Posted on by TracyC · 2 Comments

Mystery of the Witches Bridge

Mystery of the Witches’ Bridge by Barbee Oliver Carleton, 1967.

Thirteen-year-old Dan Pride is an orphan. His father was an international correspondent, and during his early years, Dan lived in different European countries, as his parents traveled around to his father’s assignments. However, three years ago, his parents died in a plane crash. Since then, Dan has been living in a British boarding school. Now, he has returned to the United States to live with his father’s brother, Uncle Julian. Dan doesn’t know what to think about his new town because it’s very different from everything that he’s known before, but he likes the idea of belonging to a family once again because he has been lonely since his parents died.

The Pride family lives in a New England seacoast town. They were one of the founding families of the town in Puritan times, but Dan discovers that the local people aren’t particularly friendly with the Pride family. Billy Ben Corey, a man who works for his Uncle Julian, explains that the Pride family has been rather stand-offish with the townspeople, and there are also rumors and stories about witches that go back to Puritan times. Billy Ben says that most of the modern locals don’t really know all the details of the witch incidents, but the vague rumors that have circulated about the Pride family have caused the townspeople to treat them with suspicion.

This sounds like a somewhat sinister beginning to Dan’s life in York, Massachusetts as he comes to understand how much of life there is governed by the past relationships between the oldest families of the area. Billy Ben tells him that the Coreys have worked for the Prides for generations, but relations between the Prides and the Bishop family haven’t been good and that Dan should avoid them.

Dan presses Billy Ben for more information, and Billy Ben tells him the story of how one of his ancestors, Samuel Pride, was accused of witchcraft back in Puritan times. Some unfortunate happenings at the time, which were probably just the result of bad luck and bad weather, were blamed on him because he was kind of an odd, temperamental person. He was known for playing the fiddle extremely well, and people said that he used it to summon up the devil in the form of a black dog out of the marsh. The person who made the accusation and who led the group that came to arrest Samuel Pride was an ancestor of the Bishop family. Samuel came out to meet the group that came to apprehend them on the old stone bridge that leads to the island in the marsh where the Pride family has their house and farm, Pride’s Point. The story goes that when Samuel met the mob on the bridge, he placed a curse on them, that doom would come for them out of the night, out of the fog, and out of the marsh. Samuel and his wife were executed for witchcraft, and not only after, there was a terrible fog and a sickness that killed many people in town. People said that it was the result of Samuel’s curse. That’s why the Prides and the Bishops have a bad relationship even though they’re neighbors, why the townspeople are still a little suspicious of the Prides, why the Prides are somewhat standoffish of the townspeople (When you think about it, who really wants to be outgoing and friendly with people whose ancestors not only killed yours but who are not welcoming or friendly themselves because they have continually looked at you and your family with suspicion for generations, like you’re the weird ones? The townspeople basically created this situation and have been perpetuating it ever since, yet they act like the problem is with the Pride family instead of themselves. Gaslighting is a relatively new term from the 20th century, but the concept has been around forever, used even by people who don’t know what it is and that it’s what they’re really doing.), and why people in the area are afraid of the stone bridge that they call the Witches’ Bridge, the place where the curse was supposedly delivered. Even into modern times, people in the area see strange lights in the marsh and hear mysterious fiddle music or dog howls that they think might be Samuel’s ghost.

There is still more to come because the mysterious misfortunes of the Pride family have continued even into modern times. Dan is named for his grandfather, Daniel Pride, who died suddenly under very mysterious circumstances, something that still haunts his Uncle Julian. Young Dan learns the story from Mrs. Corey, a relative of Billy Ben’s, who is Uncle Julian’s housekeeper. Daniel Pride had been working to change the family’s image in the eyes of the local people, debunk all the old ghost and witch stories, and lay past quarrels to rest. To try to make peace with the Bishop family and restore the Pride family’s former fortunes, Daniel had been trying to arrange to buy the shipyards that the Bishop family owned, which had formerly been owned by the Pride family. The Bishop family initially agreed to the sale, and one foggy night, Daniel went to see the Bishops to finalize the sale. What happened after that is still a mystery. Daniel was found dead the next day near the old chapel with a look of terror on his face. It’s known that he had a heart condition, so he apparently had a heart attack, but from the marks on the ground, it also appears that he had been running before he collapsed, possibly deliberately frightened to death. Also, there were marks on the ground nearby where his briefcase fell, but the briefcase containing the sale papers was never found. The superstitious people in the area think that Daniel’s death was another symptom of the family’s curse, but it might also have been deliberate murder and theft. The Bishop family insist that they never finalized the sale of the shipyard with Daniel before his death, but Uncle Julian believes that the sale was finalized and that the Bishops are lying to take advantage of his father’s sudden death, just like their ancestors arranged the execution of Samuel for their own advantage. Uncle Julian remains suspicious and bitter about what has happened, just as the townspeople continue to look at the Prides suspiciously.

All of this makes York seem like it’s not the best place to raise a sensitive young orphan, and that’s basically what Uncle Julian says to Dan when Dan arrives at Pride’s Point. Uncle Julian seems elderly and physically frail, and Dan senses that he is a deeply troubled man. Uncle Julian tells Dan that the family and the old family home have a troubled history. That’s why Dan’s father decided to go away and live his life traveling to different places, and that’s why Uncle Julian delayed sending for Dan for so long after his parents’ deaths. Uncle Julian doesn’t seem to think that Pride’s Point is a very healthy place, and he hints at buried secrets. However, he does say that, now that Dan is there, there are going to have to be some changes.

Dan doesn’t think this sounds too hopeful, and he’s lonely and disappointed that he hasn’t found the happy family and home he was hoping for and that he doesn’t even seem particularly welcome there. He can’t even really enjoy playing his violin because of the connection people there seem to have between “fiddle” music, witchcraft, and his supposedly sinister ancestor. As Dan is looking around his new bedroom that night, he suddenly spots a mysterious flashing light from his window, outside in the marsh. It’s creepy because it not only supports all the ghost and witch stories that Dan has just heard but because he recognizes the patterns in the flashes of light as Morse Code … and the message being sent is his own name: D-A-N P-R-I-D-E.

Dan doesn’t believe that any supernatural force was using Morse Code to flash his name at night. It was obviously some human person, but who would do that and why? What is the truth about his grandfather’s death? Is Uncle Julian right that the Bishops caused Daniel Pride to die and then lied about the sale of the shipyard to cheat the Pride family? Or is someone else responsible?

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

My Reaction

I stand by my earlier statement that there is basically inter-generational gaslighting of the Pride family going on. It’s gone on for so long that the townspeople have trouble recognizing what they’re doing or stopping themselves from doing it, even though some of them seem to have the feeling that it isn’t right. At one point, some of the townspeople who come out to Pride’s Point to help fight a fire make jokes about the Pride curse. I could sense tension in them, and I think it was an attempt to lighten the mood, but under the circumstances, it wasn’t really appropriate for them to joke around, especially not about something that’s been a sensitive topic for the Prides, something that has literally caused members of their family to die and others to be persecuted for generations. Keep your audience in mind, and learn how to read a room, people of York!

Uncle Julian hates the stories and rumors that have circulated about his family since before he was born, but he doesn’t know what to do to stop it, and he sometimes wonders if it wouldn’t be better for the family to simply leave their old family home and start up again somewhere else. Mrs. Corey tells Dan that every single time anything bad happens in the area, people either look at the Prides suspiciously or find a way to blame them, even though they didn’t have anything to do with whatever it was. Dan can tell that Uncle Julian is so accustomed to having people blame him and his family for things and repeat scary stories about them that he halfway believes the stories in spite of himself, and he’s overly sensitive anytime it looks like the townspeople might be trying to blame the Prides for something yet again. That’s what makes this situation gaslighting, because the community’s constant untrue stories have warped even the Prides’ sense of reality and views of themselves. The community of York as a whole has created a situation that makes it difficult for the Prides to make friends with other people and get reality checks, and the most dangerous part of it is that among the few people that the Prides are in the habit of trusting is someone who turns out to be the person they should fear the most.

