounds. However, no one else seems to think so, and the girls’ classmates are eager to come.
The Best School Year Every by Barbara Robinson, 1994.
Soup by Robert Newton Peck, 1974.
Some of the stories are laugh-out-loud funny, and some of them have kind of a moral lesson to them, like the time when Rob realized that he didn’t have the heart to lie to his mother even if it would allow him to escape punishment for talking back to the school nurse, the time when Soup and Rob tried to cheat Mr. Diskin out of some money so they would have enough to go to the movies but ended up feeling guilty, and how the boys made themselves sick by attempting to smoke cornsilk. Others are just stories of childhood events and friendship, like the story of how Rob and Soup played football and how Soup loaned Rob his new shoes when his were ruined. Even though Soup often got Rob into trouble, he really was a good friend and went out of his way to make Rob feel better when he needed it the most.
Something Fishy at MacDonald Hall by Gordon Korman, 1995.
MacDonald Hall Goes Hollywood by Gordon Korman, 1991.
This Can’t Be Happening at MacDonald Hall by Gordon Korman, 1978.
The Blue-Nosed Witch by Margaret Embry, 1956.
Blanche looks for her fellow witches but ends up joining a group of trick-or-treaters by mistake. They love her blue nose and introduce her to the idea of trick-or-treating. Thinking that even the grumpiest man in town would be impressed by Blanche’s amazing nose, they stop at his house, too. The old man isn’t impressed by anything and plays a mean trick on the kids. However, Blanche is a real witch, and she and her cat Brockett give the old man a real Halloween scare.
Triple Trouble by Michael J. Pellowski, 1988.
But, Mandy’s snobbish attitude rubs Randi and Sandi the wrong way. Mandy doesn’t want to do anything because she might get dirty or break a nail, and she keeps bragging about how grown up she is compared with her not-much-younger cousins. The twins argue with their cousin, and they play tricks on each other. When Mandy takes advantage of acting skills and her similar appearance to the other girls to try spending time with a boy they like by pretending to be them, Randi and Sandi decide it’s the last straw! They decide to show Mandy that playacting is a game that three can play at.
Jestress's Forgotten Books and Stories 