The Outdoor Girls in Florida (Book Five of The Outdoor GIrls Series)

My journey through series books set in Florida continues, this time with another series that I have yet to read before - The Outdoor Girls!  Another Stratemeyer Syndicate series which used the pseudonym Laura Lee Hope as the author (the same pen name was used for The Bobbsey Twins, the Bunny Brown series, the Moving Picture Girls series, the Blythe Girls series, the Six Little Bunkers series, and the Make-Believe Stories series), The Outdoor Girls is a 23-volume series.  According to Jennifer White's website (The Outdoor Girls), the first six books (which would include this one) were written by Howard Garis, while the remaining seventeen books in the series were written by Elizabeth M. Duffield Ward, both of whom were prolific authors of children's series back in the day.  I was not really sure what to expect with this book, having never read any of this series, but I definitely was expecting more than what I ended up getting.

The Outdoor Girls in Florida is the fifth book in the series, and it features the four main girls - Betty Nelson (sometimes referred to by her friends and the narrator as "The Little Captain"), Mollie Bilette, Grace Ford, and Amy Stonington (a/k/a Blackford - as she apparently discovered in an earlier book that she was adopted when her real brother finds her).  The mystery begins with Grace and her family receiving the news that Grace's older brother, Will, has gone missing from their Uncle Isaac's home in Georgia.  The story plays with the emotions of the Ford family, as well as the readers, as the roller coaster has everyone worried for the missing boy; then they receive a delayed letter from Will that indicates he went to Florida to strike out on his own; then they receive notification that is a cry for help, as the men he signed on to work for turned out to be contractor with a bad reputation and he has been kidnapped!  And while all of these exchanges are taking place, the girls are planning a trip to Florida with Amy's family, who are considering buying an orange grove in the Sunshine State.

Thus, readers anticipate the mystery will find the girls searching the Everglades of Florida in the hopes of finding Grace's missing brother.  Well, as it turns out, the girls do very little in terms of searching for Will; rather, it seems they get caught up in a number of escapades that eventually lead them to make contact with a young scamp who happens to be trying to help someone he refers to as "the other one" - who, of course, turns out to be Will Ford.  But the girls take no active role in actually seeking out Grace's brother, which surprised me.  I was expecting them to find clues, follow up on them, and eventually locate the evil contractor and save the day; instead, they are merely a conduit by which the young boy (referred to cruelly by the contractor and his men as "the Loon" because he has some mental disabilities!) is able to obtain help from Amy's father (or rather, her "uncle") to rescue not only Will, but also another young man who goes missing when he takes the girls on a trip along the river.  The only "danger" that the girls faced in the book is when they see an alligator in the river (it does not attack them, though); when their boat is nearly stolen by a manatee; when they find themselves stuck between two sleeping alligators and a stream filled with snakes (none of which make any attempt to approach the girls); and when they get lost trying to make their way home from the island where Tom disappears.  Otherwise, the girls have no real difficulties during the course of the story.

Other than passing references to Palm Beach (p. 26), Indian River (p. 26), and Jacksonville (p. 36), all of the locales the girls visit in Florida are fictional (they never actually visit the real cities/counties named).  The orange grove where they stay is located near the town of "Bentonville" (p. 45) on the "Mayfair River" that empties into "Lake Chad" (p. 45).  A contractor tells the girls he lives upriver about ten miles in a place called "Penbrook" (p. 97).  None of these fictional places are given a clear pinpoint in the state, other than the reference to the fact that the Everglades can be reached by taking the river further on.  This was disappointing, after reading several mysteries recently which were set in actual cities and referred to real sites within the stories.  Alas, perhaps Garis told when he was writing the story to stay away from using real locations in order to give the story more creative freedom with the descriptions and the events that take place.  The only indication of where the story might take place is the fact that the girls do get tangled up with a manatee (depicted on the cover and the frontis piece, taken from page 126 of the story) - and since this takes place during the girls' winter holiday, it gives readers a time frame within which to gauge.  According to the Florida Wildlife Conservation Commission, the manatee head for warmer waters, usually found near springs throughout Florida - such as Blue Springs State Park in Orange City, the Crystal River National Wildlife Refuge in Crystal River, and even Lee County Manatee Park in Fort Myers (Manatee in Florida). So, it can be guessed perhaps the girls are somewhere in Central Florida.