I couldn’t help but notice that there was someone in the story that Dan trusted too much in the beginning. It’s partly because Dan is young and in a situation where he is just getting to know the circumstances and people involved, but even when this person says things that are untrue, contradictory, or just plain mean, he doesn’t call him on it or seem to question within himself why this person is talking like that, at least not until about the middle of the book. Gaslighters will do this to a person, playing mind games, lying, alternately being friendly and praising their victim and then putting down their victim and/or trying to blacken their name to other people, discouraging them from getting close to people who care about them and might actually help them, acting like normal things that the victim does or feels are somehow weird or abnormal, trying to keep their victims in a constant state of confusion, unsure of what the reality of the situation really is. Although I found myself angry with the people of York in a general way for perpetuating something awful that their ancestors did for generations and for being apparently oblivious to what they’re doing in modern times, there is a definite villain in the story who is both deliberately and concretely evil.

There is a parallel drawn in the story between Uncle Julian’s big, black dog, Caliban, who is disfigured from an old injury and the Pride family themselves. Dan is afraid of the big dog, and Billy Ben tells him that it attacked him once, but Uncle Julian says that Caliban is just distrustful because he was badly abused and injured in his earlier life. People are like that, too. I understand that because I used to volunteer at an animal shelter, and that’s where I got my dog, Betty. (If you look at my About page, you’ll see a picture of Betty.)

I’ll never know Betty’s complete history because she was found wandering alone without a collar before she was brought to the shelter. However, I’m pretty good at reading between the lines, and I can read at least part of the story from her behavior. Betty is afraid of anyone, even me, walking behind her, and I’ve noticed since her shelter days that sometimes, her back end looks a little off-center when she runs. Her tail has an odd, permanent bend at the very tip that we didn’t discover until we had the hair on it trimmed. I think she’s been kicked hard from behind before, hard enough to leave permanent injury. She’s not as scared of things as she used to be after having lived with my family for a few years, but she used to be terrified of newspapers or anybody standing over her with anything in their hands, so I think she’s been hit with things before. Betty also gets scared when people laugh. She’s not as scared as she used to be because she’s gotten used to us laughing at something funny on tv, but there are times when she’s cringed and slunk away with her tail between her legs from people when they laugh and she can’t figure out why they’re laughing. Betty’s fear of laughter actually disturbs me because I think I know why it scares her. Based on her reaction, I’ve think that it’s likely that whoever hurt Betty before laughed when they did it. I think Betty has an association between laughter and pain, and that’s why she takes laughter as a bad sign, reacting fearfully to it when she thinks it might be directed at her. Laughing while inflicting pain is a sick thing to do, the product of a sick mind. There are stories in Betty’s reactions, and I’m disturbed by the mental picture I have of the person who had Betty before.

I have to admit that my own history has also both colored/given me insight into Betty’s behavior. If it isn’t obvious from comments in my previous reviews, I don’t see teasing as a positive thing. I’ve reacted to it in the past much like Betty does to sudden, unexplained laughter, which is why I understand the feeling behind it. Some people say that they like to tease their friends and people they like, but I just don’t like it, and I’ve learned to be more open and honest about how I never will like it. I do not have good feelings about people who tease others for fun, and I deeply resent being told that I have to like it because the people doing it are “just having fun.” It’s not a bonding activity, not with me, no matter who says it is. I absolutely refuse to “bond” with anyone who does it. Anyone telling me that I have to change myself to like people who tease is 100% guaranteed to get on my bad side. I have a bad history with teasing and bullying, I have a bad history with the people who do it, and I just don’t want to be around it. Teasing involves getting a laugh at someone else’s expense, benefiting from their discomfort, and getting a good feeling from making someone else feel bad. I don’t think any of that is right, and it doesn’t take much for it to get way out of hand, especially when people have the impulse press harder to get the reaction they want to their “jokes”, like the other person just didn’t get it, instead of cutting it out when their “jokes” just aren’t funny. It’s always awkward when it comes from people who don’t know the sore spots that they shouldn’t poke at and try to act like they’re special friends who should be cut some slack when the reality is that we don’t really know each other that well, we’re not really close friends, and no such special relationship actually exists between us. Real friends understand and demonstrate respect for each others’ feelings, and they don’t intentionally poke at a friend’s sore spots, like the people of York did to Uncle Julian with their jokes in this story.

What ties all of this together is that Betty’s reaction to laughter is like Uncle Julian’s reaction to the townspeople and their jokes and comments; it’s a conditioned response from long-term negative association. The townspeople are uneasy because Uncle Julian doesn’t laugh with them, but Uncle Julian doesn’t laugh with the townspeople because none of it was actually funny. By perpetuating these witch stories, even in the form of “jokes”, they’re constantly feeding the myths and ghost stories and making the situation worse, and they don’t seem to care about how he or his family feels or how it affects their lives. You can tell who respects you and who doesn’t by seeing who tries to treat you the way you want to be treated. The people of York were making jokes to soothe their own feelings, sharing in-jokes that they’ve had with each other at the Prides’ expense, and they got really uncomfortable when suddenly confronted with Uncle Julian’s, feelings that they helped to provoke and didn’t want to deal with.

Don’t worry about Betty. It’s sad that she’s been afraid of things and it’s kept her from being more outgoing and friendly, but we’re working through it. In non-pandemic times, I take her to places where I know she’s welcome, and she has acquired a fan club of people who like to see her and say hi whenever we visit. Anytime she seems uneasy because we’re laughing about something, I sit next to her, pet her, and praise her for being a Good Girl so she knows that nobody is trying to be mean to her and that we value her. When someone has been programmed through negative reinforcement, positive reinforcement is needed for balance. I’m trying to build more positive associations for her. It’s working, and she’s improving. She behaves very well and is very happy little dog when she’s treated well. Don’t worry about me, either. I’ve had some bad experiences, but I’m not the only one who’s had to deal with this stuff. There are lots of different kinds of people in the world, and I’ve learned some things about finding the kind of people I want to be around and making it clear how I want to be treated. I just gripe and vent now and then because I don’t like mean behavior or seeing others in these situations, and I’m all out of patience for it. I’ve learned what to do to help remedy such problems, but that doesn’t stop me from resenting the people who create problems that need to be solved.

The way both people and animals behave offers clues about what’s been happening with them. Sometimes, they offer warning signs of people to avoid, and sometimes, they are signs that the person or animal is in distress and needs some outside help and support. Caliban’s behavior in the story is more defensive than aggressive. That is, Caliban is reacting, not instigating … and if I saw what Dan saw in the story, I would know immediately to be very suspicious of the person Caliban hates the most because it explains where the source of harm in his life is. In a similar way, the Pride family is mostly reacting, not instigating. They have been harmed, both physically and psychologically, for an extended period of time, and while they seem to have the sense that’s the case, they’ve been too close to the problem for too long to see what the source of the greatest harm really is. But, about halfway through the book, Dan does learn to correctly read the people around him and comes to realize who is really his friend and how isn’t, based not on how others talk about them but by how they each actually treat him. When you pay attention and think about people’s actions in context, you can see who really has your best interests at heart and who doesn’t.

