Monday, December 10, 2012

Index of 50 Materials for LIBR 265


Final Blog AssignmentMaterials Blog of 50 Items

For my YA Materials class this semester (Fall 2012), I had, as a final project, to complete a blog of 50 items recommended for a teen library collection aimed at readers 15-18 years old. Since I like my professional blog here which was started as the final blog project for LIBR 264: Materials for Tweens and I then decided to keep it and turn it into the blog for my series book thesis work, I just incorporated the LIBR 265 posts within since I didn't really want to create a new blog for more book reviews and I love the look of my blog (hello original Nancy Drew orange endpapers!). This is why you'll see the formats of the posts being rather different from one to another (there are essentially three "styles" on here--the requirements for LIBR 264 posts, the requirements for LIBR 265 posts, and my own musings on the books for my thesis--so there is a purpose to the chaotic styling!)

Below is the alphabetical list of titles required for the LIBR 265 blog project. If interested in seeing just these entries, they can be found by clicking on the LIBR 265 tag at the end of the post. (I wasn't going to be horrible and make my poor professor sift through tons of blog posts to find the ones for her class! I'm not cruel!)


1 Adventures into the Unknown (Volume 1)
2 Adventures of Pete & Pete
3 Arkham Horror
4 Bad Island
5 Batman: Knightfall (Volume 1)
6 Bitter End
7 Breaking Beautiful
8 Carrie Diaries
9 Case Closed (Volume 1)
10 Clue
11 Crazy Beautiful
12 Faking Faith
13 Future of Us
14 Getting Over Garrett Delaney
15 Ghost Flower
16 Gilt
17 Gloom
18 Karma Club
19 Kiki
20 Leviathan
21 Loser/Queen
22 love & leftovers
23 Mango Languages
24 Mega Ran
25 My Life Undecided
26 Ouran High School Host Club
27 Pretty Crooked
28 Raised by Wolves
29 Reality Check
30 Riding Invisible
31 Ripple
32 rosebush
33 School Rumble
34 Secret Letters
35 Secret Sisterhood of Heartbreakers
36 Seventeen
37 Sirenz
38 Sometimes It Happens
39 Stay
40 Strings Attached
41 Sweet Venom
42 Tessa Masterson Will Go to Prom
43 This is Not a Test
44 Trafficked
45 TransWorld SKATEboarding
46 Trial by Fire
47 Various Positions
48 Vindico
49 Wicked Girls: A Novel of the Salem Witch Trials
50 Zombie Queen of Newbery High

The Secret of the Old Clock (Nancy Drew #1)



The Secret of the Old Clock (Nancy Drew #1)
Carolyn Keene
Grosset & Dunlap, 1959

Genre: Mystery

Description

My previous post discusses the original 1930s version of the first Nancy Drew mystery. This post will discuss the 1959 revision. In the plot, I will write about the revision and make notes in brackets of major elements that changed from the original to the revision.

Nancy Drew, an attractive girl of 18 [16], is driving home in her new convertible. She just got done delivering some legal papers for her father. As she is driving down the road, a little girl not more than five years old dashes out into the street in front of her and almost gets hit by a moving van. The girl jumps up onto the narrow railing of a bridge but looses her balance and falls. Nancy rushes to the scene and luckily the girl appears to be fine. She lives with her great-aunts, Mary and Edna Turner [Mathilda and Edna Turner don’t play much of a role in the original]. Mary tells Nancy that a cousin of their father’s, Josiah Crowley, used to help them with finances but he died a few months ago. He was supposed to leave them some money in his will but it all ended up going to the snooty Tophams. As Nancy is taking leave, the women notice that some of their silver is missing—the men in the moving truck have stolen it! First, they nearly kill poor Judy and then they turn out to be thieves.

When Nancy returns home that evening she learns more about the Crowley case from her father. He says that it seems like all the evidence points to Josiah having written a second will but no one can find it so his original will leaving everything to the Tophams will be the will that is honored. Nancy wishes she could help young Judy by finding the second will. Carson asks Nancy if she will take some papers to Judge Hart [Hartgrave] in Masonville. He tells her to stop by a farm and speak to the Hoover [Horner] girls on her way back as they were also supposed to be left money in Josiah’s will.

On her way back from dropping off the papers, Nancy gets caught in a bad thunderstorm and takes refuge in a barn. There she is introduced to the few girls she was coming to see—Allison [Allie] and Grace. It is Allison’s birthday so they invite Nancy to wait out the storm and have some cake. Allison sings and Nancy admires her beautiful voice. She admits that she has wanted to take singing lessons but can’t afford them now that Uncle Josiah didn’t leave them any money in his will. Nancy explains who she is and that she is going to try and find the second will. On her way back home she stops at the home of Signor Mascagni, a famous voice teacher, and asks him to hear Allison sing and possibly take her on as a student if she gets her part of the inheritance. The girls come and visit Nancy and Carson the next day, telling them everything they know about the will. The girls join Nancy for dinner and Allison gets to sing in front of Signor. He falls in love with her voice and tells Allison that, if she can get the money, he would take her on as a student at half price.

Nancy decides that her best bet is to talk to the other people Josiah was going to leave money to. She is told to speak to William and Fred Mathews and Abby Rowen. The Mathews tell Nancy pretty much the same story and say that they have filed a complaint with the courthouse. Abby is a fragile old lady. Nancy discovers that she had an accident falling down the stairs and is in extreme pain. Nancy goes to the store to get her some food and bandages and Abby admits to actually seeing the second will in Josiah's possession. He told her that he just needed two witnesses and that he was going to put it somewhere where no one could get to it without legitimate legal authority. Unfortunately, Abby has trouble remembering the details until her clock chimes and she remembers that he had said something about clock. She also remembers that he said he wrote the location of the will in a small little notebook that he hid somewhere. He did have a small mantel clock that now must reside in the Topham house. Nancy’s got to find that clock.

Nancy runs into her friend Helen who says that she is selling charity dance tickets and has four [six] of them to get rid of or else she can't go on her trip to Moon Lake. Nancy, seeing a way to get into the Topham house, offers to sell the tickets for her. Nancy goes over to the house and is invited in by Mrs. Topham. She seems about ready to buy the tickets when Ada and Isabel show up and convince her not to. However, her husband shows up and hands Nancy a $100 [$20] bill for the tickets. As Nancy is leaving she asks what time it is and notices the mantel clock on the fireplace. She asks if it is a Crowley heirloom and Mrs. Topham says that all of Crowley's stuff was junk and looked out of place with their modern furnishings so all of it is being stored in their bungalow at Moon Lake.

Nancy asks her father if can join Helen on a camping trip to Moon Lake. Her father tells Nancy she can go. Nancy makes it to Moon Lake where Helen is very happy to see her. After dinner Nancy is dragged on a hike and then told that the girls are going for a ride in a launch. Nancy agrees to going in the hopes of discovering which bungalow belongs to the Tophams. When she asks about their bungalow she is told that they aren't there right now and that there is just a caretaker. Nancy plans to visit the bungalow the next day but Helen and the girls take up all her time with their various activities. The next day Helen announces they are going on all-day hike and Nancy says she needs a bit of her break. After they are gone, Nancy takes the launch out onto the lake to get to the bungalow. Unfortunately, the boat breaks down at her plans are foiled. Poor Nancy decides that she will have to leave camp the next day because Helen and her friends won't ever leave her alone. She will have to stop at the cottage on her way out.

The next day Nancy drives up the precarious road that leads to the cottage. Her journey is made all that harder by tire tracks that appear to have been made recently in the mud. As she gets out of her car by the cottage she notices that the tire tracks of the truck also appear to have stopped here. As she approaches the bungalow she discovers that the whole camp is in chaos. Clearly, a moving van had been here no more than an hour ago. She goes into the house to discover that the whole place has been ransacked except for one bedroom that was practically untouched with just a rolled up rug in the middle of the floor. Nancy is nervous as the robbers could still be in the vicinity.

She decides to leave and stop at the nearest town to report the robbery. As she passes a window, she sees a heavyset man start walking up the path towards the house. The bedroom closet is the only place that offers her a possible refuge and she slips in and not a moment too soon. Unfortunately, Nancy ends up sneezing and gives herself away. After an intense struggle, she finds herself locked in the closet. Nancy is overcome with panic at the thought that she is been left there to starve to death. Nancy tries everything to get out of the closet and finally pulls down the hanger rod to use it as leverage to pop the door out of its hinges. As the door is almost free, Nancy hears footsteps. It is Jeff Tucker.

Nancy and Jeff introduce themselves and Jeff tells Nancy that he was “hornswoggled” by some men. They arrived in a moving van and told him they saw some trespassers. He followed one of the men down to the lake and was locked in a shed. He just got out, came back and discovered the place robbed, and Nancy in the closet. [In the original, Jeff is a black man who gets in a car with a white man who gets him drunk and drops him off at a hotel. Jeff wakes up in the morning, notices his house keys missing, and makes his way back to the cottage to find Nancy in the closet.] They make it to the police station and Nancy says that on her way there she saw the side road where the truck’s tire marks turned off on. She says that she will take the police there. They follow the trail until they reach a fork in the road and lose the tire tracks. Nancy decides to take the road to the major city while the police take the other road. Nancy drives for a while and thinks she might have been wrong. Luckily, she finds a fueling station and while filling her tank asks the attendant if he has seen a moving van. [She sees a man on the side of the road with a team of horses and decides to question him. He says he saw a moving truck about twenty minutes ago that nearly pushed him into a ditch.] She is directed back to the restaurant she passed and finds a large barn and garage that the men could have parked the truck in.