And since we are on the topic of the cover and internal - the illustration is the same.  My copy of the book has the duo-tone cover rather than the full color art.  The scene shows the young man in ragged clothes rescuing the girls' boat from a manatee that got tangled up in the anchor rope and was slowly pulling the boat away.  In the book, he takes a shot at the manatee with his gun (p. 127), something that would probably shock a lot of readers today, since manatee are considered to be an endangered species.  What I found surprising about the internal illustration is that the fronti piece is on glossy paper; however, the two internal illustrations are just plain paper illustrations (p. 76 and p. 153).  I don't believe I've ever come across a book that has mixed internals like that - usually they are all glossy or all plain.

A couple of final things to note: there is a moment early in the book,when it is discovered that Will Ford is missing, and the girls feel discouraged.  Mollie makes the comment, "Yes, girls always seem so - so helplessly at a time like this ... Oh, I wish I were a - man!" (p. 60).  This kind of statement is definitely a product of its time (this book was published in 1913), when girls were not thought to be of the same caliber or strength as men, and in fact, were thought to be more delicate and of lesser capabilities.  So, for Mollie to wish she were a man so she would go out and help search for Grace's brother would have been natural back then.  In today's world, of course, the Outdoor Girls would traipse off on their own without a second thought to search for the missing boy!  Another element of the story that dates the book is the "comfortable-looking" colored "mammy" who is named "Aunt Hannah" (p. 72).  Such a racial stereotype is highly offensive by today's standards; but back in 1913, readers would have read this line without even a second thought.  

Last, but not least, I must mention a comment made by Amy's brother, who makes a brief visit to Florida to see the girls.  He reports everything is fine back home in Deepdale, but also reports that "those old friends of yours, Alice Jallow and Kittie Rossmore, have started a sort of automobile club. I guess they're trying to rival you" (p. 115).  I find this line amusing, since there was a six-book published by Altemus from 1910-1913 (ending the same year this book was published) called "The Automobile Girls," written by Laura Dent Crane (likely a pseudonym, although I have no clue who the real author was).  In that particular series, there were four girls (just like the Outdoor Girls), and two of those girls happened to be named Mollie and Grace (just like the Outdoor Girls).  One has to wonder if the line was thrown into the book as a little jab at the then-cancelled series by Crane.

RATING:  6 orange blossoms and brides out of 10 for a somewhat fun adventure in Florida, albeit a very fictional one.

The House of Happy Endings - a Memoir

This book has to have been the most difficult book I've ever read.  And I don't mean because of the writing itself, or because of the fact that it is a biography of sorts.  I'm not a fan of non-fiction, and I don't normally read biographies - but since this book is directly related to children's mystery series, and it was gifted to me by a loving friend, I opened it up and delved into the story of Howard Garis, his wife Lilian Garis, and their son, Roger Garis (who wrote countless children's mysteries in the first half of the last century).  My good friend, Geoffrey S. Lapin, knows the author of this book (the daughter of Roger and granddaughter of Howard and Lilian), and he has told me over the years that life in the Garis household was not as idealistic as those homes we read about in The Bobbsey Twins, Tom Swift, Baseball Joe, and so many other children's series written by these prolific authors.  So, I went into this knowing that it was not going to be a story of roses and sunshine.  I just did not realize the extent of the difficulties faced by the Garis family in their Massachusetts home...

House of Happy Endings is a memoir about a family of writers. This story of Roger Garis and his wife, Mabel, along with their three children - Leslie (the only daughter and the author of this book), Brooks, and Buddy (later to go by the name Dalton) - starts as the family moves to Amherst, Massachusetts in the late 1940s, into a magnificent new home known as "The Dell."  From all appearances, this was to be a house of new beginnings for the family. After an attempt at publishing a magazine, and then attempts at writing television scripts, the family welcomes Roger's parents, Howard and Lilian, into the house.  And, from a narrative sense, this is where things begin to change in the book - not just in the story itself, but in the whole tone of the book.  Of course, those first chapters were written in the perspective of what a young girl of five years old saw and felt - everything was new and exciting, and Leslie Garis was caught up in the thrill of being a part of her father's world of writing.  But with the arrival of Howard and Lilian Garis, that world changes.