Dan spends much of the story, particularly at the beginning, feeling like he is unwanted, both in York and at Pride’s Point. At first, he thinks that his Uncle Julian doesn’t want him, but he gradually realizes that’s not it. There is someone else who doesn’t want Dan there, for reasons of their own. As I was reading, I noted times when this person said and did things that manipulated Dan’s feelings, even actively trying to make Dan feel bad while carefully seeming “honest” or “helpful” so Dan would continue to listen. I felt so much better when Dan finally realized the truth about this person. I have to say that I was really angry with Uncle Julian when I discovered that he was fully aware of who hurt his dog and that he still trusted this person. For me, the first hint of that would have caused me to permanently sever the relationship because it’s sick behavior and a sign of a disturbed mind, but I can only suppose that he felt unable to because he had been dependent on this person for too long, largely shunned by the wider community, who could have given him a reality check if they’d had a firmer grasp on reality themselves.

Dan, who had never heard of the Bishops before arriving in York, finds himself becoming angry and resentful of them, hating them for what they’ve done to his family for generations. His uncle even warns him not to get involved with the family, but that’s exactly what the real villain wants. When Dan makes friends with a boy named Pip Cole and his twin sister, Gilly, he confides his anger at the Bishops and how he blames them for this whole mess and for perpetuating it for generations, but Pip knows more about the situation than Dan suspects, and he has seen a different side of the problem. Pip tells Dan his family would have less problems if they would just forgive the Bishops, but Dan doesn’t believe it at first because, the way he sees it, the Bishops are the villains, who have actively profited from their villainy all along. I appreciate Dan’s situation. Pip doesn’t fully appreciate that, for Dan and his uncle, it’s not just about the past because they’re still actively suffering from the townspeople’s stories, rumors, and suspicions about them. It’s hard and maybe impossible to forgive something that’s ongoing from people who see no problem with the situation and aren’t particularly sorry. On the other hand, the resolution of this situation requires at least one of the parties involved to make the first move. Dan’s grandfather was trying, but his mysterious death prevented his mission from being completed. Even Uncle Julian reveals that he had been prepared to forgive the Bishops and marry their daughter, but some of the circumstances of his father’s death led him to believe that his fiance actually had a hand in it, and that apparent betrayal is what has left him such a haunted man all of these years.

The stories that Dan has heard about his family are not the complete story. Dan eventually comes to realize that the Prides and the Bishops each have only half of the real story, and because of their reluctance to associate with each other, the Bishops partly out of continued superstition and guilt, not knowing how to deal with the Prides’ anger, and the Prides, because they are both justifiably angry and accustomed to unfair treatment and being shunned by the community. However, it’s important that they do talk to each other because it’s the only way for each of them to get the complete picture of what’s really been happening and learn the real villain’s true motives.

The key to establishing the truth is in the missing briefcase, and both Dan and his enemy are searching for it. Dan needs to make peace with his family’s past, and he finds some help from a mysterious hermit called Lamie, who lives alone in the marsh. Lamie is another outcast of the York community. People avoid him because he has a reputation for being weird. People in this community in general may be “normal” in the sense that their behavior is fairly uniform, but uniformity by itself isn’t a virtue. When you’ve got an entire community doing something they shouldn’t, being the odd one out can be a good thing. Lamie helps Dan when he needs it, and Dan discovers that Lamie is actually a very kind and understanding person. Lamie’s solitary lifestyle is rather unorthodox, but he’s actually happy in his solitude because he knows who he is, he takes care of himself, he’s comfortable with himself, and he’s living the kind of life he likes, in touch with the natural world. When Dan talks to Lamie, he realizes that Lamie is comfortable with his own identity and at peace in his own mind in a way that his uncle isn’t. Even more importantly, Lamie sees things from a different perspective because he isn’t part of the groupthink of this community.

Lamie was friends with Dan’s grandfather, and he tells Dan about a hidden chamber built by the Prides’ ancestors, where Dan’s grandfather kept important family papers. However, Lamie tells Dan that he isn’t sure that he should look for it if his only motive is revenge. Dan does have a desire for revenge after all of the stories of injustice toward his family that he’s heard and what he’s suffered himself since he arrived in this area. Lamie helps to calm Dan’s desire for revenge by quoting from St. Francis of Assisi, emphasizing the importance of forgiveness instead of revenge. The part about truth speaks to Dan, and he comes to realize that what he really wants, more than revenge, is to know the truth about what happened to his grandfather. Lamie tells him that he saw some of what happened the night his grandfather died, from a distance. Because of the fog, he couldn’t see everything, but he knows that the Bishops were telling the truth that Dan’s grandfather didn’t make it to their place that night to complete their deal, defusing Dan’s anger at them for their supposed lies. Lamie’s memories also give him clues about the true identity of his grandfather’s attacker and the location of the secret hiding place. However, to find it and to evade his enemy, Dan will need the help of the very people his uncle has forbidden him to associate with.

I found the parts about the gaslighting of the Pride family and the poisonous duality of their true enemy frustrating and anger-inducing, but once Dan speaks to Lamie (really, my favorite charcter in the story) and begins to sort out who he can trust and who he can’t, I felt a lot better. The story is very atmospheric, with a grand old house and property, surrounded by a foggy marsh, and even when the characters know who their enemy really is, they are kind of trapped with him in a dangerous cat-and-mouse situation as they both race to find what they’re really looking for. By the end of the book, all of the old mysteries are wrapped up, including the source of the the mysterious “fiddler” music.

Posted on by TracyC

The Lancelot Closes at Five

The Lancelot Closes at Five by Marjorie Weinman Sharmat, 1976.

“Camelot” is the name of a new housing development being built in Shady Landing, New York. In the beginning of the story, Camelot has only three model homes, demonstrating what the houses in this new neighborhood are going to look like. In keeping with the Arthurian theme, the three model homes are called “the Excalibur”, “the Lancelot”, and “the Guinevere.” Abby’s family decides that they will buy a house there on the Excalibur model because they are tired of their crowded apartment in Brooklyn and Abby’s parents think that buying a house sounds like a good investment for future.

The move isn’t easy for Abby and her family. Abby doesn’t like leaving her old friends behind. There are several things wrong with the new house, including windows that are nailed shut, doorknobs that fall off, and a flooded basement. Also, the people who live in the village of Shady Landing don’t like the newcomers because trees were cut down to build Camelot.

However, Abby soon finds a friend, Heather Hutchins, who likes to be called “Hutch.” Hutch also lives in the new Camelot neighborhood. Hutch’s family is very health-conscious, believing in all-natural foods, which is why Abby doesn’t usually like to eat at their house, and Hutch’s mother is a very competitive person.

Then, Hutch springs a surprise on Abby. Hutch tells Abby that she wants to run away from home. She doesn’t want to be gone for long, just about day during the Memorial Day weekend. She doesn’t want to go far, planning to spend a night in the Lancelot model home. But, she wants Abby to come with her so she won’t be alone.

At first, Abby is a little reluctant, but Hutch is very persuasive, the idea does seem like a fun adventure, and hiding out secretly so close to home doesn’t seem too dangerous. In fact, since the public is invited to come and walk through the model homes, it doesn’t even seem like trespassing. Abby agrees to do it. The girls’ plan is to tell their families that they’re spending the night with each other but conveniently not mention where so they’ll assume that they’re just having a normal sleepover at each other’s house. Then, they plan to visit the Lancelot and hide there until it closes and all the other people leave.

When she proposes her plan, Hutch doesn’t explain her motives for wanting to run away for a day, and Abby decides not to question her, thinking that Hutch will tell her when she’s ready. She does note that Hutch doesn’t seem to get along well with her mother. Hutch’s mother doesn’t seem to connect well with other people in general, being more focused on what she wants them to do than on just acknowledging them or building relationships with them. Worse still, Hutch’s mother is what Abby calls a “scorecard mother,” always comparing her child to everyone else’s child, constantly keeping track of where Hutch is ahead and where she’s behind. Hutch’s mother has overly high expectations of Hutch and pushes for perfection. Hutch’s mother sometimes quizzes Abby about what she does to help out at home and how each of the girls are doing in school so she can compare them. Abby sometimes feels like she’s in the uncomfortable position of defending Hutch to her own mother.