She peeks inside the restaurant and sees the three men sitting at table. Before she decides to notify the police she thinks that maybe she could look inside the truck and find the clock before the stolen goods are confiscated by them. She makes her way to the barn and finds the truck. Inside, after some hunting around, she sees the clock and grabs it just in time to hear heavy footsteps coming towards her. She proceeds to hide in a grain bin [manger]. In her car, Nancy can't resist looking inside the clock and is saddened to discover there is nothing there. Of course Abby did not say that the notebook would be in the clock; Nancy had made that deduction. She turns it upside down and rattles it and hears something moving around. She removes the face of the clock and inside discovers a tiny blue notebook.

Nancy backtracks to find the police and they give chase on a moving van. To avoid the cops, the driver swerves and costs the van to loose control and it settles in a ditch. [They end up having to fire their gun and pop a tire to get the van to stop.] Nancy gives a positive identification. Instead of a reward, Nancy asks the cop to put in a good word with the Tophams for Jeff as she doesn’t want to see him loose his job [in the original no thought is given the Jeff getting in trouble]. Nancy gets worried when the Marshall wants to ride back in her car because the clock is sitting on the front seat of her roadster. Luckily, the little notebook is in her pocket so she decides to tell the Marshall that she has the clock. When she found the van she took it upon herself to search it to make sure the stolen furniture is inside. She had the clock in her hands when the men came back to the van so she ran and hid. She hands the clock to him. [Nancy gets away with her little petty thievery—she doesn’t tell the Marshall about the clock]. At home, Nancy begins to pour over the little notebook and discovers lots of information about Josiah's financial standing. After a while, Nancy finally finds a small key with a tag “148” [notation saying that his will can be found in a safety deposit box] for a safety deposit box at the Merchants Trust Company [Masonville National Bank] under the name Josiah Johnston [Harkston].

When her father returns home she anxiously tells him the news and he says that the discovery of the second will will be unfortunate for the Tophams as Richard has been losing heavily in the stock market over the past month and it seems that he is depending upon the Crowley money to pull the family out of a tight spot. The next morning, Nancy and her father get court order to open up the safety deposit box and then head towards the bank. Nancy and her father are allowed to view the safety deposit box. Inside the box is a will that names the bank manager the executor of the will. It’s no wonder the will didn’t come to light as both witnesses—Dr. Nesbitt and Thomas Wackley—died a few months after Crowley. [They discover that one of the witnesses is Dr. Nesbitt who unfortunately died a few days after Crowley. The other witness is a Thomas Wackley no one has ever heard of.]

A few days later Carson invites everyone involved in the will to his house. Of course, the Topham family thinks that it is utterly preposterous that there is a second will and that there is some type of conspiracy going on. Carson reads the will. Allison and Grace receive 20% of the estate [$75,000 each]. Abby receives 10% of the estate [$75,000]. Fred and William receive 10% of the estate [$20,000 each] and Edna and Mary receive 20% of the estate [$20,000 each]. Richard Topham receives $5,000 [he gets nothing in the original] and Mrs. Topham asks if they are mentioned at all and Carson replies that they are and reads aloud, “to Grace and Allison Hoover my household furniture now in the possession of Mrs. Richard Topham.” Grace and Allison say that they now have enough without the furniture so they won't take the household goods from Mrs. Topham.

A number of months later, Nancy learns that the Tophams have filed for bankruptcy and have been forced to give up their fancy home and the girls have to go to work! She goes to visit Grace and Allison and sees all the new things that they've done to improve their farm. All of the relatives wanted to give her a reward but Nancy says that she doesn't want anything. However, she is happy and shocked when the girls hand her the Crowley clock. She's attached to it because of its suggestion of her recent adventure.

“I'll always prize this clock as a trophy of my first venture as a detective.”

Thoughts and Nuggets of Wisdom for Research

Let’s compare some of the same issues from the 1930s version to this 1957 version. Most of Nancy’s description and home life is the same except for the fact that Nancy is now 18 instead of 16 years old. Nancy’s opinions of the Topham’s have not changed at all (p. 12):

“Nancy did not know Richard Topham, but she was acquainted with his wife, as well as his daughters. They were arrogant and unreasonable, and disliked by many of the shopkeepers in town. Ada and Isabel had been unpopular in high school. They had talked incessantly of money and social position, making themselves very obnoxious to the other students.”

[Original: “Richard Topham is an old skinflint who made his money by gambling on the stock exchange. And Cora, his wife, is nothing but a vapid social climber. The two girls, Isabella and Ada, are even worse. I went to school with them, and I never saw such stuck up creatures in all my life. If they fall heir to any more money, this town won't be big enough to hold them!”]

When Nancy goes shopping she runs into the vapid and rude Topham sisters—Ada and Isabel. In the revision they are described as: “In spite of the expensive clothes she wore, Ada was not attractive. She was very thin and sallow, with an expression of petulance. Now that her face was distorted with anger, she was almost ugly. Isabel, the pride of the Topham family, was rather pretty, but her face lacked character. She had acquired an artificially elegant manner of speaking which, although irritating, was sometimes amusing. It was her mother's ambition that Isabel marry into a socially prominent family” (p. 23). Nancy adds, “I pity any future husband of hers!”

[Original: The narration reads, “In spite of the expensive clothes she [Ada] wore, she was nothing but attractive, for she was tall and slender to the point of being termed ‘skinny.’ Now that her face was distorted with anger, she was positively ugly. Isabel, who was the pride of the Topham family, was rather pretty in a vapid sort of way, but Nancy Drew thought that her face lacked character. She acquired an artificial manner of speaking which was both irritating and amusing. It was her mother's ambition that someday she marry into a wealthy family, and every opportunity was given her for her brilliant match” (p. 15-16).]

When Carson discovers that Nancy is going to actively search for the missing second will, he warns her about detective work: “Detective work isn’t always the safest occupation in which to engage. I happen to know that Richard Topham is an unpleasant man when crossed. If you do find out anything which may frustrate him, the entire Topham family could make things extremely difficult for you” (p. 62).

[Original: “Detective work isn't always the safest occupation in which to engage. I happen to know that Richard Topham is an unpleasant man when crossed. If you actually succeed in learning anything which may help the Horner girls, you are certain to have the Tophams in your wool” (p. 40).

The Tophams excess continues to be explored when Nancy goes to visit Mrs. Topham to try and sell her the charity tickets and find out about the Crowley clock. When she arrives “it seemed ages to the young sleuth before the maid returned and said that ‘Madame’ would see her. Nancy was ushered into the living room, which was so bizarre in its décor she was startled. ‘Such an expensive hodge-podge!’ Nancy observed to herself, sitting down. She glanced at the pink carpet—which to her clashed with the red window draperies—and at an indiscriminate assortment of period furniture mixed with modern” (p. 83).

[Original:  When she arrives she is “forced to wait until the Butler returned with permission for her to enter. As she was finally ushered into the living room, she could not help but smile at the elaborate formality, for in spite of Mrs. Topham's lofty ambitions, the woman had never achieved the commanding position in society that she strove for” (p. 96).]

On her way to Moon Lake, Nancy still gets a flat tire. Her changing it this time is expressed as: “Though Nancy was able to change a tire, she never relished the task. Quickly she took out the spare tire from the rear compartment, found the jack and lug wrench, and went to work. By the time her job was completed, she was hot and a little breathless” (p. 91-92). Compared to the original Nancy goes from a heroic girl who doesn’t let a flat tire stop her to a whiny girl who breaks a sweat at a little work.

[Original: “Presently, she noticed that the roadster had taken a strange notion to turn to the left of the road in spite of her efforts to keep it in the middle. Not without foreboding of trouble, she stopped the car and got out to make a tour of inspection. As she suspected, the rear tire was flat. . . . It was not the first time Nancy Drew had changed a tire, but she never relished the task. Rummaging under the seat, she pulled out the tools and quickly jacked up the rear axle. She loosened the lugs which held the tire in place, and tugged at it. Again and again she pulled, but the huge balloon tire could not be budged. Then, she gave one mighty tug, it came off and Nancy Drew fell backwards into a sitting posture in the road.”]

However, of course, the biggest change comes in the form of Jeff Tucker’s character. He is no longer referred to as the “negro” or “colored” caretaker because Harriet Adams’s usual way of fixing the problem of cultural and stereotypical elements in the revision of the Stratemeyer books was simply to eliminate the problem. Instead of making Jeff a more realistic black character Jeff is now a white man. He still suffers from some dialect issues (instead of being a very phonetically speaking black man he now seems more like the stereotype of an uneducated country bumpkin). Here is the same conversation but now with a white man (p. 115-116):

“So, one o’ you ornery robbers got yourself locked up, did you? That’ll teach you to try puttin’ one over on old Jeff Tucker. You won’t be doin’ any more pilferin’. I got you surrounded.”

[Original:  “Oh, you is a caged lion, dis time,” a rather unsteady voice remarked. “You is one o' dese tough robber boys, is you? Well, you won't do no no' pilferrin', 'cause I done got you surrounded.”]

“Let me out!” she pleaded. “I’m not one of the thieves! If you’ll only let me out of her, I’ll explain everything!”

[Original: “Let me out!” Nancy pleaded. “I'm not a robber!”]

“Say, you aimin’ to throw me off, imitatin’ a lady’s voice? Well, it won’t do you any good! No, sir. Old Jeff Tucker’s not gettin’ fooled again!”

[Original: “Say, robber boy, is you imitatin' a lady's voice to th'o' me off de scent? If you is, it won't do no good 'cause I's a natural-born two-legged blood houn'.”]

Nancy decided to convince the man beyond doubt. She gave a long, loud feminine scream.

[Original: Nancy thought of a way to convince him. She let go her longest and loudest feminine scream.]

“All right, all right, ma’am. I believe you! No man could make that racket. This way out, lady!”

[Original: “Dat's enough! Hold yo' siren! I'll let yo' out. Dar ain't a man in de world could make a racket like dat! Dis way out, lady!”]

Expectantly Nancy waited. But the door did not open. Then she heard to her dismay:

[Original: Expectantly, Nancy waited, but the door did not open.]

