The Brownie Scouts at Silver Beach - Book Five of the Brownie Scout Books

It's a week at the beach for the Brownies in Mildred Wirt's fifth Brownie Scouts adventure (I hesitate to call this a "mystery" series, as the books are more about the young girls' adventures and learning experiences than they are about the actual mystery aspect of the stories).  I have to admit, this series has been a much more enjoyable read than I had originally anticipated.  A series about a group of pre-teen girls who are enjoying outings as Brownie Scouts did not exactly scream out to me as readable stories, and the only reason I actually bought them was because (a) they were all purchased relatively cheap, with their dust jackets in tact, and (b) it was another Mildred Wirt series.  I just assumed they would sit on my shelves, unread.  But, when a friend suggested I read and post about them, I thought, "Why not?"  And, quite frankly, I'm glad I did.

 

The Brownie Scouts at Silver Beach finds out favorite little Brownies enjoying the sun and fun at Silver Beach, said to be "along the Atlantic Coast" (p. 3).  Veve (whose spelling is changed to "Vevi" in this book for some reason) McGuire and Connie Williams are once again front and center in the story, with Jane Tuttle, Sunny Davidson, and Rosemary Fritche rounding out the troop.  Miss Gordon, the troop leader, is, of course, on the scene, as is Mrs. Williams, Connie's mother, who is helping to chaperone the girls.  Vevi and Connie are bunked with Mrs. Williams in the rental, Starfish Cottage, while the other girls are staying with Miss Gordon in a "vine-covered cottage overlooking Silver Beach" (p. 3) that the troop leader owns.  By the end of the first chapter, we get the beginnings of a mystery, when Miss Gordon's watch, which she left in the pocket of her beach robe with the rest of the troop's belongings on the sandy beach while they enjoyed the ocean water, is stolen!

 

Readers quickly learn there have been other thefts recently in that area of the beach, which has caused a number of summer visitors to migrate over to the beach belonging to a nearby hotel.  That mystery, however, is put to the side as the girls begin to explore the beach, discover shells, discuss the various types of water birds seen in the area, watch a turtle race, and discover a small house built to look like a ship not far from their cottages.  Along the way, Vevi and Connie get lost in the fog (which is when they stumble across the ship-shaped cottage and discover another mystery - who is using the small house as a place to stay?), the girls have fun adventures trying to catch a turtle so they can enter the next turtle race, they collect shells so that they can put together and showcase a shell display, and they learn all about carrier pigeons, with Vevi nearly getting her very own pigeon that she names Snow White!  And during all of these fun activities, the girls also hear about more thefts and inadvertently witness the thief on more than one occasion attempting to steal items from tourists who are visiting the beach.  Even worse, poor Vevi and Connie wind up on a boat put adrift at sea, with no one knowing where they are!

 

The mysteries, as usual, are not overly complicated, nor are they difficult to solve (at least, for the discerning reader).  The identity of the thief is not at all hard to spot, pretty much from the get-go.  The identity of the person using the ship-shaped cottage is also easy to figure out, as Wirt does not make it hard to see where the story is going.  The mixture of the two lifeguards, the former ship captain, the young boy whose father is a lifeguard at the other hotel, and the man who handles the homing pigeons are fairly straight-forward characters who may be able to hide all of their secrets from the Brownie Scouts, but none of them are so subtle that even a casual reader could not spot them a mile away.  None of that detracts from the enjoyment of the story, though - it's not about actually solving the mysteries; rather, it's more about following along with Vevi, Connie, and the other Brownies as they hop from one exciting escapade to another.

 

Wirt casually included a moment in the story that is definitely a very valuable teaching lesson for young children.  When Vevi and Connie venture out to find Cabell's pond, where there are said to be lots of turtles to be found, a layer of mist begins to roll in from the ocean as dusk draws near.  As they are walking, a "driver stopped for a moment offering the girls a ride.  Vevi and Connie did not know him, so they turned down the offer" (p. 23).  A shining example of the old maxim, "never get in a car with a stranger."  I smiled when I read these lines, thinking how smart Wirt was to integrate a moral lesson into the story without making it overly obvious and beating you over the head with it.  One has to wonder how many children read this back in the day and took this lesson to heart.

 

There is another scene, however, that caught my attention more than the "stranger danger" scenario.  When Miss Gordon and Mrs. Williams take the girls to Brant's Point for a picnic and for an opportunity to search for more shells, the tide starts to come in before they realize it, and soon enough, Mrs. Williams' car is stuck in the sand, unable to get any traction.  As the tide gets closer and closer, my mind kept telling me, "I've read this scene before - but where?"  Thanks to the memory of a very good friend, I found it - in Wirt's Penny Parker mystery, Voice from the Cave.  In that book, Penny and Louise are on a beach near a lighthouse (same as the Brownies are in this book), and like the Scouts, Penny's car gets stuck and the high tide keeps coming in with no help in sight.  The similarities do not stop there:

 

PP 95 - "Even if the car isn't washed away, the salt water will ruin it."

BS 88 - "Salt water ruins a car very easily ... We must get out somehow."

 

PP 95 - The motor began to labor.  Then the car stalled completely.

BS 85-86 - Slower and slower crept the car, its engine laboring ... The car would not budge...

 

PP 95 - "I'll run to the lighthouse," Penny decided desperately...

BS 88 - She glanced hopefully toward the lighthouse.  Connie offered ro un there and ask for help.

 

PP 97 - Penny and Louise seek help from a man they know who is wading through the reef; he sees them, but he turns and walks away

BS 90 - The Brownies seek help from a lifeguard they see in a boat out in the ocean; he sees them, but he turns and speed away in his boat

 

PP 99 - Jerry Livingston shows up on the beach and helps the girls push the car out of the sand

BS 91 - Captain Tarwell shows up on the beach and helps the girls push the car out of the sand

 

The scenes so closely resemble one another, only the names have been changed and some of the wording.  As the Penny Parker book was published in 1944, and this one in 1952, so perhaps Wirt "borrowed" the scene from the earlier book with the thought that readers of this particular book (who would be younger than the intended audience of the Penny Parker book published eight years prior) would not recognize the passage.  (Wirt seems to have had no problem in lifting scenes from previously published books of hers and retooling them into later stories - her Madge Sterling series provided her with a plethora of scenes that she later used in her Penny Parker books, her Mystery Stories for Girls books, and others.)

 

Marguerite Gayer provided both the cover art and interior illustration (the frontis piece being the only interior art) for this book.  The cover art actually depicts a scene related to the mystery surrounding the thefts at the beach, as the girls find a stolen purse buried in the sand (p. 146).  Meanwhile, the interior illustration merely shows the scene where Vevi and Connie happen across the small cottage in the mist while trying to find the pond (p. 34).

 

RATING:  8 dusty old Bibles out of 10 for keeping the Brownies faithful to their code, always helping others, while also learning about nature and valuable lessons at the same time.

The Brownie Scouts and Their Tree House - Book Four of the Brownie Scout Books

After the hints of what was to come with the third book, I have to admit that I was very disappointed with what took place in this fourth entry in the Brownie Scouts series by Mildred A. Wirt (Benson).  For those who read the last book, the Scouts were voted to be Rosedale's representatives in Washington, D.C. after being elected as the "queens" of the cherry festival, and as the story ended, the Scouts were all excited about heading to Washington and the opportunity to meet the President of the United States!  Since the book ended with this huge announcement, it would only stand to reason the next book would share with readers that fantastic trip!  But, alas, such is not the case.  I wonder if, back in 1951 when this book was published, those young readers who bought this book (or, perhaps, were given this book) opened up the pages to the first chapter and discovered that this book has absolutely nothing to do with the Scouts' trip to Washington!  Somehow, it feels like Wirt cheated her readers out of what could have been a very exciting story...

