Posted on by TracyC

Rosy Noses, Freezing Toes

Pee Wee Scouts

#13 Rosy Noses, Freezing Toes by Judy Delton, 1990.

At one of the scout meetings, Mrs. Peters, the troop leader, says that her antique vase is missing. It’s a family heirloom, and Mrs. Peters wants to ask the scouts if they know anything about its disappearance or if they have any idea of what could have happened to it. None of them knows, but they’re fascinated by the mystery. After they search the house and can’t find it, Mrs. Peters says that she’ll just have to report its disappearance to the insurance company. Mrs. Peters is willing to let the matter go at that, but the scouts keep wondering what happened to the vase and if one of them could have taken it.

Mrs. Peters tells the scouts that the next badge they will earn will be their music badge. To earn the badge, the children will have to sing or play an instrument or tell the group about the life of a composer. Some of the children already play instruments and know what they’re going to do, but others aren’t sure. Since it’s December, Mrs. Peters suggests that some of them could sing popular Christmas songs or a Hanukkah song.

Sonny Betz declares that he doesn’t want to participate because he can’t play an instrument and over the next few days, he seems upset and nasty with people. Molly asks him what the matter is, and Sonny tells her that his mother is forcing him to take violin lessons. Mrs. Betz has always wanted Sonny to learn to play the violin, and his new violin teacher has assured her that Sonny will be able to learn the first line of Jingle Bells in time for the scouts’ music show, even though it’s coming up fast. Sonny isn’t happy about it, and to make him feel better, Molly tells him that he’s lucky because nobody else will be playing the violin and it will make him different. Unfortunately, the other kids tease him and call him “Maestro,” so he starts feeling bad.

Molly doesn’t like the way the others keep teasing Sonny, and when Tracy says that Sonny is a baby, Molly tells her that it’s not his fault because his mother is the one who makes him take violin lessons and keep the training wheels on his bike even though he’s in the second grade and all the other things that people tease him about. Mrs. Betz doesn’t realize how much Sonny hates some of the things that she makes him do and how much the other kids tease Sonny about these things. Molly overhears her mother saying that Sonny will “be a handful by the time he gets to high school,” probably because she’s imagining that Sonny will rebel against all things his mother has been making him do once he’s a teenager. Actually, it’s not going to take that long.

Mrs. Peters uses the insurance money from her vase to buy a piano. The scouts’ music show goes okay at first, although none of the kids are spectacular at music. Molly, Mary Beth, and Lisa paint their noses red and sing Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. Kevin whistles. Roger plays White Christmas on the drums with no other accompaniment, confusing everyone about what song he’s actually playing. Poor Sonny has to go last, when everyone is starting to get tired of the entertainment, but he doesn’t play well. The other scouts cover their ears, and the screeching of the violin makes the dog bark and Mrs. Peters’s baby cry. Sonny is so upset that he runs away from the show and has a fit.

The next day, Molly learns that Sonny has run away from home completely, leaving behind a note that he’s heading to Alaska. Everyone is searching for Sonny and getting worried about him being outside alone in the snow. However, Molly soon discovers that Sonny hasn’t gone as far as everyone fears and he’s certainly not on his way to Alaska. She discovers Sonny hiding in her family’s bathtub. Sonny explains to her that he didn’t have the money to go to Alaska, but he couldn’t bring himself to go home, and he picked Molly’s house to hide in because Molly is the only one who didn’t tease at him. Molly promises not to turn him in, but she says that he won’t be able to stay in her bathtub forever. His mother has called the police to report his disappearance, and Molly’s parents are bound to find him eventually. Sonny swears that he can’t go home because he hates playing the violin so much. What can Molly do to help him change his mind?

I didn’t like the way the other scouts were so mean to Sonny in the book. Sonny does do childish things, like being mean to the younger kids on the playground when he’s upset and throwing fits when things go wrong. However, Molly tries to be understanding with Sonny, even when he’s being fussy and whining, and she recognizes that Sonny is in a difficult position. His mother has certain expectations of him, and Sonny doesn’t think that anything will change her mind. The way things work out, though, makes it seem like Sonny never really explained to his mother how upset he was about the violin lessons and maybe not even how upset he’s been about some other things. Part of Sonny’s difficulty and the reason why he seems babyish to the other kids is that he seems to have trouble managing and articulating his emotions, including standing up for himself and what he really wants. Some of the other scouts help Molly to convince Sonny that running away isn’t the solution, and Molly calls Mrs. Betz to tell her that Sonny is okay but won’t come home until she promises that he can stop playing the violin. Sonny declares that he wants to see that in writing, and his mother gladly writes him a note that says that he doesn’t have to play the violin again.