“If that ain’t the limit. The key’s gone and I’ve left my ring o’ extra keys somewhere. It’s not in my pockets.”

[Original: “My Lawdy!” she she heard to her horror. “I's done gone and misplaced de key!”]

When he releases Nancy, she learns about what happened to him: “I was plain hornswoggled by those critters, Miss Drew. They pulled up here in a movin’ van, and told me I’d better get after some trespasser they’d seen nearby. So, I believed ‘em. One of the men went with me down to the lake and locked me in a shed. I just got out. And all this time they was robbin’ the place” (p. 117).

[Original: When Nancy is released the first thing she notices about Jeff is that he “plainly had had a bit too much to drink. Jeff still knew very well what was going on about him, but a certain alcoholic glitter in his eyes and his somewhat unsteady stance informed Nancy that he was not just as sober as the proverbial judge” (p. 139-141). She suspects that while he was off getting drunk, the robbers had made off with the Topham furniture, for even in his condition of semi-inebriety he realizes that something was wrong: “Say, white gu'l, you tell me wheah all dis heah fu'niture is at!”]

The Secret of the Old Clock (Nancy Drew #1)



The Secret of the Old Clock (Nancy Drew #1)
Carolyn Keene
Grosset & Dunlap, 1930

Genre: Mystery

Description

Nancy Drew is a pretty young girl of 16 who lives with her father Carson Drew, a noted criminal case lawyer, and Hannah Gruen, their housekeeper. There is a big to do in town over the recent death of Josiah Crowley who, according to his will, left his entire estate to the Tophams, the richest and most stuck up family in town. While Josiah did not have many living relatives, he had lived with the family for a few years before his death. However, over the years he had stayed with some other people who treated him better and actually cared for him and to whom he promised to leave a legacy. Shortly before his death, many of these people were told by Josiah himself that he was changing his will to cut the Tophams out. However, a second will has not been found since his death and it seems likely that the Tophams will receive all of his money. Nancy is interested in this mystery.

One day, her father asks her if she can run out and take some papers to Judge Hartgrave in Masonville, a 15 mile drive away. Nancy is late returning home and foolishly takes a more scenic route when she gets caught in a horrible storm. She sees a very large open barn and drives towards it for shelter. She is shocked to meet a young girl named Allie Horner who invites her to come to their house where she lives with her sister, Grace. The girls have been living alone for a while as their father died two years ago and their mother before that. When they mention Uncle Josiah, Nancy realizes that these two girls are some of the people that Josiah said he would leave money to in his will.

Grace tells Nancy that Josiah said that he was going to make a new will and that he wasn't going to trust a lawyer with it; he was going to hide in a safe place. Unfortunately, since he was living with the Tophams at the time, it is likely to be hidden in their house and if it has been found they definitely would have destroyed it just to keep the inheritance. Nancy really wants to help the girls but is depressed that there seem to be no clues. Her father suggests that she go shopping and she runs into Ada and Isabel Topham. She overhears their conversation and hears them talking about a will and from the sound of things they appear to be worried that such a will exists and that it will be found. This gives Nancy some hope that she can find the second will in time.

Nancy decides that her best bet is to talk to the other people Josiah was going to leave money to. She is told to speak to a Matilda and Edna Turner, William and Fred Mathews, and Abigail Rowen. The Mathews tell Nancy pretty much the same story and say that they have filed a complaint with the courthouse. She next goes to visit Abigail and discovers that she had an accident falling down the stairs and is in extreme pain. Nancy goes to the store to get her some food and bandages and Abigail admits to actually seeing the second will in Josiah's possession. He told her that he just needed two witnesses and that he was going to put it somewhere where no one could get to it without legitimate legal authority. Unfortunately, Abigail has trouble remembering the details until her clock chimes and she remembers that he had said something about clock. She also remembers that he said he wrote the location of the will in a small little notebook that he hid somewhere. He did have a small mantel clock that now must reside in the Topham house. Nancy’s got to find that clock.

Nancy runs into her friend Helen who says that she is selling charity dance tickets and has six of them to get rid of or else she can't go on her trip to Moon Lake. Nancy, seeing a way to get into the Topham house, offers to sell the tickets for her. Nancy goes over to the house and is invited in by Mrs. Topham. She seems about ready to buy the tickets when Ada and Isabel show up and convince her not to. However, her husband shows up and hands Nancy a $20 bill for the tickets. As Nancy is leaving she asks what time it is and notices the mantel clock on the fireplace. She asks if it is a Crowley heirloom and Mrs. Topham says that all of Crowley's stuff was junk and looked out of place with their modern furnishings so all of it is being stored in their bungalow at Moon Lake.

Nancy is positively elated at the news that she's learned from her visit; however, she has no idea how she can get down to Moon Lake. Her father asks her if she is all right and suggests a possible vacation for because he realizes that it is hard for a girl her age to look after their big house. That is when Nancy remembers that Helen is going on a camping trip to Moon Lake. Her father tells Nancy she can go. On her way out, she stops to see Allie and Grace, only to discover Allie in tears because half of her chickens are dead. Nancy gives the girls money for a dress that Grace is going to make for her.

Nancy makes it to Moon Lake where Helen is very happy to see her. After dinner Nancy is dragged on a hike and then told that the girls are going for a ride in a launch. Nancy agrees to going in the hopes of discovering which bungalow belongs to the Tophams. When she asks about their bungalow she is told that they aren't there right now and that there is just a caretaker. Nancy plans to visit the bungalow the next day but Helen and the girls take up all her time with their various activities. The next day Helen announces they are going on all-day hike and Nancy says she needs a bit of her break. After they are gone, Nancy takes the launch out onto the lake to get to the bungalow. Unfortunately, the boat breaks down at her plans are foiled. Poor Nancy decides that she will have to leave camp the next day because Helen and her friends won't ever leave her alone. She will have to stop at the cottage on her way out.

The next day Nancy drives up the precarious road that leads to the cottage. Her journey is made all that harder by tire tracks that appear to have been made recently in the mud. As she gets out of her car by the cottage she notices that the tire tracks of the truck also appear to have stopped here. As she approaches the bungalow she discovers that the whole camp is in chaos. Clearly, a moving van had been here no more than an hour ago. She goes into the house to discover that the whole place has been ransacked except for one bedroom that was practically untouched with just a rolled up rug in the middle of the floor. Nancy is nervous as the robbers could still be in the vicinity.

She decides to leave and stop at the nearest town to report the robbery. As she passes a window, she sees a heavyset man start walking up the path towards the house. The bedroom closet is the only place that offers her a possible refuge and she slips in and not a moment too soon. Unfortunately, Nancy ends up sneezing and gives herself away. After an intense struggle, she finds herself locked in the closet. Nancy is overcome with panic at the thought that she is been left there to starve to death. Nancy tries everything to get out of the closet and finally pulls down the hanger rod to use it as leverage to pop the door out of its hinges. As the door is almost free, Nancy hears footsteps. It is Jeff Tucker.

Nancy and Jeff introduce themselves and Jeff tells Nancy that he was hanging around last night wishing he was somewhere else when a white man drove up in a big truck. The man told him that he knows how lonesome it is out there so he told Jeff to get in the car. The man offered him a little drink and before Jeff knew it he was blitzed. He woke up in a hotel feeling really sick. He discovered that his keys to the house had been stolen and he returned to the cottage as fast as he could. Nancy tells Jeff that they should go into town and report the robbery. He assures her that he would be able to recognize the man who got him drunk. On the way out, Nancy asks if he ever saw a clock and he says yes. Nancy is pretty sure that Crowley hid the notebook in the clock and that it was stolen by the robbers.

They make it to the police station and Nancy says that on her way there she saw the side road where the truck’s tire marks turned off on. She says that she will take the police there. They follow the trail until they reach a fork in the road and lose the tire tracks. Nancy decides to take the road to the major city while the police take the other road. Nancy drives for a while and thinks she might have been wrong. Luckily, she sees a man on the side of the road with a team of horses and decides to question him. He says he saw a moving truck about twenty minutes ago that nearly pushed him into a ditch.

Nancy sees a roadhouse and it occurs to her that they might have stopped there. There is a large barn and garage that the men could have parked the truck in. She peeks inside the restaurant and sees the three men sitting at table. Before she decides to notify the police she thinks that maybe she could look inside the truck and find the clock before the stolen goods are confiscated by them. She makes her way to the barn and finds the truck. Inside, after some hunting around, she sees the clock and grabs it just in time to hear heavy footsteps coming towards her. She proceeds to hide in a manger. In her car, Nancy can't resist looking inside the clock and is saddened to discover there is nothing there. Of course Abigail did not say that the notebook would be in the clock; Nancy had made that deduction. She turns it upside down and rattles it and hears something moving around. She removes the face of the clock and inside discovers a tiny blue notebook.

Nancy backtracks to find the police and they give chase on a moving van. They end up having to fire their gun and pop a tire to get the van to stop. Nancy gives a positive identification. Nancy gets worried when the Marshall wants to ride back in her car because the clock is sitting on the front seat of her roadster. Luckily, Nancy gets away with her little petty thievery. At home, Nancy begins to pour over the little notebook and discovers lots of information about Josiah's financial standing—the amount of his estate reached well over $300,000. After a while, Nancy finally finds a notation saying that his will can be found in a safety deposit box at the Masonville National Bank under the name Josiah Harkston.

When her father returns home she anxiously tells him the news and he says that the discovery of the second will will be unfortunate for the Tophams as Richard has been losing heavily in the stock market over the past month and it seems that he is depending upon the Crowley money to pull the family out of a tight spot. The next morning, Nancy and her father get court order to open up the safety deposit box and then head towards the bank. Nancy and her father are allowed to view the safety deposit box when they discover that they don't have a key. Luckily, the bank manager remembers that Josiah had entrusted him with a spare key. Inside the box is a will that both Carson and the bank manager initial just in case they have to prove its authenticity later on. They discover that one of the witnesses is Dr. Nesbitt who unfortunately died a few days after Crowley. The other witness is a Thomas Wackley no one has ever heard of.