 

The Brownie Scouts and Their Tree House, instead, focuses on the mysterious tree house that the girls discover built in the limbs of a sturdy tree within the metropolitan national part in Rosedale. Wirt opens the book with the girls exploring the various trees of the part, only to discover that the signs identifying the types of trees do not match what the girls and their scout leader know the trees to be.  Someone has been messing with the signs - but who could it be, and why? That mystery is soon forgotten when Veve McGuire wishes that the brownies (fairies) on which the name of their group is based would provide them with a tree house that they could enjoy whenever they visited the park.  Oddly enough, a stone is thrown at them, which bears an odd message - come back in two days to see if her wish comes true!  No one actually believes it will happen - but sure enough, when the girls come back in two days, there is a tree house built right there in the limbs of the very tree where they stood and made the wish!  Thus, the second mystery takes root (see what I did there?), and the Brownies have two questions before them - who is messing with all the signs around the park, and who built their tree house?

 

Wirt does not make the mysteries complicated, and the reader is easily able to discern who is doing what throughout the course of the story.  Even when more wishes are granted (furniture in the house, a warm meal cooked on a cold afternoon, etc.), the girls remain oblivious to the identity of their benefactor (even though they meet him during their many trips to the park).  And, with all of this going on, Wirt manages to throw in a third mystery involving Minnie Myles, an old woman who comes into the park with an empty sack, but leaves with it full.  The girls soon discover that she is extremely poor and about to lose her house - the one person who can help her is her brother, but she refuses to allow it, choosing rather to go to the poor house than to accept a dime from him!  Connie, Veve, and the rest of the Brownies decide they have to help the poor woman before she is thrown out on the street!

 

While Wirt tries to keep the mysteries an integral part of the story, it reads more like a Brownies' adventure tale than a mystery story.  The girls take no real active part in tracking down clues or unlocking secrets in an effort to solve the mysteries; instead, their story involves surviving a storm in the tree house, collecting buttons, figuring out ways to provide food to Mrs. Myles, and the farewell ceremony for Eileen, as she "flies up" to the Rosedale Girl Scout Troop (having aged out of the Brownies).  Yes, all three mysteries get resolved, but very little of those resolutions have anything to do with the Brownies.  In fact, the only one that has any input by the Brownies is the secret that has kept Mrs. Myles from accepting help from her brother - a resentment that gets resolved when Veve buys a pillow from the auction of Mrs. Myles' home that turns out to hold the very thing that clears up a misunderstanding and reunites Mrs. Myles an her brother after all these years.

 

For those who read the previous book, you'll recall Wirt described a number of different quilts that the girls obtained for their quilt show; well, in this book, it's all about collecting old and unusual buttons - from embroidered taffeta buttons made in a star pattern (p. 79) to opaque glass buttons (p. 80) to a coat cuff button in the shape of a horse head (p. 80) to a tintype button popular in the Victorian time (p. 87) to a glass swirlback button, a Czechoslovakian button, and an old Sheffield silver button (p. 164).  Just as Veve was the last one to find a quilt in the prior story, she is the last one to locate a button in this one.

 

Wirt does not forget to include some Brownie and Girl Scout history within the book.  In the first chapter, we get a very brief re-telling of The Brownies, the 1865 story written by Juliana Horatia Ewing (incorrectly identified as "Julianna" in the book) from which the organization took its name (p. 7).  Near the end, when Eileen is inducted into the Girl Scouts, she must recite the Girl Scout Promise (p. 193), which is almost identical to the actual promise one can find at the Girl Scouts website (Girl Scouts Promise).  The Girl Scout Law (which can be found at that same website) is set forth rather differently in the book (p. 194); however, that could have been what is was back in 1951, or it could simply be Wirt taking some artistic liberties in setting forth the characteristics of a Scout.  In either event, Wirt makes an effort to keep her Scout stories grounded with some real Scout history.

 

Marguerite Gayer continues to provide the cover art (her signature is clearly seen on the bottom right hand corner of the cover).  The internal frontis piece does not contain a signature, but it appears to have the same style as Gayer's previous internal illustrations for this series, so one can assume that she also did the internal, as well as the cover. 

 

While not my favorite book in the series (that would be The Cherry Festival volume), this one does have its merit and is a fairly enjoyable read, particularly when one considers the age of the audience for which the book was originally intended.

 

RATING:  7 neat piles of wood and kindling out of 10 for a smidgen of excitement (during the storm), a small bit of drama (with Mrs. Myles' situation), and a successful family reunion!

The Boxcar Children: Endangered Animals

Following the Boxcar Children's 5-book "Great Adventure" and their 4-book "Creatures of Legend" saga, Albert Whitman & Company offered up a third mini-series entitled "Endangered Animals."  The tagline for this planned 4-book series reads:  "Henry, Jessie, Violet, and Benny are helping endangered animals all around the world!"  The first two books were issued in April 2022, with the second two books set to be published thereafter.  Having grown up reading The Boxcar Children in my school library, and having recently re-discovered the enjoyment of this series with the two animated movies and the 5-book and 4-book mini-series, I figured I would give this series a go as well.  It did not disappoint.

 

The Big Spill Rescue sets the stage for the Alden children to develop a desire to help save endangered animals. The four kids are visiting Port Elizabeth, a city in an unnamed state, but one that must be along the coast, as there is a lighthouse that is still used to ensure ships do not come too close to shore at night and run aground.  (Note:  there is a Port Elizabeth, New Jersey, but it is unlikely this is the town, since this unincorporated town is not located along the ocean coast.)  The children are introduced to the daughter of their father's friend, who shares with them her love for helping protect endangered animals.  When an oil spill occurs as a result of a tug boat running aground one night - the very night the lighthouse somehow malfunctions, it gives the Alden children an opportunity to not only help rescue the birds and other animals affected by the spill, but it also gives them the chance to solve the mystery of why the lighthouse was not working properly.  The mystery, as with most Boxcar Children stories, is fairly basic, and while there are a couple of suspects, there is one very obvious ones - it is simply the matter of Henry, Jessie, Violet, and Benny finding the right clues to lead them to the culprit.  Henry is the one who actually figures it out, with a little observational help from Jessie and Violet.  By the end of the story, Kayla (the daughter of their grandfather's friend) invites the Alden children to travel with her and help other endangered animals around the world - hence, the name of the mini-series!

 

Mystery of the Spotted Leopard takes the four young sleuths to India, where they will assist Kayla with research she and her organization, Protectors of Animals Worldwide ("PAW"), are doing on the spotted leopard population that live up in the Himalayan mountains.  This time, the region used for the story (the city of Leh in Ladakh) actually exists in the real world.  The group actually travels to a small village higher up into the mountains, where, realistically, the children must adjust to the lower levels of oxygen at such high altitudes.  It is here that one of the spotted leopards the research time has been monitoring disappears, its GPS collar cut away from its neck.  The research team is concerned that one of the local farmers may have killed the leopard to keep it from stealing any more of their stock, or that a poacher had come to claim the endangered animal as a prize for its beautiful coat of fur.  Once again, these four very self-sufficient children step in and follow the clues that lead them from suspect to suspect, until they narrow it down to the only possible culprit - the least likely of people for them to have believed would commit such a crime!  Of course, the leopard is rescued with little harm done, the culrpits arrested, and the Alden children are ready to return home to their grandfather and their dog - but not before they are told that there are more adventures yet to come!

 

Unfortunately, those last two adventures in the Endangered Animals mini-series never saw print.  Books 3 (Mystery of the Vanishing Forest) and 4 (The Great Reef Rebuild) were both solicited, with covers provided and all; however, before the date of publication hit, both books suddenly became "unavailable," and the release dates were changed to 2079!  I'm not sure why, but the print version of these books never saw the light of day, and the only versions available are audio books.  A very small portion of the third book (and when I say "small," I am talking about only 4 pages!) was available as a preview at the end of Spotted Leopard; but, other than that, no hard copies were ever printed or sold.  This is a real shame, as it left readers with an incomplete series (only 2 of 4 books) in printed form.  One has to wonder if the series was no longer profitable for Albert Whitman & Co., or if the publisher itself was simply not doing well, which could have been the reason the entire Boxcar Children property was sold (see below for more information on that subject).  