The Lancelot model home is decorated in a fakey pseudo-Medieval style, in keeping with the Camelot theme. When Abby and Hutch sneak in, they pretend to be part of a family group touring the house and then hide under a bed until everyone else leaves. Their plan works, but staying in the house isn’t quite what Abby imagined it would be. The furniture is uncomfortable because it’s made to be looked at and not actually used. Not all of the appliances even work, like the tv, because they’re just for show and not for using. For their “supper”, Hutch has brought candy bars and pastries, things which her mother normally forbids her to have because they aren’t natural and will rot her teeth. Abby still can’t have some of them because she has food allergies and braces, but Hutch brings pound cake for her.

Hutch finally admits to Abby that her main reason for wanting to have this adventure is just to have the chance to do something for no other reason than she just wants to do it. Abby is right about Hutch’s mother. Everything that she wants Hutch to do is centered around gaining something – recognition, awards, physical health benefits, learning things and getting a mental edge. Hutch just wanted the chance to do something without a particular motive other than just wanting to do it and the fun of planning it out and pulling it off by herself, with the help of her friend.

Unfortunately, Hutch gets carried away with the success of her plan and turns on the lights, which attracts the attention of a passing police car, although the police just try the doors, decide that the lights were left on by accident, and leave without finding the girls. Then, Hutch doesn’t want to go to sleep and stays up, eating candy bars in bed, just because she’s normally not allowed to do that. Abby is uncomfortable in the big, fancy bed that isn’t meant to be slept in and can’t sleep, so she leaves and goes home, making Hutch mad. Abby spends the rest of the night sleeping in her sleeping bag in her family’s basement (which is no longer flooded) so she won’t give away Hutch’s secret.

Later, Abby feels guilty about abandoning Hutch, so she sneaks out early in the morning to check on her. Hutch got out of the Lancelot without being noticed, but she’s still mad at Abby for leaving her when she was trying to do something that was important to her. However, there is worse to come. The police hadn’t forgotten about something strange happening at the model home that night, and now, there’s a rumor in the neighborhood that the house was “vandalized” during the night (meaning the mess that the girls left in the house from the food they ate, trying to sleep in the bed, and using the bathroom). Abby is naturally a more timid person than Hutch, and while she has started to appreciate Hutch’s attempts to help her be more bold and take more chances, it makes her nervous that she and Hutch are the “vandals” whose escapades have now made the local paper. Abby’s father, an author, is even attempting his own investigation into the matter.

Abby is not only worried about repairing her friendship with Hutch but not getting found out for what they did. Then, one of the boys at school starts bragging, claiming that he and his friend were the ones who snuck into the Lancelot to hang out that night. He’s not the only one trying to claim credit for the stunt, either. Abby hopes that the whole thing will just die down and be forgotten, but Hutch doesn’t feel the same way. Even though she originally set out to do something just on a whim without looking for recognition, the idea that someone else might claim recognition for what she did galls her. What will happen when Hutch tries to reveal her role in masterminding the night in the Lancelot?

I purposely sought this book out online because I never owned a copy and I remembered it from when I was in elementary school, but the funny thing is that I don’t remember ever hearing the entire story when I was a kid. I think that my class might have just read a selection from the book, maybe as part of one of those story collections that has excerpts from books to demonstrate certain concepts and give samples of stories. I can’t quite remember now. All I remembered was that the main escapade was just a part of the story that took place at the beginning of the book, and the rest was about what happened because of the girls’ secret nighttime excursion. It makes the book a bit different from other children’s books about kids running away and hiding in usual locations, like From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, where most of the book takes place during the kids’ adventure and the kids’ parents are barely seen. In this book, the girls are mostly at their own homes, and the parents have prominent roles.

Runaways generally have two motives – getting away from something or going in search of something, and when you really think about it, they frequently have both. Hutch’s adventure is both about escaping from her mother’s oppressive rules and emphasis on perfection as well as undertaking something unusual and pulling it off for the sense of personal achievement. However, even though Hutch at first insists that she wanted to do it just for the sake of doing something that she wants, with no expectation of recognition or reward, it turns out that isn’t completely true. Part of the reason why she wanted Abby along was to get a sense of recognition from her for the accomplishment as well as her company. Her bad feelings toward Abby for abandoning their adventure and going home were partly because Abby didn’t value that type of uncomfortable adventure as much as she did and didn’t fully acknowledge the cleverness of her plan. Even if it started out as just a fun escapade, undertaken as a brief chance to break a few rules in secret, Hutch badly craves acknowledgement, just not in the form of the constant comparisons he mother makes between her and other people. What Hutch really needs is just to be acknowledged for being herself and to feel valued, no matter how she compares to others. In her attempt to make things right with Hutch again, Abby does something that she never thought that she would ever be bold enough to do: give Hutch’s mother a piece of her mind.

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

Posted on by TracyC · 1 Comment

From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler

From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler by E.L. Konigsburg, 1967.

Twelve-year-old Claudia Kincaid is bored with her dull suburban life in Connecticut with her parents and her brothers. Her life also often seems unfair, like she has more responsibilities than her brothers do and she has more chores than her others friends. Basically, Claudia is bored and feeling unsatisfied with her life. She wants to get away from it all and have a little adventure … although not too much adventure because Claudia isn’t the overly-adventurous type.

Claudia is cautious and methodical. When she plans to run away from home, she carefully plans every step and invites her more adventurous nine-year-old brother Jamie to go with her, both for the companionship and because he is a tightwad and has the cash necessary to fund their adventure. Although Claudia and Jamie bicker as siblings, they’re closer to each other than to either of their other brothers. Jamie eagerly accepts Claudia’s proposition to run away, although at first, he’s a little disappointed when he finds out where they’re going.

Claudia plans for them to run away to New York City because, as she puts it, it’s “a good place to get lost.” The city is so big, Claudia is sure that two runaway children will be easily overlooked. She’s also found a great place for them to stay during their adventure: the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Claudia loves comfort, convenience, and beauty, and the museum can offer all of that without the fees of staying in a hotel. There are exhibits of furniture, which provide them with a bed to sleep in, and interesting exhibits to keep them entertained and educated, and all they have to do is evade the security guards. At first, Jamie thinks that sounds a little too tame, but their adventure soon proves to be exciting and challenging, with enough mystery to satisfy both of them.

Claudia and Jamie develop routines for sneaking around the museum, evading the guards, hiding the backpacks and instrument cases that hold their clothes, and raiding the coins in the fountain for extra money. One day, while they’re hiding in the restrooms and waiting for the museum staff to leave, the staff set up a new exhibit for an angel sculpture sold to the museum by the wealthy and mysterious widow Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, who is actually the person narrating Claudia and Jamie’s story in a letter to her lawyer.

Claudia develops a fascination for the angel and a desire to learn the truth about the theory that the statue was made by Michelangelo. Between the two children, Claudia is the more imaginative and romantic, but Jamie’s logical mind and zest for adventure serve them well as they delve deeper into the mystery. They do learn something important at the museum, but to get the full truth, they have to leave their planned hiding place in the museum and go see Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler herself.

Mrs. Frankweiler is a delightfully eccentric student of human nature, who is fascinated by the young runaways who come to her for answers to a mystery hundreds of years old. In exchange for the details of their exploits, Mrs. Frankweiler gives the children a chance to locate the answers they’re seeking in her strange, mixed-up files. In the process, the children learn a secret that gives both of them the sense of being part of something secret and exciting and much bigger than their ordinary, hum-drum lives, which is what they were originally looking for when they ran away from home.