A few days later Carson invites everyone involved in the will to his house for the big, as Nancy called it, coup de grace. Of course, the Topham family thinks that it is utterly preposterous that there is a second will and that there is some type of conspiracy going on. Carson reads the will. Allie and Grace receive $75,000 each. Abigail receive $75,000. Fred and William receive $20,000 each and Edna and Matilda also receive $20,000 each. Mrs. Topham asks if they are mentioned at all and Carson replies that they are and reads aloud, “to Grace and Allie Horner, my household furniture now in the possession of Mrs. Richard Topham.” Grace and Allie say that they now have enough without the furniture so they won't take the household goods from Mrs. Topham.

A number of months later, Nancy learns that the Tophams have filed for bankruptcy and have been forced to give up their fancy home. They had put up a fight but they ultimately lost. She goes to visit Grace and Allie and sees all the new things that they've done to improve their farm. All of the relatives wanted to give her a reward but Nancy says that she doesn't want anything. They keep insisting so she finally says that there is one thing that she would like. She would like the Crowley clock. She's attached to it because of its suggestion of her recent adventure.

“I'll always prize this clock as a trophy of my first venture as a detective. It will serve as a pleasant reminder of a thrilling adventure—and, who knows? perhaps as a promise for the future!”

Thoughts and Nuggets of Wisdom for Research

Most people today when they think of series books think of the two reigning champions—the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew. However, what most readers don't know is that the books they grew up reading were not the originals. The first Hardy Boys book was published in 1927 while the first Nancy Drew book was published in 1930. The original books are a far cry from what most readers read in the 1950s and onward when Grosset & Dunlap told the Stratemeyer Syndicate president, Harriet Adams, to revise the books to remove primarily old-fashioned racial and cultural stereotypes. Most readers today grew up with what collectors call the “matte” covers—either the “flat matte” blue covers for the Hardy Boys or yellow covers for Nancy Drew or the “glossy matte”  blue covers for the Hardy Boys or yellow covers for Nancy Drew. These covers were done in hardcover but did not contain dust jackets and all of them where the revisions published beginning in the 1950s.

Since Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys are the best known of the many series characters to exist since 1899, their books tend to be the most valuable for collectors. However, collectors to have to deal with the lots of ignorant eBay sellers who try to get $400 for a glossy matte Nancy Drew that just because it is it is the first book in the series they think it's the first edition. They fail to take into account a copyright year of 1962 on the title page, the fact that the book doesn't even have a dust jacket or endpaper illustrations, or the fact that the book has only twenty chapters when any serious collector will know that besides revising for racial and cultural stereotypes when the books were edited they also went from twenty-five chapters down to twenty and also from about 200 pages to, on average, 160 to 180 pages.

I was lucky with my Nancy Drew acquisitions as I got a nearly complete first edition set of the core volumes from my fiancée's mother. However, in this collection her number one was not a first edition as it was actually a revised first edition. I was able to come across a lot on eBay of original Nancy Drew books where the starting price was only $10. The only downside, and the reason why probably no one else bid on it, was the fact that (a) nowhere in the listing did it say that the books were first editions and (b) the books, sadly, had no dust jackets and were in pretty disgusting condition (lots of browning and bits of binding falling off) but still in readable condition. For the purposes of my research, I knew that I wanted to get my hands on first edition of number one so that I could compare it to its 1950s revision. So I bid on the lot and won 23 first edition Nancy Drew books for only $10.

Asides from comparing and contrasting the 1930s version the 1950s version for cultural and racial stereotypes, there is another reason why it is important to have access to the original Nancy Drew books. The original Nancy Drew was quite the feminist for her time period. She was young and independent, drove around in her own sports car, appeared to have unlimited access to money, didn't really care much for frivolous boys and romance, had no qualms about going up against criminals, and had no trouble telling the police that they weren't very good at their job. When Harriet Adams went about revising the Nancy Drew books not only did people for many years believe that she was Carolyn Keene (a fact that she never denied and actively propagated) but she also decided that Nancy was too unladylike and thus had to have her independent streak curbed. Most readers have actually grown up with an even less feminist and individual Nancy Drew than she originally was. In fact, the real author of most of the original 30 Nancy Drew volumes, Mildred Wirt Benson, commented nearly 60 years later that because she didn't have full creative control over Nancy she ended up writing her own Penny Parker mystery series in which Penny was effectively how Benson would have written the character of Nancy Drew if she didn't have to follow a bunch of rules. We can probably thank Benson for giving young female readers of the 1930s and 1940s a very strong female role model as Benson herself was very independent and went on to become a well-known journalist. Without her, many young female readers might have been stuck with more stories of passive girls who had nothing more to hope for than marrying rich, being a housewife, and raising a bunch of kids.

First, let’s talk descriptions of people and families. Nancy and her father have a very close relationship. Nancy is described as having a “curly golden bob” and he father thinks to himself, “not at all the sort of head which one expected to indulge in serious thoughts” (p. 2) which is very telling of the time period—girls weren’t expected to do much but look pretty. The fact that Nancy was a smart, intelligent girl who could handle her own was unheard of at the time. Carson Drew, Nancy’s father, is described as “a widower, [who] showered a great deal of attention upon his daughter; it was his secret boast that he had taught her to think for herself and think logically. Since he knew that Nancy could be trusted with confidential information, he frequently discussed his interesting cases with her” (p. 6). Once again, excellent comments that weren’t usually bestowed on girls in the 1930s.

Although only sixteen, Nancy was “unusually capable and under her skillful direction everything ran smoothly in the Drew household.” On the death of her mother six years before, the Drews employed, Hannah Gruen, an elderly maid. Nancy is further described as being the “type of girl who is capable of accomplishing a great many things in a comparatively short length of time. She enjoyed sports of all kinds and she found time for clubs and parties. In school Nancy had been very popular and she boasted many friends. People declared that she had a way of taking life very seriously without impressing one as being the least bit serious herself” (p. 12-13). (It should be interesting to note that the 1994 Nancy Drew Notebooks states that Nancy’s mother died when she was three years old and the original 1930 Nancy Drew Mystery puts Nancy’s age at ten years old.)

When Nancy and Carson discuss the case of Crowley leaving all his money to the Tophams, Nancy isn’t shy about her feelings toward the family (p. 2-3):

“They wanted to work him into leaving all his money to them. And it seems that their scheme worked, too! They treated him like a prince until he made his will in their favor and then acted as though he were dirt under their feet. Folks said he died just to be rid of their everlasting nagging. . . . Richard Topham is an old skinflint who made his money by gambling on the stock exchange. And Cora, his wife, is nothing but a vapid social climber. The two girls, Isabella and Ada, are even worse. I went to school with them, and I never saw such stuck up creatures in all my life. If they fall heir to any more money, this town won't be big enough to hold them!”

Nearly everyone in River Heights shares the opinion that the Tophams are snobbish and arrogant and that they treated poor Josiah Crowley horribly. Nancy had never known Josiah, but had often seen him on the street and thought he was a rather nice but extremely odd individual. His wife died during the influenza epidemic following the end of the World War, and since that time he had made his home with various relatives.

When Nancy goes shopping she runs into the vapid and rude Topham sisters—Ada and Isabel. Both are described as older than Nancy and Nancy personally finds them “stupid, as well as arrogant. They had never been popular with her classmates and had boasted few friends.” The narration reads, “In spite of the expensive clothes she [Ada] wore, she was nothing but attractive, for she was tall and slender to the point of being termed ‘skinny.’ Now that her face was distorted with anger, she was positively ugly. Isabel, who was the pride of the Topham family, was rather pretty in a vapid sort of way, but Nancy Drew thought that her face lacked character. She acquired an artificial manner of speaking which was both irritating and amusing. It was her mother's ambition that someday she marry into a wealthy family, and every opportunity was given her for her brilliant match” (p. 15-16).

The comparison of wealth and excess versus poverty shows well in the story. Clearly, it helps reflect America at that time. While there were some families that horded all the wealth there were many families living in poverty. Most of the people that Josiah said he’s leave money to in his will are families that need money. Two of them are Allie and Grace Horner. Nancy wishes she could help them (since the Drews are pretty well off—not rich like the Tophams but they live in comfortable means) but she knows that they “were proud” and would refuse charity (p. 38).

When Carson discovers that Nancy is going to actively search for the missing second will, he warns her about detective work: “Detective work isn't always the safest occupation in which to engage. I happen to know that Richard Topham is an unpleasant man when crossed. If you actually succeed in learning anything which may help the Horner girls, you are certain to have the Tophams in your wool” (p. 40).

The Tophams excess continues to be explored when Nancy goes to visit Mrs. Topham to try and sell her the charity tickets and find out about the Crowley clock. When she arrives she is “forced to wait until the Butler returned with permission for her to enter. As she was finally ushered into the living room, she could not help but smile at the elaborate formality, for in spite of Mrs. Topham's lofty ambitions, the woman had never achieved the commanding position in society that she strove for” (p. 96). Although the Tophams were well-to-do, it was common knowledge that Mrs. Topham was decidedly stingy with her money where other persons were concerned. Needless to say, it is Richard who buys all the tickets—letting Nancy “keep the change” left over as he sees attending a charity event to be helpful in maintaining their social standings.