 

Craig Orback provided the art for Big Spill and Spotted Leopard, and it appears he also painted covers for books 3 and 4, which can be seen on sites such as Amazon and Barnes & Noble, but only available now as audio books.  Orback also did the internal illustrations for the first two books, so one has to wonder if he did any internals for the last two books, which, because the books were never published, are sitting on someone's desk unused at this point.  I'm not a fan of audio books (I prefer holding books in my hand as opposed to listening to them while I drive), so I am unlikely to ever purchase the last two books in the series - which is disappointing, as I would have liked to have seen where the next two books were planning to take the Alden children.  The descriptions on Amazon indicate the third book would take the kids to Sumatra, where they have to stop the destruction of part of the rain forest there, which is the habitat to many endangered species.  The fourth book would take them down under to Australia, where they have to fight to save the lives of underwater creatures and their natural habitat there.  But, alas, it is unlikely either of these stories will ever see a print version, in which case, I am left with an unfinished mini-series that will have to remain incomplete on my shelf.

 

What is even more disappointing than all of this is the fact that another mini-series was solicited to begin the very next year (2023), which was called the "Summer of Adventure."  The first book, Legend of the Hidden Treasure, would have had the Alden children helping their Aunt Jane move to the coast, where a boat called the Alden Explorer washes ashore.  In the boat, they find a mysterious journal that talks of hidden treasure and a secret society, which sends the kids off on another mystery-solving adventure.  A cover, painted by illustrator Karen De La Vega, was provided with the solicitation.  A second volume to the series, titled Secret of Superstition Mountain, would have followed, wherein the children are led by the journal to return to the site of their very second book - Surprise Island!  There, they learn more about the secret society and what it really means.  What is odd is that there is no image of the cover to this second book in the Summer of Adventure series; however, a search online reveals a Boxcar Children mystery of this title with a cover by De La Vega, but it is listed on The Concord Bookshop website as book 164 of the ongoing series (The Concord Bookstore - Boxcar Children 164).  There, it lists the date of publication as 2079 (same as that of books 3 and 4 of the Endangered Animals series), which means the book will likely never see print.  Such a shame, as the titles and brief synopses for these two books actually sounded fun!

 

I do note that there are two graphic novels being solicited to be released in August 2026.  The first appears to be a retelling of the children's very first adventure, simply titled The Boxcar Children.  The second graphic novel is titled Shipwreck! and potentially could be a retelling of the second book in the series, Surprise Island.  With my love of both children's mystery series and graphic novels, you can rest assured I will be getting both of these graphic novels.

 

Some searching online does reveal that Random House Children's Books purchased The Boxcar Children property from Albert Whitman & Company, which is likely why those last solicited books never saw print.  As it currently stands, the only new items coming from Random House at this time are the scheduled graphic novels.  Some further digging reveals that the ongoing series did continue past book 160 (or, at least, was scheduled to), with books numbered up to 164, including:

 

160 - The Mystery in the Magic Shop (alleged release date of 2022)

161 - The Raptor Rescue (alleged release date of 2022)

162 - The Code-Breaking Mystery (alleged release date of 2023)

163 - X Marks the Spot (alleged release date of 2023)

164 - Secret of Superstition Mountain (alleged release date of 2023)

165 - The Supermarket Mystery (simply says "coming soon")

166 - Sports Day Sabotage (simply says "coming soon") 

 

Based on this list, it appears the two "Summer of Adventure" stories were integrated into the ongoing series as books 163 and 164, with Legend of the Hidden Treasure retitled as X Marks the Spot.  Books 160 and 161 are available in print form, as well as audio, on Amazon.  However, beginning with book 162, the release dates show as "2079," the indicator that they are likely not to be published any time soon, if ever at all.  Random House has established a new website for the series (The Boxcar Children), where the graphic novels are advertised, as well as early books from the series and repackaged specials are offered.  I see no indication yet of whether books 162 through 166 will be offered, and whether the series will continue after that; nor do I see anything that might indicate Random House is looking to reboot the series (aside from the graphic novels).  I supposed we will simply have to wait and see what the new publisher has in store for this long-time children's series.

 

RATING:  7 cups of dirt tea with salt and yak butter out of 10 for taking the Boxcar Children on an all-new world-hopping adventure to save endangered animals, giving readers an opportunity to learn about numerous animals that have nearly gone extinct! 

The Brownie Scouts in the Cherry Festival - Book Three of the Brownie Scout Books

With this third book, we reach the half-way point of The Brownie Scouts series written by Mildred A. Wirt (Benson).  As Wirt progresses with the series, she is starting to give the girls some more distinct personalities and develop the characters into more than just cookie-cutouts hanging around in the background while the main two (Veve and Connie) take up all the screen time.  In fact, with this third book, Veve McGuire actually moves more into the spotlight, with Connie taking a more supporting role.  Jane Tuttle and Eileen Webber actually have more involvement than in previous stories, and even Rosemary Fritche and Sunny Davidson speak more than just a few lines.  This story actually gives readers a well-rounded group of Brownie Scouts, with all of them involved, in some fashion or another, with the overall story.

 

The Brownie Scouts in the Cherry Festival opens not with any plans for a cherry festival, but rather, with the girls absorbed with the tedious task of sewing blocks for a "crazy quilt" that the troop is making in order to auction it off to raise money for their group.  However, as anyone can imagine, these fourth-grade girls are not overly thrilled with spending every troop meeting sewing, sewing, and more sewing.  Veve, who is, of course, the first one to voice her dissatisfaction with the project, eagerly sets about finding a way for the girls to earn money faster and easier - and she finds it with an ad in the paper looking for people willing to pick cherries!  Before you can blink your eye, Veve and Connie - two fourth-graders, mind you! - take the bus by themselves to a cherry orchard outside the city limits to ask if they, along with the rest of their scout troop, could get a job as cherry pickers.  Right.  Because every parent would willingly let their 9 to 10 year old child go off by themselves with no adult supervision to try and get a job.  Makes perfect sense.

 

Anyway, suspending that disbelief for the time being, the girls end up meeting the vile Carl Wingate, who is berating a young Mexican boy when the girls first walk up.  He rudely tells them he does not hire inexperienced children and tells them to get lost.  As luck would have it (and when do these series book characters not have luck?), Veve and Connie see a sign at the orchard right across the street that says the owner of that farm is looking for pickers.  Pa Hooper is much nicer and, in fact, is greatly appreciative of the help the girls offer him, as he has been unable to get pickers due to Wingate underhandedly monopolizing all of the hired help for the season.  Thus, the Brownie Scouts find themselves waking up early each day to pick cherries (for one-and-a-half cents per pound!) in order to earn money for their group.  And this is where their adventures begin.

 

The first mystery seems to be what happened to the Brownies' quilt that disappears from Pa Hooper's grounds, where Miss Gordon had brought it to show the girls the completed product.  It disappeared without a trace!  The second mystery is discovered by Veve, who learns that Pa Hooper is going to lose his orchard to his cousin, Carl Wingate (that's right - turns out they are cousins!), all because of a second will that Wingate claims to have found.  Pa believes it is a forgery, but he cannot find anything with his sister's signature on it to prove it is a fake.  Thus, Veve makes it her mission to find that needed evidence!  The first mystery is solved fairly quickly (as it turns out the missing quilt was not stolen as originally thought, but found by someone who did not realize it belonged to the Brownies).  The second mystery, however, takes quite literally until the last few pages to reveal the solution - and although an intelligent reader will see that solution pretty early on, I give Wirt credit for coming with a rather ingenious way to provide the sister's needed signature.