So, what about the antique vase mystery from the beginning of the story? Before the end of the book, they do locate the missing vase (not really stolen, more misplaced and forgotten), but Molly accidentally breaks it. Mrs. Peters says that it’s okay because, with the vase broken, she doesn’t have to give the money back to the insurance company, and she gets to keep her new piano. She’s been wanting a piano, and the truth is that she never really liked the vase, even though it was a family heirloom. Yay? Merry Christmas!

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

Posted on by TracyC

Meet Molly

Molly, An American Girl

MeetMolly

Meet Molly by Valerie Tripp, 1986.

MeetMollyThreatMolly McIntire misses her father, who is a doctor stationed in England during World War II.  Things haven’t been the same in her family since he left.  Treats are more rare because of the sugar rationing, and she now has to eat yucky vegetables from her family’s victory garden all the time, under the watchful eyes of the family’s housekeeper.  Her mother, while generally understanding, is frequently occupied with her work with the Red Cross.  Molly’s older sister, Jill, tries to act grown-up, and Molly thinks that her brothers are pests, especially Ricky, who is fond of teasing.  However, when Molly and her friends tease Ricky about his crush on a friend of Jill’s, it touches off a war of practical jokes in their house.

MeetMollyHalloweenTrickHalloween is coming, and she wants to come up with great costume ideas for herself and her two best friends, Linda and Susan.  Her first thought is that she’d like to be Cinderella, but her friends are understandably reluctant to be the “ugly” stepsisters, and Molly has to admit that she wouldn’t really like that role, either.  Also, Molly doesn’t have a fancy dress, and her mother is too busy to make one and also doesn’t think that they should waste rationed cloth on costumes.  Instead, she suggests that the girls make grass skirts out of paper and go as hula dancers.  The girls like the idea, but Halloween doesn’t go as planned.

Everyone loves the girls’ costumes, and they collect a good number of treats in spite of the war rationing, but Ricky takes his revenge for their earlier teasing by spraying them with water and ruining their costumes and all of their treats.  When the girls get home, and Mrs. McIntire finds out what happened, she punishes Ricky by making him give the girls the treats that he’s collected, except for one, which she allows him to keep.  However, to the girls, this seems like light punishment, and they’re offended that he got off so lightly.

MeetMollyRevengeBecause he laughed at the girls, saying that he could see their underwear after he sprayed them with water and ruined their skirts, the girls decide to play a trick that will give Ricky his just desserts.  The next time that Jill’s friend comes to visit, the girls arrange to have Jill and her friend standing underneath Ricky’s bedroom window when they start throwing all of his underwear out the window, right in front of Ricky.  Ricky screams at the girls that “this is war!” just as their mother arrives home.

Their mother makes it clear that war is a serious thing, not a joke.  There is a real war on, and their childish pranks are wasting time and resources (like the food that Ricky ruined on Halloween – sugar is rationed, and some of their neighbors had gone to a lot of trouble to save their rations to give the kids a few treats).  She also points out that this is how real wars start, with “meanness, anger, and revenge.”  Faced with the reality of what they were doing, Molly and Ricky apologize to each other and clean up the messes that they each made under their mother’s direction.

In the back of the book, there is a section of historical information about what life was like for civilians in America during World War II.  People with relatives overseas worried about them, but people in service had to be careful about what they said in letters home, in case those letters were intercepted by enemy forces.  Some of the luxury goods that people were accustomed to having became more scarce, although the rationing wasn’t as bad in the United States as it was in Europe (this is covered more in a later book in the series) because certain types of materials had to be saved for the war effort (like the metals used to make cans for food, which is why victory gardens were important) and because factories that ordinarily made civilian goods were converted to make equipment for the armed forces.  For example, they mention that car factories were making things like tanks and airplanes and clothing factories were making tents and uniforms.  People referred to the efforts that civilians were making to save needed materials for the war as “fighting on the home front,” reminding themselves and others that the small sacrifices that they made each day, like driving their cars less to save gas or raising food for their families, helped to make a big difference for a larger cause.

The book is currently available online through Internet Archive.

Posted on by TracyC · 1 Comment

The Secret Life of the Underwear Champ

UnderwearChampThe Secret Life of the Underwear Champ by Betty Miles, 1981.