There is one great moment that really spoke to me as showing how independent Nancy is. She is driving to Moon Lake when a common occurrence happens—something that a lot of girls even today don’t know how to fix—she gets a flat tire. The scene reads in part (p. 106-107):

“Presently, she noticed that the roadster had taken a strange notion to turn to the left of the road in spite of her efforts to keep it in the middle. Not without foreboding of trouble, she stopped the car and got out to make a tour of inspection. As she suspected, the rear tire was flat. . . . It was not the first time Nancy Drew had changed a tire, but she never relished the task. Rummaging under the seat, she pulled out the tools and quickly jacked up the rear axle. She loosened the lugs which held the tire in place, and tugged at it. Again and again she pulled, but the huge balloon tire could not be budged. Then, she gave one mighty tug, it came off and Nancy Drew fell backwards into a sitting posture in the road.”

Her mechanical skills come in handy again when she attempts to take the launch out to the cottage. Half way across the lake the engine sputters and dies. We see Nancy go to work again (p. 114-115):

“She discovered a pin stuck in the rim of a flywheel, and after adjusting other parts, pulled it out rather timidly. She gave the wheel a vigorous turn to the right. She tried again, swinging it further and stepping back hard. To her delight the engine began to roar. Cutting down the motor, Nancy steered out into deep water. At first she followed the shore, but as she became more familiar with the wheel and as the engine appeared to work perfectly, she headed out into the lake. Nancy experienced a real thrill as the little launch responded to her hand. The lake was as smooth as glass, and there was scarcely a cloud in the sky. . . . Nancy studied the engine doubtfully. Like most girls, she had never interested herself in the mechanics of what made wheels go around.”

Nancy also isn’t shy when it comes to fighting criminals head on. The scene of her attempt to get away from the movers is pretty violent for the 1930s, especially with a girl as the main character. When Nancy is caught by the criminals and even though their ringleader threatens her, “the hopelessness of her situation gave her the courage to defy him.” She tells the man that he is a common thief and she will turn his gang over to the police. “The man held Nancy's wrists in a vicelike grip. Her efforts to free herself were of no avail.” Nancy is desperate so “suddenly, utilizing every ounce of her strength, she gave her imprisoned wrists a quick upward jerk. As the action tore her hands free, she darted for the door. With a cry of rage, the robber was after her. Almost in one long leap he overtook her, caught her roughly by the arm, and forced her against the wall. Nancy Drew struggled this way and that. She twisted and squirmed. She kicked and clawed. But she was powerless in the grip of the man” (p. 130-131).

She also clearly has no problems defying authority when she discovers the moving van with the stolen furniture and instead of calling the police right away she decides, “If only I could get my hands on the clock before I notify the police! Once the Marshall takes charge of the stolen goods, I'll have no opportunity” (p. 155). Nancy just grabs the stolen goods that she needs to solve her case. She does eventually give the clock back to Grace and Allie but the police never know about her little side adventure into thievery herself.

Lastly, the biggest aspect of the book that is historically and culturally relevant is the scenes that take place between Nancy and the caretaker of the Topham’s bungalow, Jeff Tucker—scenes that were completely changed in the revised edition. On numerous occasions, Jeff Tucker is refered to by one major characteristic (italics mine):

“Oh, no, the cottage is closed. There is a negro caretaker who looks after it—they call him Jeff Tucker” (p. 110).

“There was no sign of Jeff Tucker, the colored caretaker in whose care the bungalow had been entrusted” (p. 122).

“What had become of Jeff Tucker, the colored man who'd been left in charge of the Topham bungalow” (p. 124).

Clearly, in 1930, it is very important for the young readers to understand that the caretaker, Jeff Tucker, is an African American. However, the even sadder story is how Jeff is represented. First, is the horrible use of vernacular (p. 138) that occurs throughout the scenes, such as when Jeff rescues Nancy from the closet:

“Oh, you is a caged lion, dis time,” a rather unsteady voice remarked. “You is one o' dese tough robber boys, is you? Well, you won't do no no' pilferrin', 'cause I done got you surrounded.”

“Let me out!” Nancy pleaded. “I'm not a robber!”

“Say, robber boy, is you imitatin' a lady's voice to th'o' me off de scent? If you is, it won't do no good 'cause I's a natural-born two-legged blood houn'.”

Nancy thought of a way to convince him. She let go her longest and loudest feminine scream.

“Dat's enough! Hold yo' siren! I'll let yo' out. Dar ain't a man in de world could make a racket like dat! Dis way out, lady!”

Expectantly, Nancy waited, but the door did not open.

“My Lawdy!” she she heard to her horror. “I's done gone and misplaced de key!”

When Nancy is released the first thing she notices about Jeff is that he “plainly had had a bit too much to drink. Jeff still knew very well what was going on about him, but a certain alcoholic glitter in his eyes and his somewhat unsteady stance informed Nancy that he was not just as sober as the proverbial judge” (p. 139-141). She suspects that while he was off getting drunk, the robbers had made off with the Topham furniture, for even in his condition of semi-inebriety he realizes that something was wrong: “Say, white gu'l, you tell me wheah all dis heah fu'niture is at!”

He continues to talk in such phonetically heavy words that one has to read very slowly to tell what he is saying:

“'At's right! 'At's right! Blame me! I ain't s'posed to be no standin' ahmy—I's just a plain culled man with a wife and seven chillun a-dependin' on me. No mom! I ain't havun' no truck wit' dem machine-gun boys!”

“You was in dat duh closet all dat time! You po'h chile! Suppose you had p' stahved to death in dah, or da house had burned down, or you was scared to fits, or—”

Jeff explains that he was taken away by a white man who gave him a lot to drink and then dumped him at a hotel. When he woke up he noticed his keys to the house were gone and ran back to the cottage to find Nancy locked in the closet. When Nancy and Jeff go to the police station he tells them a slightly different story: “First thing dey kidnaps me so I won't be around to raise no ruckus. Den dey gives me some kind of a sleppin' powdah and pahks me in a ho-tel. But I comes to and goes back, and dar I find dis gu'l cooped up in a closet just as she told you” (p. 148).

Jeff seems eager to help, possibly to make up for his lack of dedication to his job. When they make it to the police station and Nancy says that on her way there she saw the side road where the truck’s tire marks turned off on, she tells the police that she will take them there. She gets in her car and waits for the officers to get in their car and follow her. As Jeff tries to get into the police car, “he was forced gently but firmly back up on the sidewalk.” As Nancy looks back in her rearview mirror to make sure that the police are following her she catches a glimpse “of Jeff Tucker who stood gazing mournfully after the departing automobiles” (p. 150).

The character of Jeff is the biggest change in the revision which will be seen in another post shortly.

Major Matt Mason: Moon Mission



Major Matt Mason: Moon Mission
George Elrick
A Big Little Book
Whitman, 1968

Genre: Science Fiction

Description

Lieutenant Saunders and Jo Ann Harvey (the flight doctor) are aboard a space flight to the moon. Major Matt Mason is in charge of the operations called Nucleus Two and he wants everything perfect before they land and wake up Jo Ann’s brother who is in hibernation on the moon. Otto “Squeak” Harvey became famous in space exploration as the “Lunar Robinson Crusoe.” He had voluntarily agreed to spend months alone of the moon at the end of Nucleus One. His job was to remain in an underground station and observe the effects of prolonged isolation on his body and mind.

Jo Ann is worried for her brother. The hibernation pills are only supposed to work for three months and were only supposed to be used in case the Nucleus Two mission was delayed. It wasn’t supposed to be used in emergencies. She’s certain her brother is dead. The first eight months of Otto’s confinement on the moon went well. He made daily reports to Earth and said he was working on a pet project. He was receiving unusual radio signals from intergalactic space somewhere in the vicinity of “general rapidly receding quasars.” He believed it was a weird form of intelligence. However, as the days progressed something went wrong. He’s health and physical appearance was getting worse and he talked madly about hearing the sounds of lovebirds constantly cooing in his head. Mason decides to launch Nucleus Two early in order to go and rescue him but before they left they received one last transmission from him—a video of chaotic struggling and Otto yelling, “Help! Moon worms! They’re coming after me!” Mason yelled for him to take the hibernation pill.

When the shuttle lands, Mason and Jo Ann suit up and go to the isolation station. The interior of the station was in shambles and Otto was nowhere to be found. While waiting for Mason to emerge from the station, Jo Ann looks around outside and swears she sees two rocks moving. When Mason rejoins her, she points out the rocks and the suddenly see two of them snack together like magnets. Mason investigates and notices a cavern in the ground below the rocks. As he moves one aside, a hot orange smoke explodes from the hole and evaporates. Mason swore he heard a cooing sound. In the cavern, they find a labyrinth of tunnels that appear to be unoccupied. The walls are all smooth and shiny as it something made of leather carved them out that way. Soon a quake occurs and Mason hears the cooing again. Jo Ann trips over Otto’s empty space suit.

Meanwhile, back at the shuttle, Captain McAllister is doing experiments with two-ton rabbits the size of hippos and an experiment on a crater he’s called Uncle Wiggly. He is raising the gigantic rabbits to be “ground into yellow protein powder”! McAllister takes a space car to go investigate the progress of his experiments and as he’s driving he is shocked to see one giant rabbit leaping across the landscape. When he gets to the breeding station he’s happy to see that that is the only bunny missing. However, when he examines his three botanical gardens, A-3 is completely ransacked. He is shocked when a boney hand reaches up from under the ground and grabs his ankle. He gets away as the hand retreats down the hole. Looking around, he creates a minor cave in and lands in the underground tunnels. He sees a shadowy figure and, thinking it is Otto, runs after it.

Meanwhile, Mason and Jo Ann are investigating the space suit which appears to have been taken off by will and shows no signs of a struggle. Mason thinks that Otto would be okay underground without the suit on. It appears as it the tunnels have their own environment separate from the outside moon environment. He thinks the blast of orange dust they encountered was whatever is living underground that died when it was exposed to the Moon atmosphere. Soon they see what it was that evaporated—a moon worm! Luckily, they are able to run back to the hole they came down and the worm explodes into dust.