 

Wirt goes into quite a bit of details about the various types of patterns used in quilting, as well as the various types of stitching and the manner in which the final quilt if put together.  While the girls put together a "crazy" quilt (one made of block of various shape, color, and size, sometimes even with various styles of stitching), there are references to numerous other patterns, such as "the Hand of Friendship," the "Pine Cone", and the "Album" (p. 5); the "Sunburst" pattern (p. 7) and the "Sawtooth" pattern (p. 16); an "Evening Star" pattern, as well as a "Pine Tree" design (p. 65); there is also a "dogwood blossom" quilt (p. 68) and one with a "Ship's Wheel" pattern (p. 76), as well as one with a pattern called "Duck's Foot in the Mud" (p. 101); and, finally, there is the most important quilt of them all - an old, faded quilt, which provides the girls with an example of an "Autograph Patch" quilt (p. 108).  It is this last quilt that provides the girls with the solution to their second mystery and helps Pa Hooper save his orchard.

 

The story also deals with a rather dark theme involving bigotry and how Mexican workers were seen and treated by people.  Veve befriends a young boy named Juan, whose family and other Mexican migrants are working for the wicked Carl Wingate.  Veve and her friends see first hand how the Mexicans are treated poorly and denied access to public areas, simply because of who the are.  I thought Wirt handled this nicely, as Veve, Connie, and the other Brownies do not see Juan or his family as any different, and they are appalled at the way the Mexicans are treated.  In the end, it is because of the Brownies that the town changes their view and welcomes the Mexicans and their traditions into the big cherry festival. 

 

Marguerite Gayer once again provides both the cover and interior art.  The cover art merely showcases the girls' work at the cherry orchard; however, the interior frontis piece actually displays the scene at the very end of the story, when the girls discover the all-important clue on the quilt that saves Pa Hooper's orchard from his conniving cousin!  It was actually rather nice to see an illustration related to the mystery, instead of simply a scene of the girls' adventures that have no relation to the mystery.  In fact, that is one thing I enjoyed more about this book than the previous two - the fact that the mystery actually plays a larger part of the story.  Sure, we've got the whole cherry picking shenanigans, and the planning of the cherry festival.  But it is the girls' wanting to find their missing quilt and their desire to help Pa Hooper save his land that makes the story truly engaging.  (And the ending seems to provide a lead-in to another story, but whether we actually get that in the next book or not, we'll have to see...)

 

RATING:  8 handsome red-and-white hand-woven blankets out of 10 for a story filled with lessons about friendship, bigotry, responsibility, and generosity - with a fun mystery added in for good measure! 

The Unseen Enemy - a Goldsmith Book for Boys and Girls

This book was another one of those spur of the moment purchases for me.  I am not usually prone to picking up books that aren't a part of a series; however, having read one of Baxter's other books (Becky Bryan's Secret) and rather enjoying it, I thought I would give this one a chance.  Both the title and the cover art are rather unusual for a children's mystery, but the description of the story on the inside front flap of the dust jacket was enough to pique my curiosity.  This is the second of three books authored by Betty Baxter Anderson that were published under the name "Betty Baxter."  Anderson also wrote books under the pen name "Alice Anson" and her her given name of "Betty Baxter Anderson."  As much as I enjoyed the previous book, I admit I enjoyed this story even more!

 

The Unseen Enemy follows two girls - Polly Squires and Margot Graham - during their summer between high school and beginning university, where they plan to study social services.  In order to get a head start, Polly gets the bright idea of helping out at "Neighborhood House," a community center that helps children in the local area by giving them a place for activities while not at school.  But they quickly learn that the Neighborhood House is not doing well, and that the man who donated the house upon his death (one Doctor Brighton) put a stipulation into his will - if after 20 years, the House was not succeeding and a relative wanted to claim the house, they could!  Well, that 20 years is about expired, and it seems the House is having a number of problems.  First, a young girl goes missing, only to be discovered later asleep in the attic; then a young boy is injured on some climbing bars, which bars strangely disappear right after the incident; after that, another young boy falls into the water during a scavenger hunt, nearly injuring himself; then a young girl who was to be the lead in a benefit play for the House goes missing, only to be discovered later to have been struck by a car!  And what is even worse, each of these events somehow makes it into the local newspaper, despite the best efforts of Polly, Margot, and Sage Brian (who manages the House) to keep it quite.

 

An "unseen enemy" is determined to see the House fail, but the question remains:  why?  As far as anyone knows, once Doctor Brighton's wife died, years after his own death, there were no living relatives to claim the house.  So, then why is someone so determined to see Miss Brian fail in managing the Neighborhood House for the children?  Polly is determined to garner good publicity for the house, since the council overseeing funds for the House is preparing to pull those funds to give them elsewhere.  But her and Margot's plans are made difficult by Catherine Peasley, the spoiled daughter of a rather affluent man who happens to also be the president of the board who oversees the House.  Catherine could definitely give Lettie Briggs (from the Dana Girls series) a run for her money when it comes to causing trouble and using her money and family's power to get her own way.  When Polly and Margot devise a scavenger hunt for the children, Catherine takes charge and makes it way more extravagant.  When Polly and Margot plan the children's play as a fundraiser to get funds for the House, Catherine becomes angry and bitter that she was not asked the direct the play, and she executes plans that nearly sabotage the play on its opening night.

 

Baxter-Anderson provides readers with a well-plotted mystery that has several twists and turns, and while the revelation of the person behind all of the sabotage (which, after all, is what it really is) does not come as a huge surprise, the truth behind this person's actions is not quite what the reader will expect!  The author uses some rather ingenuous red herrings, as well as some subtly-placed clues that make for a really great read. 

 

Being a Goldsmith publication, there are no internal illustrations, and the cover illustration is not credited, so I have no clue who did the art.  It is rather unique (or odd, depending on your point of view), as the grey walls and floor surround a pantry door that Polly and Margot are about to enter.  While this scene does not exactly occur within the story, it does rather hint at the climax of the tale, when the girls make the big reveal about what the crook was really after in the House and who it was that was after it.  In fact, I had to smile at the way Polly manages to pull the newspaper and the Mayor into the scene, so that all can be witness to the criminal and the revelation as to his real identity!

 

A couple of things worth noting about the book.  While none of the story takes place in Florida, there are references to St. Petersburg, Florida (p. 17), from where Catherine Peasley's family seems to have come.  And as far as where the story takes place, it is in a city called "Kenwood" located in Iowa (p. 113).  There is a Kenwood that was established in Iowa back in 1886, with the plat for the town being filed in the county courthouse in 1887.  (Note, this tiny little town should not be confused with Kenwood Park, Iowa, which is located in a different county.)  Since the author is from Iowa, it should not be a surprise that she would write about the state with which she would be familiar (although, the real town of Kenwood is nowhere near the size of the city within this book).   The author also references a luxurious hotel called the Lexington (p. 182); but the only hotel in real life that is anywhere near that would be the Lexington Inn in Bedford, Iowa, which is about two-and-one-half hours away.

 

Now there is one error in the book, and not sure how it came about.  When Polly first learns about Doctor Brighton from an elderly woman in town, she is told the Doctor's wife's name is Martha.  Throughout the book, Mrs. Brighton is always Martha - except one time, where she is called "Sarah Brighton" (p. 210).  Not sure why the sudden name change, unless the author forgot the name she was using in the rest of the story, although she does refer to her as "Martha" again just three pages later.  I suppose we can simply chalk it up to a continuity and editing error!

 

RATING:  9 beautiful old teakwood boxes out of 10 for a grand treasure-hunting, sabotage-stopping mystery with some great characters and fun mishaps! 

A Murder Most Unladylike Mystery, Book 9 - Death Sets Sail

It has been just a little over a year since I read the last Wells & Wong a/k/a Murder Most Unladylike mystery, and I hesitated starting this book.  It is the ninth book in the series, but it is also the LAST book in the series.  (sigh)  I miss the days of continuing, ongoing series, such as Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys (although can I really include the Hardy Boys, since they have not had a new book published in nearly three years now?).  It seems today's "series" are not really series at all - they are more like mini-series.  Most end after only three or four books, with very few making it to nine books, like this one.  (The only one currently being published that I can think of that has outlasted this one is the Friday Barnes series, which is up to book 13, I believe.)  But, I knew I had to read it sooner or later, so now was as good a time as any.