This book is not an easy read.  It is not the story of a "happy-go-lucky" family where everything is just wonderful and everyone is always happy.  This book tells the story of a family with serious struggles ... of a writer who battled an undiagnosed illness that affected not only his own life, but the lives of all around him. It's the story of a young girl growing up in a home where she has to navigate the confusing and conflicting relationships between her grandmother and grandfather ... between her grandmother and father ... between her grandfather and father ... between her mother and father ... and between her father and herself.  The innocence of her childhood gets slowly stripped away as she gets older, until she reaches the point where she has to distance herself from all of the drama, and she faces her own guilt and her own struggles in order to make her own way in the world.

Don't get me wrong - there are some touching stories in the book.  The memories of Howard Garis being surrounded by children, always taking time to share Uncle Wiggly stories and bring joy into these youngsters lives.  The memories of the author and her father sharing some wonderful times, and her joy at being asked to help her grandfather develop endings for his stories (something her grandmother always did for him, but after she passed, he needed someone to fill that void). The memories of hiding in the dumbwaiter, spying on the family, playing "detective" in her own private place.  Despite all of the dysfunctional drama, the author still has some good memories of growing up.  I even enjoyed reading the numerous references the various children's series books authored by Howard, Lilian, and Roger.  There is also some very frank revelations about what it was like to work with and for the Stratemeyers back then.  But it's heartbreaking to read just how much those memories are overshadowed by the addictions and illnesses that seemed to take control of her father over the years.

And don't get me started on that grandmother.  The more the author describes her, the more I could see my own grandmother reflected in this woman.  Perhaps it was simply the way women of that era were brought up, or maybe it was simply bitterness developed over the years (as suggested by the author, her own grandmother may have been jealous of the fact her husband's writers were far more successful than her own), or maybe it was just a pure coincidence that both the author's grandmother and my own were so very critical of their own children, basically taking away any self-confidence they might have had and destroying any ambitions or successes they had.  I know the torture my own mother went through with the way her mother treated her, so it really hit home when I read how Lilian Garis treated her own son.  This made the ending of this book so much more harder for me to read and, quite honestly, caused me to break down in tears thinking of my own mother and her passing (thankfully, though, she had family at her side, unlike poor Roger Garis...).

I would definitely say this book is worth reading, but be warned - it's not for the faint of heart!

RATING:  9 unfinished plays out of 10 for revealing the not-so-happy side of a family of children's series authors and opening up about what it was like growing up in the Garis family.

The Mystery of the Brass Bound Box - a Rick and Ruddy book

And the search for connections to Brass-Bound Trunk continues with this blog post, as I take a look at yet another book that has an ever-so-slight connection to the 17th Nancy Drew Mystery Story, The Mystery of the Brass-Bound Trunk.  As with the Three Girl Chums at Laurel Hall, I had no idea this book even existed and came across it by pure happenstance while doing some research on Brass-Bound Trunk.  I discovered that Howard R. Garis, who is quite well-known as an author of many, many, MANY children's books from back in the day, wrote a book that was titled The Mystery of the Brass Bound Box!  Now, tell me that isn't a coincidence?  So, needless to say, I had to hunt down a copy, which I did manage to find on eBay with dust jacket still in tact and for a very reasonable price.  So, I bought it and couldn't wait to read it.

It turns out The Mystery of the Brass Bound Box is not the original title.  A bit of research online reveals that the five-book "Rick and Ruddy" series by Garis, which is about a young boy named Rick and his faithful companion dog, Ruddy, was originally published by Milton Bradley in the early 1920s, but the books were later re-published by McLouglin Bros., Inc. in the 1930s under different names.  The Mystery of the Brass Bound Box was published in 1937, but it was originally Rick and Ruddy Afloat: The Cruise of a Boy and His Dog (1922).  It is interesting to note that although the book was re-titled for publication by McLoughlin, the text itself still refers to the previous book as Rick and Ruddy in Camp (p. 14) and the next book as Rick and Ruddy Out West (p. 261), which were the original titles and renamed by McLoughlin as The Face in the Dismal Cavern and The Secret of Lost River, respectively.  I suppose it was cheaper just to reprint the text as is rather than creating new printing plates to show the new titles to the previous and next books.