Meanwhile, McAllister is wandering the tunnels. He encounters a moon worm too and escapes into a side tunnel where he finds Otto. Wordlessly, Otto gets McAllister to follow him to a cave he carved out in the tunnel walls to hide from the worms. He blocks the entrance with a boulder and McAllister is freaked out when Otto begins cooing. Up on the surface, Sergeant Storm is placed in charge of tracking down the loose rabbit. After a bit of a struggle he is able to tranquilize it and move it back to the breeding station.

McAllister tries to get Otto to talk but fails. All Otto does is repeatedly smack himself over and over again. McAllister says they have to get him back to the ship and starts to move the heavy boulder. As he emerges from the man-made cave he runs into Mason and Jo Ann. It takes ten minutes to get Otto into his space suit and once he has his helmet on he regains all his mental capabilities. Otto explains that he was getting coded messages. He discovered they were from an alien life form that needed a weak conscious being in order to live. They took over the moon worms and eventually got him too. As the alien leaves Otto, Jo Ann explains that she’s getting a headache and collapses. Mason makes them move to the surface as soon as possible where they see the large bunny being returned to the breeding station. They place the unconscious Jo Ann next to the bunny who is slowly regaining consciousness. The alien presence transfers into the bunny, gets up, and hops away.

Thoughts and Nuggets of Wisdom for Research

Major Matt Mason was an action figure created by Mattel, an astronaut who lived and worked on the moon. When introduced in 1966, the toys were initially based on design information found in other aviation- and space-interest periodicals. Later, the line transitions more into the realm of science fiction. The toy line included four astronaut action figures, Matt Mason, Sergeant Storm, Doug Davis, and Lieutenant Jeff Long. The primary alien was Captain Lazer, a giant who towered over the astronauts. Mattel dropped the line in the mid-1970s as interest in the space program declined; however, the figure is still fondly remembered, and the collector's market for this line of toys can demand top dollar in mint condition. One mint figure of Mason has accompanied several U.S. Space Shuttle flights as an “unofficial crewman.”

I believe the book is more a part of the Better Big Little Books, which are actually smaller than the originals that date to the 1930s and feature color illustrations instead of black and white. Moon Mission reads like a classic sci-fi pulp story for children and teens! It was hilarious. The science is probably all erroneous information but it sounds impressive. The writing isn’t too bad which is shocking since the author is the same one who wrote one of the G-Men novels I recently read. (Maybe it is a pseudonym? I don’t know if BLB used ghostwriters.)The story is a quick read full of lots of action and crazy stuff—moon worms and hippo-sized rabbits? Hello, awesome! The color illustrations had a feel of watching a 1970s cartoon show.

In regards to the science information, readers learn from Lieutenant Saunders that if he eats “any more of these algae cakes, I’ll turn into a green glob. It’s great being back on the moon again, but I’d give my Jet Pak for a good salami sandwich” (p. 9). Clearly, early on we learn that astronauts can’t eat normal food and they do eat oddly packaged items. The green algae cakes are a creation of Captain McAllister who is a botanist but the cakes don’t taste like real food at all. The other scientific bit of information is when Mason and Jo Ann are walking on the surface of the moon and the narration reads, “Nine hours later they crossed the crescent-shaped line of demarcation between lunar light and lunar shadow, instantly passing from a scorching 224 degrees Fahrenheit to a minus 243 degrees Fahrenheit. Because of their temperature regulated space suits, however, neither felt the slightest discomfort” (p. 54).

The science behind McAllister’s bunnies is highly entertaining. We learn that “when, after endless experiments, he had succeeded in producing a strain of cottontails four feet high at the spine, he had been justifiably pleased. He had become ecstatic when he succeeded in planting oxygen capsules and temperature regulating pills under the skin at the base of their ears. He felt that, if all went well, after several generations his overgrown charges would be able to survive on the moon’s harsh surface without the protection provided by solar shields or other equipment. Of course, some would be struck down by meteorites. He shrugged. With rabbits, one didn’t have to worry about replacements” (p. 106-108). As he is going to the Uncle Wiggly crater (which is named after another series book character that was popular for years, Uncle Wiggly, who happens to be a rabbit) he sees “an object soaring skyward. Like an enormous projectile with ears, one of his two-ton rabbits had just made an unbelievable leap over the ragged upper lip of the crater and had crashed in a four-point landing three hundred yards away. Kirk slammed on the brake with his left foot and gazed in amazement at the flop-eared giant as it twitched its nose and bounded off again, clearing sixty-foot obstacles as though they didn’t exist” (p. 110). We also get a bit of a sci-fi moment when we see the inside of his breeding stations for the first time: “In air-conditioned stalls lining both sides of the huge hutch, four hundred rhinoceros-sized rabbits placidly munched on piles of powdered carrot pills. Except for the sewed-up incisions at the base of their floppy ears, where pills and capsules had been inserted, they looked like inflated versions of pet bunnies” (p. 114).

The moon worms are pretty creepy; especially the illustrations (think Tremors): “Its skin seemed to be leathery, dry, and tough. Its color appeared to be a dull rusty yellow, undoubtedly due to the mineral content of the rocks it relief on for nourishment. Its wide mouth was shaped like a manta ray’s and, as far as he could discern with his bobbing headlamp, had flat disks instead of teeth” (p. 148).

It is nice to see the only female character, Jo Ann, being the ship’s flight doctor. Since the book was written in the 1960s it could have easily featured nothing but male characters since it is sci-fi and deals with space exploration. Of course, she is unfortunately constantly being referred to as “pretty,” “skinny,” and “slender” in her descriptions. At one point she is shown taking off her weighted space boots and she thinks to herself, “Nothing like space boots to make a young woman psychiatrist resemble a baby elephant!” (p. 12).

She is also the classic damsel in distress—when she first encounters the moon worms she faints and has to be carried to safety by Mason (and later says, “I guess I’m not much of a flight doctor. I should be able to take this sort of thing in my stride.”). And then, of course, she is the member of the crew who is most susceptible to the alien consciousness taking over minds in order to exist. Otto explains that he was receiving coded signals “from an alien, gaslike form of parasitic life that has no actual body of its own, and can survive and reproduce itself only by entering a mind that hasn’t enough brainpower to resist it. . . . Worms don’t have much intelligence—if any—and can’t put up an effective resistance to an invasion of this sort” (p. 214-218). What does that say to readers? Otto was only susceptible because he his health was deteriorating because he had been on the moon for eight months in isolation. So it’s okay that his health put him in a weakened state. However, this seems to imply that Jo Ann is no more intelligent (despite being a doctor) than the moon worms since the alien presence is easily able to get in their minds and Jo Ann’s. How nice. Jo Ann, it doesn’t matter that you’re a highly trained doctor on a moon mission because when it all comes down to it you’re still a weak and inferior being compared to the mighty man!

Interestingly, Tom Hanks has co-written a script for a Major Matt Mason film. 

A Major Matt Mason Action Figure

The Lost Locket (Nancy Drew Notebooks #2)



The Lost Locket (Nancy Drew Notebooks #2)
Carolyn Keene
Simon & Schuster, 1994

Genre: Mystery

Description

It is Friday and Nancy Drew’s best friends, Bess and George, are in a fight. Bess is accusing George of losing her gold locket which has her name engraved on it and a small pearl. Bess wanted to jump rope with some other girls after school and asked George to hold the locket for her. George put it inside a pocket on her backpack and now it is gone. Bess is sure it has been stolen and the thief is mean since he or she left behind a horrible soggy peanut butter, ketchup, mustard and relish sandwich.

As Bess is explaining the situation to Nancy, George isn’t paying attention and is talking to some other girls showing them an article about her and her most recent soccer game that was in the newspaper. Angry that George isn’t taking this seriously, Bess yells at her and rips up the article. They each get mad and yell at each other saying they will never be friends again. This is bad news for Nancy who was planning on seeing a movie with them both this weekend. How can she even solve the mystery if the two won’t talk to each other?

Nancy writes down the names of all the kids on the playground after school that had an opportunity to steal the necklace. She is left with 11 possible suspects, which is a lot. As she’s getting ready to leave, she sees a fourth grader, Karen, looking in the pockets of a jean jacket. Not finding what she’s looking for, she looks in another jacket. Nancy asks her what she’s doing and she says she’s looking for gum. Nancy tells her it’s not nice to go stealing gum when Karen says her friend told her she could borrow some but she wasn’t sure which jacket was hers.

Nancy visits Bess the next day to try and start gathering clues. Luckily, Bess looks at the list of suspects and eliminates those who were jumping rope with her and those who were on the swings at the time. It takes Nancy’s list down to four kids—Karen (the prime suspect because she supposedly stole money from the school office last year), Jenny March, Mike Minelli, and Ned Nickerson. Nancy’s only real clue is the sandwich that was placed in George’s backpack. She needs to find a way to figure out who eats what for lunch. She calls Jenny’s house and says she’s working on an extra credit research project but Jenny’s dad says he doesn’t pack the kids’ lunches so he doesn’t know. She calls Karen’s house and her mother says all her kids will eat anything as long as it has peanut butter on it. Bess is ready to blame Karen but Nancy says that they need proof before they can do anything. She asks Bess if she wants to stake out Karen’s house. Maybe they’ll see the locket in her room or see her wearing it. Bess, not liking the idea of physical work, isn’t too thrilled so Nancy tells her she’ll get George to help and that makes Bess mad.

Nancy and George go over to Karen’s house. George climbs a tree and looks into Karen’s room but it is so messy she wouldn’t be able to see something as small as a locket. They meet Jimmy, Karen’s little brother who is eating peanut butter cookies. He informs the girls that Karen hates relish. Nancy is forced to concede that the thief might not be Karen. Back at home Nancy decides to try the weird lunch and discovers it is more disgusting than she thought it would be. She tries the whole “meet me at the park I’ve got news” trick to get George and Bess back together and talking but it fails. George doesn’t think a boy would steal a locket but Nancy doesn’t think a girl would eat such a disgusting lunch. As the girls are talking they see Ned riding his bike and George says Nancy should talk to him.