The book is a Newbery Award winner, and it is available to borrow for free online through Internet Archive (many copies).

My Reaction

During the course of the adventure, Claudia and Jamie become closer to each other than they were before they ran away from home. They learn a little more about each other and themselves, and neither of them is quite the same as they were before they started, which is at the heart of Claudia’s reasons for wanting to run away from home in the first place. The language and descriptions in the book are colorful, which is part of the reason why this book is popular to read in schools.

There were two movies made of this story. One is a made-for-tv movie version from 1995, although it changed some of the details from the original story. In the 1995 movie, there is a scene with Jamie getting sick and Claudia worrying about him and taking care of him that never happened in the original book. Also, in the movie, Claudia stops Jamie from taking the coins from the fountain when they had no qualms about raiding the fountain for money in the book. At the end of the book, the children don’t tell their parents where they were hiding when they return home, but in the movie, the parents do find out. There is also an older movie from 1973 which is sometimes called The Hideaways.

Posted on by TracyC

Mystery Madness

Mystery Madness by Otto Coontz, 1982.

While Murray’s parents are on vacation, his older sister, Blanche, is in charge of the house. One day, he calls Blanche to get a ride home from the dentist and hears what he thinks is Blanche shooting their housekeeper.

Earlier that morning, he had heard Blanche talking on the phone to someone about a gun. Then, when he calls home, a friend of Blanche’s, Harold, answers, and Murray hears a gun going off in the background and Blanche apologizing to the housekeeper and talking about blood on the carpet. When Murray gets home, his mother’s Persian rug is missing and sees what appears to be a head in a bucket under the sink in the kitchen, further proof that the housekeeper is dead and that her blood stained the carpet.

Murray doesn’t know what to do because he is sure that his sister would never shoot anyone on purpose, and he doesn’t want to see her go to jail. He consults a private detective, Mat Cloak, who he met in a doughnut shop, for help.

The detective agrees to look into the case, and along the way, he realizes that it has connections to a case that he is already investigating. What really happened to the housekeeper? Is Blanche really guilty of murder? Moreover, who is the strange man who is following Murray around?

It’s a very funny story with some twists that readers won’t be able to guess right away. Part of the mystery is pretty obvious because Blanche is a theater student, but the real mystery is one that Murray isn’t even trying to solve and the real villain is someone who Murray thinks is a victim.

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

Posted on by TracyC

The Mystery of the Silent Nightingale

Three Cousins Detective Club

#2 The Mystery of the Silent Nightingale by Elspeth Campbell Murphy, 1994.

Sarah-Jane’s baby-sitter and friend, Kelly, is graduating from high school. Soon, she will be going away to college. Sarah-Jane is sad that she is leaving, but she is happy her family was able to find her a nice graduation present.

After they pick out their present, Sarah-Jane sees a locket with a nightingale on it in a store window. The nightingale is a Christian symbol for joy, and Sarah-Jane thinks that it would have made a nice present for Kelly if they didn’t already have one.

To everyone’s surprise, someone else buys the locket and leaves it at Kelly’s house. Sarah-Jane feels a little strange that someone else took the idea that she’d had for Kelly’s present. However, it is even more mysterious that there is no note or card with it to say who it is from. Kelly asks the cousins to help her find out who gave her the locket so that she can thank them. As it turns out, the present isn’t just an ordinary graduation present. It’s actually a thank you from someone who has been grateful to Kelly for a long time for a kindness she wasn’t even aware that she had done. Sarah-Jane even had a hand in it herself although she also wasn’t aware of it. Sometimes, it’s the smallest good deeds that can make the biggest difference in someone’s life.

The theme of the story is joy.

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

Themes and Spoilers:

The person who left the present for Kelly is Janice, who works for Kelly’s father. The kids had wondered why she seemed to recognize them when they stopped by Kelly’s father’s office early to show him Kelly’s graduation gown. It turns out that Janice has been grateful to Kelly for years for something kind that Kelly did for her when the cousins were very young. Kelly always used to read to the cousins when they were small, particularly Sarah-Jane. She took Sarah-Jane and the others to the library the day that Sarah-Jane got her first library card. That same day, Janice was also at the library.

Janice had never learned to read and was unable to finish her education. For a long time, she was ashamed to admit to anyone that she couldn’t read. Then, she heard about classes at the library for adults who had never learned to read and decided to go there. When she got to the library, she didn’t know where the classes were being held. She couldn’t read the signs, and she was too embarrassed to ask the librarian. There were some people she knew in the library, and she was so afraid of any of them finding out why she was there that she almost left. Then, Janice saw Kelly with Sarah-Jane and the boys. She saw how happy Sarah-Jane was to get her new library card, and she decided that she really wanted to learn to read, too. Janice knew that Kelly wouldn’t look down on her like some adults would, so she asked Kelly to help her find the class. Kelly helped her, even though she forgot about it later, and Janice was grateful to her for keeping her from backing out.

After Janice learned to read, she was able to finish her education. When she realized that the girl who had helped her years ago was her boss’s daughter, she wanted to give her a present. She wanted it kept secret at first because she was still embarrassed that it took her so long to learn to read. She was worried about what her boss would think of her. However, Kelly’s father doesn’t hold it against her, and Janice’s strict supervisor, Dorothy, even asks her to help tutor her grandson, who has been having learning difficulties.

Posted on by TracyC · 1 Comment

Mystery of the Secret Dolls

Mystery of the Secret Dolls Cover

Mystery of the Secret Dolls by Vicki Berger Erwin, 1993.

Bonnie Scott is visiting her great-aunts, Nell and Mollie, in Callaway County over the summer. Aunt Nell invited her to come and help set up her new doll museum, but Bonnie also wants to take advantage of the trip to work on a project about family history. Aunt Mollie has a restaurant, and Bonnie wants to talk to her about old family recipes that she uses and make a book about them. Unfortunately, when Bonnie arrives in her aunts’ town, she learns that Aunt Mollie has closed her restaurant and is helping Aunt Nell with her doll museum. From Bonnie’s awkward arrival, when no one comes to meet her at the bus stop and Marc, the grandson of the local doctor, Dr. Allen, has to help her find her way to her aunts’ house, she begins to see that things aren’t quite what she thought they were in her family and in her aunts’ town.

The reason why no one came to meet Bonnie is that Aunt Nell accidentally injured herself when she fell off a table she was standing on in order to change a light bulb. She broke her leg and had to go to the doctor. Now that Aunt Nell is in a wheelchair, she says that she will especially need Bonnie’s help, although Aunt Nell and Aunt Mollie also have a young black girl, Lynette Key, staying with them and helping out. Lynette is the daughter of an old family friend, and her family’s history is intertwined with Bonnie’s family. Through her aunts and Lynette, Bonnie comes to understand a little more about her family’s history with dolls and the relationship between Aunt Nell and Aunt Mollie.

Aunt Nell is the older of the two sisters, and she’s been bossing Aunt Mollie around for years, and she’s apparently the one who convinced Mollie to close her restaurant and help her with the doll museum project. The old family home belongs to both of them, although Mollie lived in another house while her husband was still alive. Now that both women are childless widows and Mollie has moved back into the family home, Nell has gone back to her old ways of bossing Mollie around. Bonnie is alarmed when Mollie reveals that there has been a break-in, vandalism, and a fire, apparently deliberate, at the museum, and she thinks that Nell should put off the opening, but Nell is trying to ignore the situation and charge ahead with the project, dragging Mollie and Bonnie with her. The aunts are going to have a security system installed at the museum.