 

In any event, this is most definitely a boys' series book, as it focuses more on the adventure and less on the mystery.  One would think that if the title says "mystery" and references a "brass bound box," then those two things would be the focus of the book - but in this case, that could not be farther from the truth.  There is a slight mystery surrounding the brass bound box that Rick's Uncle Tod carries with him, but it appears only a  few times in the story, and the mystery surrounding it comes into play very little.  The main focus on the story is Rick and Ruddy's adventure with Uncle Tod (or Captain Tod, as they often refer to him) as they take a rather lengthy journey on his motor boat down through the rivers along the Eastern seaboard to reach Tod's temporary home in Long River.  Rick's best friend, Chot, comes along for the ride, and the boys have quite a number of adventures along the way, including the search for animal oddities for one "Hokum" Driscoll, who is looking to collect oddities for an exhibition he wants to start up!  This whole side story really has nothing to do whatsoever with the "mystery" of the book, but it does provide some opportunity for adventures - including the boys helping to put out a fire (at which time they find a four-legged hen!), and Rick running into Driscoll while trying to find a doctor to save his uncle's life.  The boys have to fend off would-be thieves from their boat, find a way to capture two large porcupines for Driscoll's exhibition, and help stand guard at Uncle Tod's cabin from a possible Indian attack!

 

The bigger mystery that seems to be central to the entire story is whether Uncle Tod is crazy or not.  Most times, he seems perfectly sane; however, Rick and Chot notice some very odd behavior in the sea captain, from his repeating the phrase "Crazy is as crazy does" to buying a drum and destroying it to dancing wildly on the deck of his motor boat to insisting that local Indians are going to attack.  Rick and Chot go back and forth as to whether Tod may be not quite right - but, ultimately, it ties into the mystery of just who Nick Slither is and what is inside that brass bound box that Rick's uncle deems to be so important.  Garis provides quite a dangerous scenario for poor Rick near the end of the book, as he must fight the rapids of the river during a torrential thunder storm to row a canoe miles downstream to the nearest village to get a doctor for his uncle.  Garis builds up quite the suspense relating just how Rick and Ruddy fare during their escapade (and the art on the cover sort-of depicts this scene of the boy and his dog navigating the rapids), to crashing on a rocky isle in the middle of the wide river, to swimming across the freezing rapids to get to shore, to finding their way to the doctor (with Driscoll's surprise help).   

Now, how, you may ask, does this book in any way compare with Brass-Bound Trunk?  Well, aside from the title, there is the fact that the box (trunk) holds jewels (at least, so the boys believe); the boys are on a cruise for a good portion of the book (albeit on a motor boat instead of a cruise ship); and Rick bring along his pet on the cruise (he brings a dog, while Nancy brings her cat).  Now, this book was originally published in 1922, later republished in 1937, which was prior to the 1940 publication date of the Nancy Drew mystery.  So, this raises the question - did Harriet Stratemeyer Adams, who wrote the outline for Brass-Bound Trunk, get any of her ideas for this book from Garis' book? Could be....

And just for fun, I will warn that this book is definitely a product of its time, as its views of women and Indians are definitely not the same as they are today!  When the boys are waiting for the four-legged hen to lay an egg, and when they give up and put the other eggs in an incubator, she suddenly decides to lay another egg!  Captain Tod remarks, "If that isn't just like a woman? ... She never does a thing you want her to!" (p. 130).  Later in the story, when meeting the Indians, Garis (who breaks the fourth wall a number of times in the story to talk directly to the reader) makes an apology regarding the Indian's actions:

It was the poor pagan's one talent, and we must not blame him for putting it forward on every occasion.  I am not upholding him in it, nor excusing those who encouraged him, who were, perhaps, more to blame than Johnnie Green.  I am aware that it was not the nicest thing in the world to do, but who expects a half-civilized Indian to be perfectly proper?  Not I, for one!  (p. 173)

There are several other references such as this when he talks about the Indians in this book, and it surprises me, since I didn't realize this view of Indians still existed in the 1920s.

As I've made clear in the past, I am not a big fan of boys' series books, because they are more focused on adventure and less on mystery, and I am a big mystery fan, not adventure fan.  That being said, this book would not normally be my cup of tea, and had it not been for the Brass-Bound Trunk connection, I would have never read it, let alone bought it.  But, I'm glad I did, as it does open up the questions about the various similarities between this book and the Nancy Drew mystery and whether it is pure coincidence or a case of copied ideas ... but I suppose that's a mystery that will remain unsolved for now!

RATING:  6 owl-headed roosters out of 10 for filling a story of adventure with some fun scenes, some crazy characters, and a faithful dog!