 

Death Sets Sail finds our two favorite young sleuths - Daisy Wells and Hazel Wong - suffering through the latest year at school, but with absolutely no mystery to solve.  While this is not the usual way these books start, the last sentence of Chapter 1 definitely gave me pause - and started me reading this book faster than any of the others I've read in the past.  After all, all of Hazel's talk about delaying in writing this book (the stories are mostly told through Hazel's point of view, as she writes down the adventures of The Detective Society in her casebook) had me wondering, but it was not until that last sentence that I realized this book truly was going to be the end in more than one way.  I mean, let's be serious, how many meanings can there be to the line, "Perhaps that way I can bring Daisy back to life."

 

Wait, what?!?! These are only fifteen-year old girls.  Surely, there is no way the author, Robin Stevens, was going to kill of one of her main characters in the final book in the series.  She wouldn't do that.  Would she?  The only way to find out was to read the book, and read I did!  From their long, uneventful days at Deepdean, to the invitation from the classmate, Amina El Maghrabi, to join her on a trip to Egypt to visit her family, to the long-last resignation of Hazel's father to the fact that his daughter truly is a detective, to the reuniting with Alexander Aracady and George Mukherjee of the Junior Pinkertons, to that fateful cruise down the Nile River where the girls, along with Mr. Wong and Hazel's two younger sisers (May and Rose), the Junior Pinkertons, and the very unusual Breath of Life Society all become embroiled in a murder mystery worthy of Agatha Christie herself (I mean, c'mon, surely you get the reference already - Death on the Nile?).  Right after Daisy, Hazel, Amina, Alexander, and George witness the most unusual meeting of the Breath of Life Society (a group of individuals, mostly British, who believe they are reincarnations of Egyptian pharoahs), a dead body turns up the next morning - with a sleepwalker standing over the body, covered in blood, crying out that she murdered her own mother!  Makes for a nice, easy case, right?  Wrong!

 

The cruise ship is simply full of suspects, all of them members of the Breath of Life Society - the question is, which one of them killed Theodora Miller, who believes she is the reincarnation of Hatshepsut (the sixth pharaoh of the Eighteenth Dynasty of Egypt, being the second woman to rule in her own right).  Was it really her sleepwalking daughter, Hephzibah (Heppy), who was treated like dirt by all of the members of the Society, including her own mother?  Or was it Daniel Miller, her son who blames her for the death of his friend Joshua some years before?  Could it have been Ida Doggett, who believes herself to be the reincarnation of Cleopatra and resents Theodora's control of the Society?  Or maybe it was Rhiannon Bartleby, whose nervousness and forgetfulness relates back to the death of Daniel's friend all those years ago?  Would Narcissus DeWitt, who believed himself the reincarnation of Thutmose III, murder Theodora in order to gain control of the Society's funds?  All of them had motive, and as the girls conduct their investigation, all of them had the opportunity and the means.  What begins as an open and shut case for the captain of the ship is not so "open and shut" as it appears, and Daisy and Hazel quickly discover that the plot to rid the Society of its pretentious leader is much more complex and devious than anyone suspects.

 

The girls get some unexpected help from Hazel's youngest sister, May, who manages to sneak away from her father's watchful eye time and time again, and providing the young detectives with some major clues that help them narrow down the list of suspects.  They also receive their usual help from the young Pinkertons, with Hazel's attraction to Alexander growing stronger by the day.  And even Amina manages to make herself useful, although Hazel can't help but notice the looks that keep passing between Daisy and Amina, and she wonders if perhaps Daisy will ever realize the feelings the Egyptian girl has for her.  It all leads up to a rather dramatic and very violent climactic confrontation, when the killer is revealed, grabs May and threatens to drop her overboard into the churning paddle wheel, and one young person's valiant sacrifice to save May's life and stop a killer from killing again...

 

But, wait!  That's not the end!  Hazel manages to provide readers with a bit of an epilogue, with a couple of surprises - some expected, some hoped for, and some not expected at all!  But it seems that while this book series may have reached its conclusion, the Detective Society will live on!   (And if you really want a taste of that, checkout Steven's sort-of-sequel series, The Ministry of Unladylike Activity, which follows an older May Wong on her own series of adventures, solving mysteries and stopping crimes!)

 

While not exactly the ending I would have liked for Hazel and Daisy, this book was without a doubt a superb read, and honestly, it is in full keeping with the growing characters of Hazel Wong and Daisy Wells, and Stevens gives the series a send-off that is worthy of the Wells and Wong' Detective Society.

 

RATING:  10  pieces of wire used as lock picks out of 10 for saving the very best Wells and Wong mystery for last, and giving readers an emotional send-off that makes us realize just how much we love these characters! 

The Brownie Scouts in the Circus - Book Two of the Brownie Scout Books

This second book in The Brownie Scouts series by Mildred Wirt was published in 1949, the same year as the first book in the series.  This series follows the adventures of a group of young Brownie Scouts who live in the small town of Rosedale:  Connie Williams, Jane Tuttle, Rosemary Fritche, Eileen Webber, Belinda Matthews, "Sunny" Davidson, and their seventh and newest member (who joined in the first book), Veve McGuire.  As with the first book, Connie and Veve seem to be the central characters in the story, with the other five girls making random appearances, most often just having their names mentioned with no dialogue or action.  I suppose it would have been difficult to devote time to all seven girls and keep the story on track, so Wirt had to settle upon certain characters to be the focus of each book.  While Connie was in the driver's seat for the first book, she and Veve shared the spotlight in this book.

 

The Brownie Scouts in the Circus is, not surprising at all, an adventure of how the girls inadvertently find themselves a part of an actual traveling circus! However, the book actually begins with the girls preparing for their camping trip, which was alluded to at the end of the first book.  The girls must help earn money in order to purchase the tent and other items they will need for the trip, and poor Veve finds herself at a disadvantage, since her widowed mother does not make enough money for extras (it seems Veve has never even been able to purchase a Brownie uniform during the months between the first book and this book).  Thus, she looks for a way to earn money, and when they see an advertisement for a circus coming to town, they decide to put on their own circus!  Now, picture a few 7 to 10-year old girls putting together a circus in their backyard, and you can imagine how that turns out!  They do, however, manage to make a few dollars, mostly from parents and a friendly policeman who turn out to see the show.

 

Miss Gordon, the scouts' leader, manages to make another way for them to earn money, by selling tickets to the real circus! Not only are they able to make money for their camping trip, but every ten tickets they sell earns them a free ticket to see the show.  Their trip to see the circus eventually leads to the "mystery" in this book, which involves the theft of Miss Gordon's wallet (which happens to have all of the scouts' savings in it!) and her wristwatch.  Connie and Veve both saw the pickpocket and swear they can identify them if they see him again (you can guess where this will lead, can't you?).  Of course, the camping trip is not cancelled, as Miss Gordon makes up the missing money with some of her own, and the girls head out to Shady Hollow for their camping experience - and what an experience it is!

 

Wirt works in a number of mishaps and misadventures to keep the story fun and entertaining.  Once at camp, Miss Gordon allows Veve, Jane, and Eileen to make the first breakfast - which, of course, results in burnt bacon, scorched eggs, and lumpy oatmeal!  A quick trip to town ends up finding Connie and Veve seeing the circus train stopped on the railroad tracks behind the hardware store.  It wouldn't hurt to take a look in the open boxcar, right?  Before you know it, the door to the car is slammed shut, the train starts moving, and the two Brownie Scouts find themselves traveling far away from Shady Hollow, leaving Miss Gordon and their friends behind!  By the time the train stopped, they are over 100 miles away with no way to let Miss Gordon know where they are!  Fortunately, the animal trainer recognizes them from their visit to the circus in Rosedale, and he takes them under his wing while a telegram is sent to their troop leader back at the camp.