Aunt Nell says their family, the Scotts, have made dolls for about 150 years. She shows Bonnie her doll collection, including the portrait dolls, startlingly realistic dolls made of every member of their family, including Bonnie’s ancestors, like her great-great-great-grandfather who fought for the Confederacy during the Civil War. Aunt Nell apparently strongly identifies with the South and Confederacy because she keeps trying to blame the troubles at the museum on “some Yankee.” Not in a specific sense and not necessarily with any particular person in mind (although there is one person who is also labeled as a Yankee who is a suspect for awhile), it’s more that she just generally associates Yankees with bad stuff, and she says that she hopes that Bonnie hasn’t turned into a Yankee from living in a big city like St. Louis. Although the dolls belong to both of the sisters, Aunt Nell really thinks of the dolls as being hers, and she’s determined to make Bonnie’s family history project about the dolls, whether Bonnie wants it to be or not. Aunt Nell says that Lynette’s grandmother used to work for her, making dolls, and she’s pleased that Lynette shares her interest in dolls, but Lynette privately tells Bonnie that the situation goes deeper than that.

As you might have guessed, Aunt Nell’s mental version of history, including the history of her own family, isn’t entirely accurate. Marc lends Bonnie a history book about the area written by his grandfather, but Lynette tells Bonnie not to let Aunt Nell see it because she and Dr. Allen have very different views about history, and Dr. Allen is a “Yankee.” Bonnie asks her what she means by that, and Lynette says that the Scotts have never gotten over being on the losing side of the Civil War. Dr. Allen, by contrast, believes that the Civil War turned out just fine with the South losing, which makes him a Yankee. It matters because Aunt Nell’s interpretation and attitude toward the past is affecting life in the present.

Although Aunt Nell is mentally on the side of the Confederacy, she doesn’t say anything in support of the idea of slavery and doesn’t seem to have bad feelings about Lynette being black. Nell is actually very fond of Lynette, treating her almost like a young niece, and I suspect that Nell probably mentally replaces the word “slave” with “servant” in her head, as some of the other characters in the book do until Lynette reminds them that there’s a difference and it matters. Nell’s attachment to her family’s grand history (which may not be quite what she makes it out to be) and her feeling that the doll-making business must pass to a blood relative keep her from fully seeing the potential that Lynette has to continue the doll-making traditions that their families both share, something that Lynette really wants to do.

Lynette says that women in her family have worked for the Scott women for generations, making dolls. They were originally slaves belonging to the Scott family, and they even shared the same last name because slaves were sometimes given the surnames of their masters. (In my home town, I’ve met black people with the surname White, which might seem a little odd and contradictory, but this is the probable reason why they have that last name.) Some slaves changed their last names after Emancipation, but not all. Lynette says that even after her ancestors were freed from slavery, one of her ancestors, Rosa, chose to keep the last name Scott because of her connection to the doll-making business.

Lynette points out a section in Dr. Allen’s history book about the Scott dolls having a connection to the Underground Railroad because some of them seemed to have been used as signals for escaping slaves. Margaret Scott, an ancestor of Bonnie’s, used to make black dolls, each with a distinctive little red heart sewn on the chest, and after she made one, a slave would mysteriously disappear. She eventually had to stop doing it because people in the area were getting suspicious of her and put pressure on her to stop. In fact, Lynette says Margaret’s own father, the Confederate colonel, tried forced her to stop, saying that he’d close down her doll-making business if she didn’t, but that Margaret and Rosa actually continued making the black dolls in secret, something that Aunt Nell doesn’t believe. The history book notes that the dolls are rare and valuable collectors’ items. Lynette says that Aunt Nell only has one of these black dolls, and she keeps it locked up for safe-keeping, denying that there even are others, but Lynette is sure that there are more, possibly hidden somewhere. Lynette wants to find these dolls, not only because they are valuable but because they can help prove her family’s connection to the Scott doll-making business. Lynette says that her ancestors never got the credit for the beautiful dolls they made because they were only ever slaves or employees of the Scotts, and the entire doll business was in the Scott family name.

Lynette wants to become a doll maker herself, but Aunt Nell really wants Bonnie to take over the family tradition, even though Bonnie has never really been interested in dolls and would prefer to talk cooking and recipes with Aunt Mollie. The realistic dolls portrait dolls actually kind of give Bonnie the creeps, but Lynette has a sentimental attachment to them because she’s been around them all her life, since her grandmother was a doll maker. Once Bonnie understands the history between her family and Lynette’s and Lynette’s doll-making ambitions, she sees why Lynette seemed a little cold to her at their first meeting, but she isn’t interested in learning the doll business or competing with Lynette to be Aunt Nell’s successor. Even though Aunt Nell is bossy and doesn’t understand Lynette’s deep desire to be a doll maker and continue the Scott doll-making business, Lynette kind of likes her and wants to show her that she is just as attached to the doll-making traditions as she is. Lynette and Bonnie make a deal that Lynette will help Bonnie get the recipes she wants from Aunt Mollie if Bonnie will talk to Aunt Nell about the black dolls and try to get more information about them.

Bonnie thinks that hunting for the long-lost dolls sounds exciting. It occurs to her that the valuable dolls might be the reason why someone broke into the doll museum. The aunts’ old house is spooky, right next to a graveyard, and on Bonnie’s first night there, someone leaves Margaret’s portrait doll (which looks a great deal like Bonnie) in Bonnie’s room with a note that says, “Don’t believe everything you hear.” What does the note mean? Who left the doll, and is it connected to the other strange things happening around the doll museum? Is someone trying to scare Bonnie? Are the missing black dolls still somewhere nearby, and can Bonnie and Lynette find them? What is the real truth about the dolls and what happened in Callaway years ago?

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

My Reaction and Spoilers

Although this story doesn’t quite deal with racism in the sense of people hating other people because of race, there is a lot in here about the nature of prejudice, on several levels. Aunt Nell has many preconceived notions about her family and how things in her family ought to be. She assumes from the beginning, when Bonnie contacts her aunts to talk about family history, that Bonnie will do her project about the dolls and the family’s doll-making history and that Bonnie will help her with her doll museum and eventually take over the dolls from her. Aunt Nell started out their relationship with a lot of assumptions, and her assumptions about Bonnie have blinded her to the possibility that Lynette could be the successor to the doll-making business and doll museum that she really wants because they share a common love of dolls and skill in making them. Lynette has already started learning the doll-making business, first from her grandmother and then from Nell, because she loves it, and she is willing to work at developing her skills. She has a similar vision to Nell about the doll business and museum, and the two of them get along well, in spite of Aunt Nell’s bossy personality. It’s only Aunt Nell’s narrow vision of family and sense that the doll-making business should pass to family that keep her from considering the possibility at first. Meanwhile, Bonnie and Mollie are both being forced to go along with Nell’s plans because of what Nell thinks they should do as family, while they both have very different interests and would like the freedom to pursue them. Aunt Nell also has been assuming many things about her sister Mollie for years.

Over 100 years earlier, Margaret Scott also belonged to a family that did not share her interests and her vision of the future. Although she used slave labor in building her doll-making business, she and Rosa found a way to use their craft to help escaping slaves. The Scott family took pride in the doll-making business for generations, but there were sides to Margaret and the dolls that they didn’t understand and appreciate. Before the end of the book, Aunt Nell comes to understand that their family has more variety than she had ever considered and that her goals might not be everyone’s goals.

The ending of the story makes sense and is realistic, but I’ll admit that there were a couple of points that I might have clarified or done differently if I had written the ending. Sometimes, when I’m not entirely satisfied by the ending of a book, I like to say what I would have changed about it, but it’s difficult to do that here without giving too much away. Part that I can say is that I wished that Nell and Mollie had thought of more creative ways to combine their separate interests, like how Bonnie’s final family history project ends up being a combination of both – a cookbook of family recipes, illustrated with pictures of the portrait dolls that represent the people who invented or enjoyed the different recipes. In fact, a cookbook of historical recipes with pictures of historical dolls sounds like a book that many people would actually be interested in buying if they published it professionally and even sold copies through the doll museum, and I found myself wishing that one of the characters would mention that before the end of the book.