As they walk over to Ned they are distracted by Brenda Carlton, Nancy’s nemesis. Brenda is rich and thinks she’s better than everyone else. She says she found Bess’s locket and points to an old ceiling fan chain in the dirt. The girls don’t like her. Nancy and George talk to Ned who says he likes cheese and turkey sandwiches. He doesn’t mention peanut butter at all and Nancy thinks she seems too nice to be a thief.

On Monday, Mrs. Spenser’s class is going to the pumpkin farm. Nancy has an awkward moment when both her friends want to spend time with her and not each other. Nancy grabs Bess and tells her she’s narrowed it down to two suspects—Jenny and Mike. When everyone gets on the bus, George is forced to sit next to Nancy and Bess as there are no other seats and then all three girls are put into a group. When lunch time comes, both want Nancy to sit with them and Nancy tells them that she is sick of the fighting and she’s not going to sit with either one. When Nancy opens her lunch to find Hannah’s “surprise” is hard-boiled eggs, which Nancy hates, she is confused. Another girl in class freaks out because her lunch is tuna and she’s allergic to tuna. Nancy realizes that their lunch boxes got mixed up and they switch. While she’s eating, Nancy suddenly realizes what happened to Bess’s necklace.

She gathers both girls who have now apologized to each other and Nancy informs them that the locket is in George’s backpack. George says that isn’t possible because they looked there. They go on the bus and grab her backpack and she realizes it isn’t her bag—there is a notebook inside that says “Ned Nickerson” on it. Both George and Ned have the same backpack. On Friday, Ned must have accidentally taken George’s backpack home. When the students return to the school, Ned is waiting for the girls and they switch backpacks. He explains that the nasty sandwich was a joke of his 19-year-old uncle who is in town visiting. George looks inside the pocket and finds Bess’s necklace safe inside.

Thoughts and Nuggets of Wisdom for Research

Surprisingly, in this book, we discover for the first time (at least in the Nancy Drew books I’ve read) a relative timeline for when Nancy’s mother died. When readers are introduced to Hannah they are told “she had been living with Nancy and her father for five years, ever since Nancy’s mother had died” (p. 15). If Nancy is in third grade and is roughly eight years old then her mother died when she was three. Usually in the books there is always just a vague reference to the fact that her mother is dead—it is rare to see a time frame given.

Brenda Carlton, Nancy’s nemesis, is like the Lila Fowler of Riverside Heights. She is described as not “very nice—at least she wasn’t nice to Nancy. She always acted as if she thought she was smarter. And her clothes were prettier. And her handwriting was neater” (p. 12). When Brenda tricks the girls into thinking she knows where Bess’s locket is Nancy gets mad at her and “opened her eyes wide and pretended to be surprised” that the broken ceiling fan chain wasn’t Bess’s gold locket. She says with a mean smile, “Gee, I could have sworn it looked like something Bess would wear” (p. 45). Catty girls already in the third grade!

Bess is quick to jump to conclusions and blame anyone. She thinks that the thief must be Mike since Jenny is too nice to steal anything. Nancy also thinks Jenny is nice but she is trying to be a detective and her father said that a detective always sticks to the facts so she makes sure she doesn’t try to rush to any conclusions without proof. She feels bad for wrongfully suspecting Karen especially after Bess tells her that her mother talked to Karen’s mother and discovered that Karen didn’t steal the money from the office but because everyone thinks she did when anything goes wrong she always is the first person blamed.

The Rover Boys at School (Rover Boys #1)



The Rover Boys at School (Rover Boys #1)
Arthur M. Winfield
Grosset & Dunlap, 1899

Genre: Realistic, School

Description

The Rover boys, Sam, Tom, and Dick, are going to be sent to a boarding school by their Uncle Randolph because he is tired of their practical jokes. One day Dick is coming back from the village with their mail when he is accosted by a tramp who steals his pocketbook and his watch. The boys give chase but the man reaches the river and gets in a boat. The boys improvise and turn a large log into a boat. During the chase Tom falls off and Dick jumps into the water to rescue him. Unbeknownst to poor Sam he is riding straight towards a waterfall. Dick gets the help of Joel Darrell, a farmer nearby, to get some wire to pull Sam out of the middle of the rapids. They continue the chase after the tramp but discover that he made it to the train station and it's too late. Dick is very upset because the watch belongs to his father whom he hasn't seen in years.

Tom receives a letter from his friend Larry Colby who tells him that he will be attending the Putnam Hall Military Academy. Randolph admits that this is where he is sending the boys so that they can be with their friends Larry, Frank, Fred, and a few others. The boys first have to take a train ride and transfer to a boat in order to get to the Academy. They are introduced to three girls, Dora Stanhope and Nellie and Grace Laning, and a very annoying boy named Daniel Baxter. When the ship lands they are picked up by a man from the Academy who notices that one of them is missing. Since the boys did not like Baxter they failed to wake him up with the boat landed. They tell the man that he wasn't missing any boys and Baxter gets left behind at the ship dock. They later learn that Dora's father died two years ago and that her mother is considering remarriage. Her family is very well-off.

At the front gates of the Academy, Tom set off a firecracker in celebration which angers Josiah Crabtree, the Academy's first assistant. Tom doesn't think that he did anything wrong and shouldn't get in trouble for breaking any rules since he isn't an official pupil yet. Crabtree doesn't care and arrests him and says that if he keeps speaking Crabtree will have no problem caning him. After being kept in a cell for a while Tom is visited by Crabtree who demands the keys to his trunk so that he can search for contraband, such as dime novels, food, or other “things that might harm our pupils.” Tom refuses to give him the key.

Later that night after dinner the boys decide to break the rules of talking to a prisoner when they attempt to go to the guardhouse and see Tom. Dick jumps the fence and peeks into the room where Tom is being kept. He discovers that it is empty but Crabtree sees him, chases after him, and arrests him. Meanwhile, Tom has managed to escape and left the grounds of the Academy. Wandering in the forest he runs across a tall man and the tramp that stole his watch. He discovers that the tramp is supposedly called Buddy and Buddy almost calls the other man Arnold Baxt—, but the man gets angry at him and says that he should be called Nolly. Nolly tells Buddy he better leave Putnam Hall if the boys are around. Tom makes his way to the Laning farm where he learns that Dora's mother is being courted by Crabtree and that they believe he is after her money. In the morning, Tom heads back to the Academy and meets Captain Victor, the man in charge. Tom explains his case—that he was arrested before he was properly enrolled—and both Tom and Dick are cleared of all charges.

The boys start attending classes and at one point Dick and Baxter get into a fight. They decide to make an official rematch where Baxter hurts Dick by not playing fairly—Baxter hid sharp rocks in his hands and used them to give his punches more leverage. Time passes again and all the boys play huge game of hare and hound. Sam and Fred end up on a mountaintop where they encounter a six-foot long snake. Some of the boys decide to make a detour to visit Dora and see Crabtree who is trying to convince Dora’s mother to marry him right now. Crabtree and Lucy get into a carriage and the boys follow closely around it. Crabtree tells him to go away but they say that they can't because they are playing a game and they can't stop until the hares are caught. In anger, Crabtree takes the reins and ends up causing the carriage to run away. Lucy is thrown out of the carriage, knocked unconscious, and suffers a broken arm. Captain Victor interviews Crabtree the next day and fires him. Dora is upset that her mother got injured, but she is happy to know that the wedding has been postponed and that she has more time to convince her mother not to marry him.

Putnam Hall is challenged by Pornell Academy to a game of football for the town's championship. All boys chip in to get a trophy for the event but Baxter who says that his school will lose and starts taking up bets against his classmates. Some of the boys wonder where Baxter gets all his money. No one knows much about him, no one comes to see him, he gets no mail, but he always seems to have plenty of money. For the first half of the game Putnam Hall is losing. Luckily, they turn it around and win and Baxter has to fork over $50.

Crabtree and Dora get into an argument that turns violent. Crabtree says that he wants to open up the school to rival Putnam Hall. Dora tells him that her mother's property that he wants to build on actually belongs to her and that her mother won't get it unless Dora dies before she comes of age. The property that her mother actually owns is farther up the lake nowhere near Putnam Hall. Dora also discovers from Dick that Crabtree was fired and that he didn't leave the school on his own.

The weather is turning cold and the boys get permission to go to town to buy some new ice skates. They see Baxter in town go into a tavern with a man, which is against school rules. They peak in a window and see Baxter receiving money from the man who Tom realizes is the man called Nolly. He puts two and two together and realizes this man is Arnold Baxter, Daniel's father. Later, when Tom confronts Baxter about the man Baxter gets angry and says that the man is William Nolly and that he used to work with Baxter's father. Later that night, Baxter runs away from the Academy.

It is winter break and the boys head back to Randolph's where they tell him about their adventures. Randolph tells them that their father had one enemy who had a scar on his chin like Arnold Baxter. This man had laid claim to property owned by Mr. Rover, they had a quarrel, and the man shot Mr. Rover in arm and ran away. Randolph tells them to be careful. On their way back to the Academy they get stuck in town because of the weather and the boys see Crabtree attempt to buy some wedding rings. Dora tells the boys that Crabtree intends to marry her mother next week. Sam suggests a trick—they will send a letter from Yale requesting an interview on the day of the supposed wedding. Crabtree totally falls for the trick. Unfortunately, a month later, Crabtree returns and blames the trick on Dora and threatens to send her to a strict boarding school.