 

By now, a mature reader can easily see where the story is going and what the end result will be, and Wirt does not disappoint.   The girls make friends with a young girl their own age who does tricks on horseback for the show, and Connie and Veve are asked to take part in the show by blowing the whistle that signals the change in acts in the three rings.  This, of course, gives them the perfect opportunity to see the audience, where they just so happen to spot the pickpocket!  After a brief chase, the circus' detective snags the man, Miss Gordon gets her watch back (but not her money), and Connie and Veve are awarded $100 reward from the circus for snagging the pickpocket who has been nipping wallets from their customers for some time!  That $100 in 1949 would be worth nearly $1,400 today!  That's quite a large reward for two girls who are not even teenagers yet!

 

Wirt wraps up the story not only with the resolution of the pickpocket incident, but also with the creation of a whole new Brownie Scouts troop within the circus - a traveling scout troop!

 

The cover and interior illustration are once again provided by Marguerite Gayer.  Thanks to some helpful collectors, I was able to find some information on Ms. Gayer (who, it turns out, is Marguerite Solomon Geyer), who, it turns out, had quite the prolific career as an artist!  As far back as 1923, she was illustrating children's stories that appeared in newspapers; during the 1930s, she did illustrations for several romance pulp magazines; and in the 1940s, she illustrated several series for Cupples & Leon, including all three of Wirt's scout series:  Girl Scouts, Brownie Scouts, and Dan Carter Cub Scout.  It was for Cupples & Leon that she signed her name as "Gayer" instead of her real name of "Geyer" with an "e."  Geyer ultimately moved to Florida, where she died in 1963 in Fort Lauderdale.  Her husband passed away eight months after she did.  More information abot Geyer and her work can be found at Pulp Artists - Marguerite Geyer.

 

RATING:  7 beautiful golden coaches out of 10 for a mild-mannered mystery with mishaps, mayhem, and misadventure mixed in for good fun! 

Snoops, Inc. # 4 - The Vanishing Treasure

This series has been a fun little series of easy reads, with some perfectly plotted mysteries that are aptly suited for the young reader age group at which the books are aimed.  Yes, the stories are short (after all, they are intended for fourth graders - although, honestly, I could have easily read these in third grade, and probably second as well), and there are plenty of fantastic illustrations in each chapter drawn by the extremely talented Mariano Epelbaum; but, quite frankly, if you want a twenty or thirty minute escape from the pressures of real life, these are the perfect go-to books!

 

The Vanishing Treasure is the fourth book in the series, which features the twin crime solving siblings, Hayden and Jaden Williams, with their two best friends, Keisha Turner and Carlos Diaz.  Together, these four are Snoops, Inc. - four junior detectives who are ready, willing, and able to help when needed.  As the tag line reads:  "No case too small ... we solve them all!" As with the previous books, the first chapter opens with the conclusion of a case - in this instance, the Snoops have set a trap to capture a bicycle thief, and their coordinated stake-out results in trapping the culprit when she attempts to steal Jaden's shiny red bike, which was used as bait.  With that case behind them, Hayden is free to focus on her upcoming challenge - the annual Math-tastic Regional Tournament!  About the only mystery there is the identity of Hayden's online friend, with whom she has been chatting about the tournament for weeks.  The two plan to meet for the first time at the tournament, and Hayden could not be more excited!

 

Of course, a real mystery gets in the way when the two Math-tastic trophies - one for the winning team and one for the highest-achieving individual - are both stolen from a locked case in the school lobby.  Hayden calls in the rest of her Snoops team, and they are on the case.  Hayden is concerned that the thief could turn out to be her online friend, who she believes to be Anya, a new contender in the math tournament.  All clues do seem to point to her, but Hayden does not want to believe it.  The culrpit could also be Warren Garvey, the student from Hayden's own school who was disqualified by their teacher for cheating on an exam - and boy, is he angry about not being able to participate!  Can the school win without him?  There's also Newt Loggins, a quiet young boy that does not seem to fit in.  As the saying goes, you can never really tell about the quiet ones!  A crumpled up practice test, some saw dust on the floor around the trophy case, a mask that looks like one of the suspects, and a witness's description of a person fleeing the scene all lead the Snoops to only one conclusion - the wrong one!

 

Author Brandon Terrell creates a fun surprise near the end when he reveals not only the real thief, but also the reason for the theft and the true identity of Hayden's online friend.  It all leads them into the school basement, where they get trapped in the boiler room just minutes before Hayden is supposed to be back on stage for the final math competition.  It's a race against time to get Hayden back in the competition and stop the trophy thief before he pulls off one final steal!

 

Enjoyed Terrell's side-story about Jaden's attempts to learn how to perform magic tricks.  Sure, he may have been bumbling around in the beginning, but those tricks turn out to be very important when the kids are locked in the boiler room - a well-placed subplot that seemed to have no importance whatsoever actually worked right into the main mystery quite nicely.  Kudos to Terrell!

 

Another winning read - as I say every time, it's a shame this series didn't last.

 

RATING:  8 grape suckers out of 10 for a calculatingly good mystery featuring a few surprising twists and turns! 

The Brownie Scouts at Snow Valley - Book One of the Brownie Scout Books

This is one of the few series by Mildred A. Wirt (Benson) that I have not yet read, so when a friend suggested I read it, I took her up on it!  I had heard of the Brownie Scout series before, as well as her companion series (Girl Scouts and Dan Carter, Cub Scout), and while I have all of them, I've only ever read one of them (The Girl Scouts at Mystery Mansion).  These series are aimed at a younger audience than her regular mystery series, more along the level of The Bobbsey Twins readers.  As many people are undoubtedly aware, Wirt (Benson) was the original ghostwriter for the Nancy Drew books back in the 1930s, and she went on to write quite a large number of series books over the course of more than two decades, many under her own name.  Surprisingly, she wrote a number of books for young readers (such as some of the Honey Bunch books, as well as the Dot and Dash series, in addition to those listed above).  This particular series was first published in 1949, with the first two books coming out that year, and the remaining four book coming out one a year through 1953.  So, with a little bit of curiosity and wonder as to whether these series would be as enjoyable as her mysteries for older children, I picked up the first book and gave it a read.

 

The Brownie Scouts at Snow Valley introduces readers to six young girls who make up the Brownie Scout troop of a small town named Rosedale, set in somewhere USA (the exact location of the Scouts' hometown is left rather vague, which I suppose was a purposeful way of keeping the author's stories from being limited by geographical area).  The girls include:  Connie Williams, Jane Tuttle, Rosemary Fritche, Eileen Webber, Belinda Matthews, and "Sunny" Davidson.  Of these six girls, Connie is the one who takes center stage through most of the story, with Jane, Rosemary, and Sunny coming in as supporting characters.  Other than passing mentions, we see very little of Eileen and Belinda (who are pretty much just background window dressing used to fill-out the six-girl troop).  However, there is another major character in the story, Veve McGuire.  Veve is not a Brownie Scout; however, she is a friend of the girls, but she is frustrated with her friends for spending more time with their Brownie activities than playing with her.  Rounding out the main cast is Miss Jean Gordon, "the fourth grade teacher at Rosedale School, [who] had organized the Brownies..." (p. 2).

 

This seems like a good place to stop for a moment and discuss the Brownie Scouts for a moment.  Before picking up this book, I knew nothing about "Brownie Scouts," other than the fact that they are precursors to the Girl Scouts.  Wirt does not specifically identify the age of any of the girls, but some online research reveals that Brownie Scouts are usually anywhere from ages 7 or 8 up to 12 years old (at which point, I suppose, they are old enough to join the Girl Scouts).  Since Wirt does reference Miss Gordon as being a fourth grade teacher, one can assume the six girls are likely around 9 or 10 years old (since this book takes place around Christmas time, most likely the girls are still 9 years old).  According to online sources, the Brownie Scouts do have "promises" and "laws" the same as Girl Scouts, which set forth their standards for the members.  In this book, Wirt has them singing, "We're the Brownies, here's our aim: Lend a hand and play the game!" (p. 3).  This is the actual Brownie opening song, but in the story, Wirt has the girls sing this just before their meeting breaks up and the girls leave to go home.  Later in the book, Wirt has Miss Gordon recite to the girls the "Brownie story" as originally told by Juliana Horatia Ewing (pp. 128-33).  While there are some slight variations (Wirt's version has a little girl named Mary and her brother Tommy; in Ewing's original story, Tommy is the lead character, and his brother's name is Johnnie - there is no girl), the overall story elements are the same, with the charm, "Twist me, and turn me, and show me the Elf; I looked in the water, and saw--" (p. 131), being exactly the same as recited in Ewing's tale.  To read the actual story, you can find it here:  The Brownies and Other Tales.