The story ends with the impression that Lynette will keep working with Nell and the dolls because, while Bonnie says that she’ll come back and visit, she doesn’t have the interest in doll-making that Lynette does, but I also kind of wished that they would clarify more definitely that Lynette would be continuing the doll-making business. The girls are young yet, so maybe they didn’t feel the need to decide their futures definitely, and it’s enough just to show that’s how things are looking at the end of the book. I had half expected that it would turn out that Lynette and Bonnie are actually related because sometimes slave owners did have children with their slaves, and I suspected that one of the Scott family secrets might have been that Rosa was actually a blood relative and that was part of the reason why she was so close to Margaret and why she kept the Scott family name. The story doesn’t bring up that possibility, focusing on a different secret relationship instead, but I’m still keeping it in mind as a private theory. I like the idea because, if it was true, then it would strengthen Lynette’s ties to the doll-making business she loves, and I think that Nell would appreciate the idea of bringing her more fully into the business as a relative. But, perhaps it’s enough that they just both share the same interest in life

Posted on by TracyC · 1 Comment

The Mystery of Drear House

The Mystery of Drear House cover

The Mystery of Drear House by Virginia Hamilton, 1987.

This book is the continuation of The House of Dies Drear, and the final book in the short series.

The Smalls are now settled into the house that formerly belonged to the abolitionist Dies Drear, who used secret tunnels to help smuggle escaping slaves to freedom as part of the Underground Railroad. Thomas Small’s father is a college professor, who finds the history of the house endlessly fascinating, especially now that they know about the hidden treasure that the caretaker, Mr. Pluto has been guarding for many years.

Apart from the Small family and Mr. Pluto, Pesty is only other person who knows where the hidden treasure is. Pesty (a nickname, her real name is Sarah) is the adopted daughter of the Darrow family, who live nearby. The Darrows are generally known to be nasty and scheming, and they have spent years looking for the treasure they know that Dies Drear hid. In the last book, Pesty helped the others to frighten off the Darrows when they were getting too close to the secret, but Thomas is still concerned that they might be a threat. He also privately questions Pesty’s loyalty, wondering if she’ll continue to keep the secret from the Darrows, although Mr. Pluto is confident that she will because she knew the secret of the treasure even before the Smalls did.

Mac, a boy about Thomas’s age, is the youngest of the Darrow brothers, and he’s not as mean as the rest of his family. Thomas kind of wants to be friends with him, but he’s not sure if he can really trust him. Mac tells Thomas that he can come over to visit sometime and that his mother is an invalid who sometimes spends months in bed. When Mac shows an interest in Thomas’s great-grandmother, who is coming to live with them, Thomas gets the idea to bring his great-grandmother over to the Darrow house to visit Mac and Pesty’s mother.

However, before they can visit Mrs. Darrow, she comes to visit them, entering their house through one of the secret passages that Thomas and his family haven’t learned about yet. She startles Thomas’s great-grandmother with her sudden arrival, and Thomas is irritated that Pesty didn’t tell him about that secret passage even though she knew about it. Pesty explains to them that her mother is mentally ill, a chronic condition of some kind, and she gets a little odd during times when she doesn’t take her medicine. Thomas’s great-grandmother seems to understand the situation, and she insists on escorting Mrs. Darrow home.

In the secret tunnel Mrs. Darrow used to come to their house, there are hidden rooms, and when they all arrive at the Darrow house, Mrs. Darrow begins telling them a kind of odd story, really little bits and pieces of stories that she has told Pesty and Mac before. Pesty seems to have a better understanding of what Mrs. Darrow is talking about than Mac does, but Thomas can tell that Mac has heard his mother tell these stories before and that he is also trying to get a better understanding of them. For some reason, Pesty seems to be holding back information from Mac as well as Thomas.

The story that seems to concern Mrs. Darrow the most is about an Indian Maiden (Native American). She seems to get upset at first when Thomas mentions that Mac had mentioned an Indian Maiden before. It turns out that the Darrows are part Native American, and the “Indian Maiden” is one of their relatives from the past. She played a role in the Underground Railroad with Dies Drear but lost her life when she was caught. The Indian Maiden was hiding secrets that Pesty is still trying to protect, and she has also been worried about Mrs. Darrow, who sometimes acts out part of the old story as if she were the Indian Maiden herself.

Meanwhile, it seems like someone is playing the ghost of Dies Drear and trying to frighten Mr. Pluto into telling him about the hidden treasure. Thomas and Pesty see the tracks of this person one day when they go to visit Mr. Pluto. The relationships between the different members of the Darrow family are complicated, and not all of them are really after the same thing.

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

My Reaction and Spoilers

Mrs. Darrow’s mental illness and the different motives of the younger Darrows vs. the older Darrow boys and their father are at the heart of much of the mystery and peculiarity of the Darrow family. Mac actually opposed his father and brothers the last time they tried to get the hidden Drear treasure, and since then, they’ve been shunning him. Pesty tries to look after Mrs. Darrow as best she can, but she’s been handling the job largely by herself, and at the same time, she could really use the support of a mother who can look after her. Pesty doesn’t really like all of the secrets that she has been forced to keep, but for a long time, she hasn’t felt safe in confiding the full truth of anything to anybody. She feels even more left out of the Darrow family than Mac is because she’s their adopted child, not a blood relative, even though she is always looking after Mrs. Darrow and thinks of her as her “Mama.”

The solution to many of the problems with the Darrows comes with the public exposure of the Drear treasure and the end to all the secrecy. The Smalls decide to give Mrs. Darrow the credit for finding the treasure, so although Mr. Darrow is angry that he will never get his hands on the hidden treasure that he and his family have searched for so long, they will get part of the reward money for finding it. The foundation that receives the treasure also gives jobs to Mr. Small and Mr. Darrow, changing the lives of the Darrows for the better. Even though Mr. Darrow didn’t get what his family originally wanted, they end up with something that improves their situation, and they no longer feel the need to hide Mrs. Darrow’s condition from everyone. The Darrows are freed from part of their past, and now, they’ll be able to go forward with their lives. Mr. Darrow also shows that he really cares about his adopted daughter.

The Darrows are a mixed race family, and their heritage is in keeping with real events in American history. People with mixed black and Native American heritage are sometimes colloquially known as “Black Indians,” and people with that type of mixed ancestry have existed in the Americas since Colonial times. By the end of the story, the Darrows’ full history isn’t completely explained in detail, but it seems that it was probably Dies Drear’s work with the Underground Railroad that brought their ancestors together. Freed and escaped slaves did sometimes intermarry with Native Americans.

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The House of Dies Drear

DiesDrearThe House of Dies Drear by Virginia Hamilton, 1968.

Thomas Small, a thirteen-year-old African American boy, is moving from North Carolina to Ohio with his family in order to live in an old house with an unusual history.  His father is a history professor and has rented a house for them that was once owned by an abolitionist named Dies Drear.  Dies Drear was part of the Underground Railroad that smuggled escaping slaves out of the South around the time of the Civil War, and his old house still has secret passages from that time.  The local people believe that Dies Drear still haunts the house along with the ghosts of a couple of slaves who never made it to freedom.

The caretaker of this strange old house is a strange old man called Mr. Pluto.  He lives on the property in a cave that he has made into a house.  Mr. Pluto frightens Thomas, and Thomas is sure that he’s hiding something.