Ten-year-old Larry lives in Connecticut, but one day, while he and his mother are visiting his dentist in New York City, he gets spotted by the Zigmunds.  The Zigmunds own a modeling agency, and they think that Larry will be perfect for a series of tv ads.  At first, Larry is kind of excited about the idea of being on tv and earning extra money (maybe enough to get a new ten-speed bike!) until he realizes what he’s going to be advertising: underwear.

The Zigmunds like Larry because he’s a clean-cut, athletic kid who likes to play baseball, and the advertisements are supposed to feature a family playing sports together . . . in their underwear.  Larry also happens to have red hair, just like the girl already picked to play his sister in the commercials, Suzanne.  Suzanne has been in advertisements many times before, and the idea of advertising underwear doesn’t bother her at all.  The underwear kind of looks like athletic clothes and isn’t really revealing, but it’s still underwear.  Larry goes from feeling proud of his new tv advertising career to hoping that no one at school ever finds out about it.  But, how can Larry even hope for that when his underwear-clad form is going to be displayed on everyone’s tv set?

UnderwearChampPic1Now, Larry is wondering what he’s gotten himself into.  He worries about his filming schedule conflicting with baseball practice and makes up excuses about needing to visit the dentist when he has to film a commercial.  Money or no money, Larry just wishes that his life would return to normal!

After the filming is over, Larry starts to feel better about what he’s accomplished.  He and Suzanne have become friends (and she may possibly be his first girlfriend), and learning about the world of advertising was kind of fun.  But when the commercial actually makes it to tv, and Larry tells his best friend Robert about it, the dreaded teasing starts.

In some ways, Larry’s fears about teasing don’t turn out to be as bad as he fears, although it seems like it at first.  Robert laughs at him when he sees the first commercial and realizes why Larry’s been sneaking around and making excuses, but Larry tells him off for being mean and challenges him to think how he feels about it all.  Robert feels a little bad about laughing but says that he can’t help it and that other kids at school will react the same way.  He’s partly right, but he does help to put a stop to it, and the other kids do calm down.  Larry even enjoys some minor fame because he’s the only one of the kids to have been on tv at all.

There’s a lot of humor in the story, but it’s also surprisingly thoughtful as Larry considers why people find the idea of seeing someone in their underwear so funny.  After all, everyone wears underwear of some kind, even the President of the United States.  It’s a normal part of everyone’s wardrobe and a common part of everyday life.  The other people in the ad don’t act self-conscious while they’re being filmed in their underwear because it’s just part of their job, another part of daily life.  The book doesn’t mention sex, although the “mother” of the family in the ads gets a few whistles when she’s in her underwear, and Larry acknowledges that he and Robert sometimes giggle over advertisements with girls in their underwear.  Larry’s main conclusion is that people laugh about underwear because that’s just not how people normally see each other, so it seems weird.  After everyone has seen the commercial with Larry many times, people get used to the idea and it doesn’t seem so weird, so they get over the “funny” part and stop laughing.  Eventually, the other kids at school stop thinking so much about the underwear and just think it’s kind of cool that Larry was in a commercial.

The book is currently available online through Internet Archive.

Posted on by TracyC

Return of the Third-Grade Ghosthunters

return3gghostThe Return of the Third-Grade Ghosthunters by Grace Maccarone, 1989.

This is part of the Third Grade Ghosthunters series.

The same kids who were assigned to figure out the mysterious happenings at their school are now going on a field trip to a farm with their class. They’ll be spending a couple of days on the farm, sleeping over.  Adam has been looking forward to the trip, and he brings his ghost hunting gear with him, just in case.  He hasn’t lost his taste for ghost stories since their last adventure.

At first, things are pretty normal.  Then, during the night, the boys hear howling and see apparitions of a ghostly wolf in their bunk house. Could the farm be haunted?  Or is this some kind of mean joke?  Perhaps it’s the work of the class bully, Jeff? The ghost hunting committee assembles again to solve the mystery.

return3gghostpic2They try to use scientific methods to study the haunting.  They measure the placement of the furniture to see if anything moves while they’re out and sprinkle flour on the floor to get footprints.  But, even though they watch carefully and don’t see anyone enter the bunk house, when they go inside, everything is a mess, and the flour doesn’t appear disturbed.  Everyone else is about ready to admit that this one is a real ghost, but Adam has another theory.

The solution has an interesting twist to it. It’s a good mystery for kids beginning chapter books who like a little creepiness in their reading.

The book is currently available online through Internet Archive.