 

Now, with regard to the story itself, the book features two very minor mysteries - one involves someone stealing trees from the property near the Gordons' home in Snow Valley where the girls go for the Christmas holidays, and the other involves a missing locket that Grandmother Gordon claims was stolen by a poor woman who used to be her housekeeper and cook.  These mysteries do not actually come into play until nearly half-way through the book, when the girls are taken to Snow Valley by their troop leader, whose grandparents have opened up their home to the girls.  The first half of the book is merely the adventures (or in poor Veve's case, MISadventures!) of the girls as they get ready for their Christmas break and enjoy what little snow the small town has.  Veve lucks out and is able to join the girls on their trip when Belinda falls ill at the last moment.  The poor girl seems to be a trouble magnet, as she spills water on a fellow train traveler, then that same man steps on her jacks when she accidentally loses them in the aisle; later, at a train stop, she forgets her purse in the depot diner and nearly misses the train!  Connie continually defends her friend, even when some of the other girls grow weary of Veve's mishaps.  Once the girls arrive in Snow Valley, though, the focus shifts to the mysteries.

 

The Stone family live in a nearby cabin and are very poor, so the girls come up with the idea to pool their money to buy the Stone children a brand new sled for Christmas and provide the family with some food for the holiday.  This is when they learn from Grandmother Gordon that Mrs. Stone used to be the Gordon's housekeeper, and Grandmother believes she stole a precious locket.  The Brownies are determined to find the missing locket and exonerate Mrs. Stone.  At the same time, a neighboring property that is filled with a plethora of pine trees, is the subject of numerous thefts, as someone is chopping down trees and sneaking them off the property.  Poor Mr. Stone is blamed, since he is out of work and has been seen walking down the street with an ax in his hand; but when Connie points out they saw another man from town with an ax, the accuser backs down.  Ultimately, both mysteries are solved - the girls have no hand in the resolution of the stolen tree mystery; however, Connie is the one to uncover the whereabouts of the locket, requiring Grandmother Gordon to apologize for her suspicions of Mrs. Stone and re-hire her as the Gordons' housekeeper. As one might expect, it is a very happy conclusion, as all mysteries are solved, the girls' families arrive in Snow Valley on Christmas Eve night despite a horrible snow storm, and the Stone family is included in the Christmas celebration.

 

There is an interesting bit of information in the story about snowflakes, as Miss Gordon gives the girls some facts about various types of snowflakes, how they are formed, and why they are white (pp. 67-69).  She tells them how the hexagonal shape is "fairly common," while three-sided snowflakes are "considered rare" (p. 68).  I had never heard of three-sided snowflakes before, so even I learned something new from this book.  Some quick research reveals that three-sided flakes form due to special aerodynamic  - when a crystal tips in the air, causing two sides to grow faster than the others, creating the triangular shape.  Thus, like so many of the Stratemeyer series books, one can learn new information even from a non-Stratemeyer series such as this!

 

One thing I found rather amusing was that Wirt included a recipe for brownies in the book!  While preparing goodies for the upcoming Christmas holiday, Miss Gordon allows several of the girls (Veve, Connie, and Rosemary) to assist her.  At the bottom of page 155, Wirt includes all of the ingredients one would need to make a batch of brownies (which, oddly enough, Miss Gordon indicates are a type of cookies!).  I have to wonder how many children who read this book back when it originally was published asked their mothers to allow them to make brownies based on this recipe?! 

 

The book has a dedication at the beginning to "MRS. ELEANOR T. GIBSON, Executive Director of the Toledo Girl Scouts, in appreciation of her helpfulness and cooperation."  This would explain the accuracy of the Brownie Scout information, songs, and stories within the book.

 

As a final observation, at the conclusion of the story, Wirt references a trip the girls will take in the summer to a camp, making specific reference to the next book in the series, "The Brownie Scouts in the Circus" (p. 198).  What is unique, though, is that right after this reference, Wirt adds:

And for boys, also interested in cam life and the out-of-doors, there is a book called: "Dan Carter, Cub Scout."  (pp. 198-99).

I can't say that I can recall ever reading a series book that offers up an ad for another series by the same author like this!

 

The art, for both the cover and the interior frontis piece, was provided by Marguerite Gayer (her signature appears on the art and illustration).  What is strange is that I cannot really find anything about the artist online.  The only thing I could find was an illustrated page that Gayer had obviously done for another book, which features a little boy and a dog enjoying a picnic outside.  Thus, it is clear Gayer illustrated other children's books, outside of her work on the Brownie Scouts series, so it is surprising there is next to no information to find about her online.  I have put some feelers out there, so we will see what we can turn up on Ms. Gayer!

 

I'll readily admit that I did enjoy the story.  It was an easy read, and the characters and situations were fun.  Wirt has a way with making her characters come to life, so that you get drawn into their adventures and mishaps without even realizing it!  I'm looking forward to reading the remaining five books in this series. 

RATING:  9 lost luggage bags out of 10 for a fun-filled romp with some cute new characters as they experience plenty of misadventures in the snow! 

Jennings Follows a Clue - Second in the series of Jennings Books

This is one of those books I had a friend pick up on a lark, and it turned out to be surprising in a number of ways.  The title sounded like a fun read, and since the publisher was Collins, I knew it was a British book.  However, I was completely unaware that this was actually the second book in an on-going series of tales about a precious young boy named J.C.T. (John Christopher Timothy) Jennings and his best friend, C.E.J. (Charles Edwin Jeremy) Darbishire, who are students at the Linbury Court preparatory school.  The series is authored by Anthony Buckeridge (1912-2004), a British author who is best known for this series, as well as another about another schoolboy named Rex Milligan.  The Jenning series lasted for a total of 24 books, with the first book (Jennings Goes to School) being published in 1950, and the final book (That's Jennings) being published 44 years later in 1994.

 

As I began reading Jennings Follows a Clue, I began to wonder if this be a book a simply read and passed on, as it was not overly exciting.  It begins as simply another book about boys at a prep school and their misadventures as they look for ways to have fun and try desperately to avoid any kind of school work whatsoever.  Jennings and his cohort, Darbishire, are some extremely imaginative children, whether it be playing cops and robbers, spies and thieves, cowboys and Indians, or any other made up adventure.  When Jennings gets a little too rambunctious as a gyro-copter and knocks into Mr. Carter, the teach takes it upon himself to introduce Jennings and a couple of other students to The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, reading aloud tales of the great detective.  Little does he know that the reading of this book inspires young Jennings to open up his own detective agency at the school, enlisting Darbishire as his very own "Watson."  Now, if they could only find a real mystery to solve...

 

 While the book has a slow start to it, the reader quickly begins to realize the story is more than just a tale of boys' life at a prep school - it is almost an Airplane! or Naked Gun or Scary Movie version of boys' life.  The number of crazy circumstances, the number of bumbling comedy of errors, and the number of Abbott-and-Costello-like dialogue exchanges will more than make you smile, and pretty often make you giggle and laugh out loud.  Jennings and Darbishire are right there at the middle of everything, and despite all of their best intentions, their over-active imaginations lead them into one big mess after another.  The Headmaster, Mr. Carter, and Mr. Wilkins all attempt to reign the boy in, but with Jennings, there is simply no controlling the boy!  He is determined to be a detective, and with Darbishire at his side, the Linbury Court Detective Agency (or Ln. Ct. Det. Ag., for short) is going to solve every mystery the school has to offer - and as luck would have it, one does fall right into their laps, even if no one believes them.