The Smalls’ new town is a close-knit community that doesn’t welcome outsiders. The people seem unfriendly and suspicious of the Smalls, especially the Darrow family.  They know something about the secret passages at the house, but Thomas’s parents don’t want him poking around the passages anymore after he is briefly lost in them.  However, that is where the real secret of the house lies.

Thomas comes to believe that someone is sneaking into the house at night, using the old secret passages.  One night, this person leaves three small metal triangles at the bedroom doors.  These mysterious triangles seem to fit together, but there also seems to be a missing piece.  The Smalls have no idea what these pieces mean or who put them there.  Mr. Pluto holds many of the answers, and he is going to need their help to protect the secret that he has kept safe for many years.

The book is currently available on Internet Archive (multiple copies).  The book won the Edgar Award for Best Juvenile Mystery in 1969.  There is also a made-for-tv movie version of the book.  Sometimes, you can find it or clips of it on YouTube.

There is a sequel to this book called The Mystery of Drear House.  There are only two books in this short series.

My Reaction and Spoilers

I love how the Smalls help Mr. Pluto deal with the Darrows in the end, using the ghost stories about the house to their advantage.  There are hints that besting the Darrows, although it hurt their pride, may actually lead to a better relationship with them in the future.

Thomas and Pesty (a nickname for the young adopted daughter of the Darrow family, her real name is Sarah) are also memorable characters.  Pesty is brave for learning the secret that her family has tried to learn but choosing to protect it instead of reveal it.  Thomas is a thoughtful boy who, because of his earlier upbringing, actually feels more comfortable around older adults than around people his own age.

If you’re wondering about why the abolitionist had a strange name like “Dies Drear”, it isn’t exactly explained.  At one point, the story says that he was from New England.  A possible explanation that I found online is that Dies might actually be another form of the Germanic surname Diess, which may be related to the Biblical name Matthias.  Perhaps Dies Drear might have some Germanic ancestry.  Some people use the mother’s maiden name as a first or middle name for a child.  But, that’s just a theory.

Some teachers use this book to introduce students to the concept of the Underground Railroad.  While I was researching the book online, I also found this pdf of classroom worksheets related to the story. (I had a link to a different set of worksheets before, but those were removed, and I found a different set.)  If you’re looking for additional lesson plans, I suggest looking at Teachers Pay Teachers, where teachers can buy lesson plans from other teachers.  (I’m not sponsored by them, I just know about them from a friend who is a teacher and think it’s a useful resource.)

One final point that I would like to make is that there are no white characters in the story.  Dies Drear was a white man, but he doesn’t actually appear in the book, having died over 100 years before.  Every character who does appear in the book is black.  The funny thing is that I can’t remember any point where the book explicitly describes the characters as black.  It might be my memory playing tricks on me, but I seem to remember knowing that they were all black as I read the book, but I can’t think now why I knew it, and I don’t remember a point where the book actually described anyone’s appearance.  I think I probably knew it partly from context, perhaps subtle hints in the story, but it might also be that I knew what the book was about before I read it because someone told me.  I might even have seen the movie version at some point before reading the book, although I’m not sure now because it’s been years since I first read this story, and I can’t remember if I read the book or saw the movie first.  The movie or clips of it sometimes appear on YouTube.  It’s also available on dvd, although I haven’t seen many copies available.

Posted on by TracyC

What Eric Knew

What Eric Knew by James Howe, 1985.

After his friend, Eric, moves away, thirteen-year-old Sebastian Barth receives strange messages from him, hinting at a mystery in the small college town of Pembroke. Eric always used to rope his friends into investigating things and having adventures, but before his family moved away, he started acting strangely and suffered an accident falling downstairs and breaking his leg.

Sebastian shares the notes with his best friend, David, and with Corrie, the new minister’s daughter. Corrie’s family has moved into the house where Eric used to live, near the church and graveyard. Eric’s notes seem to refer to a local legend about the ghost of a prominent woman, Susan Iris Siddons, who used to live in their town and supposedly searches for her lost wedding ring. Corrie thinks she sees this ghost in the graveyard. There is also something mysterious going on in the church, where the Siddons family still maintains a tradition of ringing the bell regularly at 9 o’clock in homage to their ancestors, Susan and her husband, Cornelius.

The dark secrets of the past mix with the troubles still surrounding the Siddons family. Can Sebastian and his friends solve the clues and learn what their friend Eric knew?

The book used to be available to borrow online through Internet Archive, but when I checked recently, it was no longer there.

My Reaction

The story leaves some things unresolved. The kids are never entirely sure how much Eric discovered before he moved, but they do learn that he recruited a couple of friends to help create the appearance of the ghost, possibly to draw attention to the real problem in modern times, which has nothing to do with the supernatural, although there is another troubling secret about the past that the kids uncover, too.

Both sets of problems do center around the prominent Siddons family and the pressures that the current family members, especially the younger generation, suffer as they try to keep up appearances and live up to images of their supposedly perfect relatives. The past secret explains one of the reasons why the Siddons family isn’t as perfect as they had always pretended to be and helps to put the “ghost” of Susan Siddons to rest. This is not a mystery story for very young children because of the dark and serious nature of the problems with the Siddons family. I would say the book would be best for ages 10 and up. The only question at the end is how much of these things Eric really knew.

Posted on by TracyC

Who Knew There’d Be Ghosts?

Who Knew There’d Be Ghosts? By Bill Britain, 1985.

Tommy Donahue and his friends, Wendy “Books” Scofield (the smartest kid in their class as well as being pretty tough) and Harry “the Blimp” Troy (known for being the tallest and biggest kid in their class), prefer playing around the abandoned Parnell house instead of at the park because they like to play games of pretend, based on adventure stories that Tommy has read.  It’s hard to play games of pretend in such a public place as the park because other people either laugh or think that they’re just getting in the way.  Almost nobody goes near the old Parnell house because people think that it’s haunted.  They’re right; it is haunted.

Some people in their town have been trying to arrange for the Parnell house to be turned into a museum because the Parnells were the founding family of their town, but the movement hasn’t been able to raise the money needed to renovate the place.  Now, Tommy’s father, a lawyer, has been recruited to arrange for the house to be purchased by a private citizen who says that he wants to renovate the house and use it as his own residence.  However, Tommy and his friends overhear the buyer, Avery Katkus, and a confederate talking as they look over the house.  Mr. Katkus isn’t interested in the house at all; he wants something valuable that is hidden inside.  When they hear the two men plotting to sneak into the house at night to do some searching for this mysterious something, the kids decide that they will come back at night and watch for them to find out what they’re looking for.  The kids don’t want anything bad to happen to the house because they’ll lose their private playground.

Tommy is the first to go and check out the Parnell house at night, and that’s when he meets the ghosts, Horace and Essie Parnell.  At first, Horace tries to scare Tommy away, but when Tommy explains that he only came to keep watch, Horace asks him what he means by that.  Tommy explains to him about Mr. Katkus, and Horace says that he could use Tommy’s help.  Years ago, Horace’s father made a dying wish that all members of their family should be buried in the family cemetery on the property of the house.  Most of the members of the family are buried there, but Horace, who was killed during the Revolutionary War, and Essie, who accidentally fell overboard from a riverboat and was permanently lost in the Mississippi River, were only two Parnells who were not buried on the property, so their spirits are now bound to the house.  Naturally, Horace and Essie are concerned with the future of the house.

Tommy tries to tell his friends about the ghosts, but they don’t believe him until they see the ghosts for themselves.  When the three kids return to the house the next night, Horace saves them from being attacked by Mr. Katkus’s hired confederate.  Now convinced of the ghosts’ existence, Harry and Books are eager to help save the house, and the key in doing so is discovering what kind of hidden treasure the house holds.

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