 

The boys make their share of mistakes trying to find a mystery, but when they spot the shadow of a man in the infirmary late at night, when no one is supposed to be there, they believe they are on to something.  They keep their suspicions under wraps, Jennings determined to get real evidence of a thief before they present it to the Headmaster; and with the big Sports Day games coming up, the Ln. Ct. Det. Ag. have very little free time to devote to their detecting.  One fateful night, they chance to see the intruder again, so they sneak over to the infirmary to catch the man in the act - only, the tables get turned, and they are the ones caught instead - locked inside a room while the thief gets away!  At first, the Headmaster does not believe their story, until they return to the school and find that someone has stolen all of the boys' Sports Day trophies from the library!  The game is now afoot, and unwittingly (or, perhaps we should say, dimwittedly!), Jennings and Darbishire follow up on their one clue - a button torn from the thief's shirt - to track down and ultimately unmask the crook.  (And if you pay attention while reading the book, you'll be able to spot the thief fairly easily - but blink, and you might miss it!)

 

Now, there are some things worth mentioning about the story, particularly the time of year.  On the very first page of the first chapter, the author describes "the grumbling February sky" (p. 9), yet, just before that, indicates that this takes place "[d]uring the first half of the Easter term" (p. 9).  This seems rather odd, since Easter normally takes place between March 22 and April 25, and it never falls in February.  So, perhaps the reference to "Easter term" is actually just another way of describing the "Spring term" for the school?  Next, the author makes a passing reference to "Dick Barton" (p. 50), when Jennings suggests to Darbishire that they will hail the next car and ask the driver to follow the one they are chasing, because "[t]hat's what 'Dick Baron' does anyway, and it always works" (p. 50).  I looked it up, and it seems Dick Barton was a radio-serial about a special agent that used to be broadcast on the BBC between 1946 and 1951 - and since this book was first published in 1951, it would have been right around the time that serial was coming to an end (but clearly, young boys like Jennings and Darbishire would still have listened to the stories and be familiar with the character).

 

In addition, readers get a brief lesson in Latin, when the boys are in class, using the pronouns hic, haec, hoc as sound effects for their imaginary plane battle - which comes to an abrupt end when the teacher enters the room, albeit Jennings misses the queue and keeps his "gun" firing:  "Hic-haec-hoc ... hic-haec-hoc ... hic-haec-hoc ... B-A-N-G!" (p. 181).   They jokingly utilize  the feminine ablative, accusative singular, genitive plural, and other variations of the words in their battle, naming their conjugations as they bleat them out in their fantasy battle.  I found this to be an ingenuious way of the author to insert a bit of actual learning into the story.

 

I am not sure who did the cover art  for this edition, but it is a beautiful, wrap-around scene that depicts the opening sequence, when Jennings and Darbishire are attempting to play a quiet game of chess while all the other boys in their grade (or "form," as it is referred to in the book) are wildly engaged in noisy activities, one of which sends a boxing glove right into the chessboard, knocking over all of our main characters' pieces.

 

While I ultimately enjoyed the story, and found a number of conversations to be very much along the lines of the 1980s and 1990s parody films, I am unlikely to search out any other books in the series.  A quick glance at the list of books on the back inside flap of the dust jacket reveals that this book appears to be the only one with any sort of mystery to it. All of the other books appear to be simply tales of Jennings' life at the boarding school and the various misadventures he and Darbishire find themselves in time and time again.  These are not my typical reading material, and so this is just a one-off that will find itself on my shelf of British children's books, never to have any of the other books in its series around it.

 

RATING:  7 Grossman Cine Camera de Luxes out of 10 for a slapstick style misadventure filled with plenty of misunderstandings, crack comments, and a touch of mystery. 

 

Agatha, Girl of Mystery #5 - The Eiffel Tower Incident

Well, I didn't wait quite as long between reading the installments of Agatha, Girl of Mystery this time (last time, there was a year gap between books!).  This time, I managed to only let five months pass before picking up the next book in the series.  I cannot say enough just how much FUN this series is!  Yes, it is aimed at young readers, and yes, each book is relatively short (only 120 or so pages, with large font and plenty of illustrations); but the stories and characters are unique and whimsical, and the mysteries are so wonderfully plotted, with clues to their solution placed right there for the reader to pick up on, you can't help but enjoy yourself reading them!  I am thankful that Grosset & Dunlap picked up the series and translated it from its original Italian into the English language for us to read.

 

The Eiffel Tower Incident takes Agatha and her crime-solving cohorts into new territory - solving a murder! Agatha and her cousin, Dash, are off to Paris to visit with Dash's older brother, Gaston, who is a painter - and, of course, Chandler (the butler) and Watson (the cat) are along for the ride.  Dash gets delayed, though, due to one of his detective classes, and he inadvertently causes a severe injury to his teacher who is headed to Paris as well to solve the mystery of a murdered Russian diplomat - so with no other choice, he sends Dash in his place.  Poor Dash doesn't know what to do, so he immediately seeks Agatha's help, and she is more the ready to step in and save the day.

 

Author Sir Steve Stevenson does create  rather crafty little mystery here.  Boris Renko, a 60-year old Russian diplomat was having dinner at the famous Jules Verne restaurant, located more than 400 feet above the ground on the second level of the Eiffel Tower (which, as it turns out, is an actual restaurant located exactly where the book says), when he suddenly choked and fell to the floor in a faint.  By the time he reached the hospital, he was pronounced dead.  The police discovered traces of poison in his wine and arrested the sommelier (otherwise known as a wine steward) who had been serving him.  But Agatha finds this too convenient and sets about solving the crime and uncovering the identity of the real killer.  But the only clue she has is the phrase, "red rose," which were the dying man's last words.  This leads them to three possible suspects.

 

Gerard Clouseau is a boxer with a red rose tattooed on his neck.  He had a sour confrontation with the diplomat in the elevator riding up to the restaurant the night of the murder.  John Radcliffe was a brilliant New York attorney having dinner with his girlfriend that night; but when he proposed, she left in tears, leaving behind the engagement ring and the red rose he had given her.  Madame Roxanne Pigafette is a  food critic whose brother owns a restaurant in competition with Le Jules Verne.  Any one of the three had a motive, yet, Agatha has to figure out which of them had the means and opportunity.  As it turns out, the real killer set up an entire faux scenario, and as revealed through the interviews with the suspects, stumbled out of the restaurant just before the diplomat was poisoned - knocking into some patrons, as well as a waiter, and stopping for a moment at the bar where the wine glasses were waiting for the steward to deliver.  With the means and opportunity cleared up, Agatha, Dash, Chandler, and Watson (that cat goes everywhere!) had across the street from the Russian embassy in Paris to confront the killer!

 

Readers are treated to an exciting roof-top chase, as well as an unexpected rescue from the most unlikely source.  And, once again, the case is wrapped up nicely, the criminal is brought to justice, and Dash is pulled out of the frying pan and not kicked out of school - all thinks to the quick-thinking and analytical skills of Agatha, Girl of Mystery! 

 

Artist Stefano Turconi provides plenty of illustrations throughout the book, and his stylized art provides readers with a fun romp through the streets of Paris and the Eiffel Tower at twilight (with a gorgeous two-page spread in the middle of the book).  Turconi captures the character descriptions provided by Stevenson so nicely, and while they are a bit cartoony in nature, it fits the feel of the book. I would so love to see this done as an animated series, with Turconi's art as the basis and style for the animation!

 

From Egypt to Bengal, from Scotland to Niagara Falls ... Agatha Mistery travels the world to solve what appear to be impossible crimes!  Sure, the stories are short, easy reads (an hour at most to read one book), but they are well worth it for the entertainment value alone!

 

RATING:  9 bottles of cockroach poison out of 10 for giving young readers a chance to enjoy a carefully crafted murder mystery that even they can solve!