Finally it's that time of year when exams are done and the boys are to complete a two-week encampment. Unfortunately, a bad storm causes many of the boys to get sick. The Rovers are sent to the nearest town to get medicine when they run into Arnold Baxter and the tramp. They overhear that Dan stole $200 from him and ran away to Chicago. Dick is able to get a policeman to arrest the tramp but Baxter escapes. They chase after him and succeed in capturing him. Baxter admits that he and Mr. Rover were enemies but the story they know is wrong as it was their father who tried to swindle him and ran off to Africa with his papers. A fight ensues and Baxter practically gets run over by a train but is alive and suffers only from a broken leg. He is arrested and Dick gets a pawn ticket for his father's watch.

Thoughts and Nuggets of Wisdom for Research

The Rover Boys series is the most important to the history of series books because this series set the tone for series books as we know them today. The Rover Boys consisted of 30 books published between 1899 and 1926. While often overshadowed by better-known and longer-running series, such as The Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew, and Tom Swift, the Rovers were highly successful and enormously influential. It was Edward Stratemeyer's first series, and one of his favorites. Stratemeyer was Arthur Winfield and did all of the writing himself, rather than hiring ghostwriters.

The original Rover Boys were brothers Tom, Sam, and Dick Rover. Their children (Fred, son of Sam Rover; Jack, son of Dick; anf Andy and Randy, twin sons of Tom) took over in the "Second Series" which began with Volume 21 The Rover Boys at Colby Hall, published in 1917. The elder Rovers continued making appearances in the second series. In addition, there was a related Putnam Hall series of six books that featured other characters from the first Rovers series although the Rovers themselves do not appear.

The Rovers were students at a military boarding school: adventurous, prank-playing, flirtatious, and often unchaperoned adolescents who were constantly getting into mischief and running afoul of authority figures as well as criminals. The series often incorporated emerging technology of the era, such as the automobile, airplanes and news events, such as World War I. Like other series of the era, the books often utilized exaggerated ethnic stereotypes and dialect humor.

Randolph Rover gets a lot of slack from the boys. They complain from page one that “he doesn't see any fun in tricks. He expects us to just walk around the farm, or study, and, above all things, keep quiet, so that his scientific investigations are not disturbed. Why doesn't he let us go out riding, or boating on the river, or down to the village to play baseball with the rest of the fellows? A real live American boy can't be still all the time, and he ought to know it” (p. 2-3). When Tom says he doesn’t want to studying farming because he wants to be a sailor, Randolph has a fit: “A sailor! Of all things! Why, a sailor is the merest nobody on earth! Yes, Thomas—the calling of a sailor amounts to absolutely nothing. Scientific farming is the thing—nothing more noble on the face of the earth than to till the soil” (p. 6-7).

The history of the Rover boys is a bit of a sad one. Richard, commonly called Dick, is the eldest. He is sixteen, tall, slender, and with dark eyes and dark hair. He is rather quiet, the one who loves to read and study, although he is not above having a good time now and then, when he feels like “breaking loose,” as Tom expresses it. Next to Richard came Tom, one year younger, who is not above playing all sorts of tricks on people, but has a heart of gold. Sam is the youngest. He is fourteen but of the same height and general appearance as Tom, so they are sometimes taken as twins. He is very athletic. They are the only children of Anderson Rover, a mineral expert, gold mine proprietor, and traveler. Rover had gone to California a poor young man and made a fortune in the mines. Returning to the East, he married and settled down in New York City, and there the three boys were been born. An epidemic of fever had taken off Mrs. Rover when Richard was ten years old. The shock had come so suddenly that Anderson was dazed. “Take all the money I made in the West, but give me back my wife!” he said heartbrokenly. Since this could not happen, he left the three boys in the charge of the housekeeper and set off to tour Europe thinking that a change of scene would help his grief.

When he came back he seemed to change man. He was restless, and could not remain at home for more than a few weeks at a time. He placed the boys at a boarding school in New York and returned to the West, where he made another strike in the gold mines—he was reported to be worth between two and three hundred thousand dollars. At one point he was reading up on Africa, and had reached the conclusion that there must be gold in the great unexplored regions of the country. He became determined to go to Africa and try his luck. Randolph asked him what would become of his boys. Rover knew well the risk he was running, “knew well that many a white man had gone into the interior of Africa never to return.” It was settled that Randolph should become Dick, Tom, and Sam's temporary

At the time of Anderson Rover's departure Randolph had been on the point of purchasing a farm of two hundred acres. The land had not change hands until year later, however, and then Dick, Tom, and Sam had to give up their life in the metropolis and settle down in the country. For a month things went very well, for everything was new and exciting. They had run over the farm from end to end, climbed to the roof of the barn, explored the brook, and Sam had broken his arm by falling from the top of a cherry tree. But after that the novelty wore away, and the boys began to fret. Thus, Randolph decides to send them to Putnam Hall and that is where their adventures begin (p. 9-13).

Captain Victor Putnam is a distinguished fellow: “Captain Victor Putnam was a bachelor. A West Point graduate, he had seen gallant service in the West, where he had aided the daring General Custer during many an Indian uprising. A fall from a horse, during the campaign in the Black Hills, had laid him on a long bed of sickness, and had later on caused him to retire from the army and go back to his old profession of school-teaching. He might have had a position at West Point as an instructor, but he had preferred to run his own military academy” (p. 64).

An interesting historical aspect to the first book is when the boys have their two-week encampment and they learn a military drill. The person in charge gives the instructions: “Now the first thing to remember is to say nothing, but obey orders promptly. When an order is given the first part is a warning, while the conclusion is the time when that order must be executed. For instance, I tell you 'Eyes right!' I say 'Eyes,' and you get ready to move your eyes; I add 'Right,' and you instantly turn them to the right, and keep them there. Now we'll try it: Eyes—right! Great smoke! number four, you turned them to the left! Now again: Eyes—right! Good! Eyes—front! That's first-class. Now: Eyes—left! Eyes—front! That couldn't be better!” Eventually the boys also learn to “left face,” “right face,” “front face,” and “about face”—that is, to turn directly to the rear. Then they learned how to “mark time” with their feet, starting with the left foot. The Corporal King tells them that they will learn how to march and “then each of you will get a gun and go through the manual of arms” (p. 105).

Stratemeyer was not a man who wanted violence in his books. However, there is a little in this story. When the boys are playing hare and hound, Sam and Fred end up on a mountain top and get corned by a large snake. Fred is deathly afraid and tells Sam to be careful because he could get poisoned when “whack! Sam gave the body of the reptile a swing and brought the head down with great force on the edge of the rock. One blow was enough, for the head was smashed flat. Then Sam threw the body into the bushes, there to quiver and twist for several hours to come, although life was extinct” (p. 123-124). There is also a big fight scene between Dick and Baxter, the evil bully. Since Stratemeyer did not believe in violence, he does pre-empt the fight with a message to his readers:

“Now, lest my readers obtain a false impression of my views on the subject, let me state plainly that I do not believe in fights, between boys or otherwise. They are brutal, far from manly, and add nothing to the strength of one's character. It is well enough to know how to defend one's self when occasion requires, but such occasions occur but rarely. But I have set out to relate the adventures of the Rover boys, in school and out, and on land and sea, and I feel I must be truthful and tell everything just as it happened, not only in this volume, but in all those which are to follow; and, consequently, I shall tell all of the fight as the particulars related to me by Sam Rover, Fred Garrison, and others—details which I am certain are correct” (p. 109-110). So here is Stratemeyer providing some action in his story while at the same time giving a little bit of a moral lesson that fighting isn’t a manly thing. Part of the fight reads (p. 116):

“Oh!” he [Baxter] yelled in pain, and put his hand up to the injured optic, which began to grow black rapidly. Then he struck out wildly half a dozen times. He was growing excited, while Dick was as calm as ever. Watching his opportunity, Dick struck out with all his force, and Baxter received a crack on the nose which caused him to fall back into the arms of Mumps.

Of course, the good guy wins the fight. J

There are a few interesting scenes with Dora, one of the only female characters. She and Crabtree get in a heated argument over Dora’s mother’s impending marriage to him which makes Dora a rather feisty young women in 1899 (p. 155):

“Your mother is quite willing to marry me, and as a dutiful daughter you should bow to her wishes.”

“Mother is not herself, Mr. Crabtree. Ever since father died she has been upset by business matters, and you have pestered the life out of her. If you would only go away for a month or so and give her time to think it over, I'm sure she would into this matter between you.”

“Tut, tut, child, you do not know what you're talking about! Your mother has given me her word, and you ought to bow to the inevitable.”

“She has not yet married you, sir, and until she is actually bound to you there will still be hope for her.”

“This is—is outrageous!” cried Josiah Crabtree wrathfully. “Do you think I will allow a mere slip of a girl to stand between me and my plans? Just wait until I am your father—”

“You shall never take the place of my dear dead father, Mr. Crabtree—never!”

There is also a budding romance between Dick and Dora which is very chaste. I’m surprised to see the word “kiss” in a Stratemeyer book. Oh well, it was actually Harriet Adams who decreed that no Syndicate book would allow “smooching” so I guess her father was a little more open to young love. There is one scene in which Dick is sympathizing with Dora over her problem with Crabtree and the narration says, “It was now growing late, and Dick took his departure, kissing Dora’s had a third time as he stood in the darkness of the porch. . . . Girls and boys are about the same the world over, and Dick's regard for Dora was of the manly sort that is creditable to anyone” (p. 162).

Lastly, there are some racist elements. When Tom is arrested and put in the jail cell, he meets the caretaker, Alexander Pop. He talks in black vernacular: “‘Alexander Pop, sah, at yo' service, sah,’ and again the colored man grinned. He was a short, fat fellow, the very embodiment of good nature” (p. 85). The most racist element doesn’t even involve the presence of a minority character! On page 188, when, during winter break the boys can't return back to the Academy because of weather, Sam says, “Well, if we can't walk and can't ride, how are we to get there?” To which Larry (okay, so it isn’t one of the Rovers who is acting racist . . . Stratemeyer’s boys would be above that) says “imitating a negro minstrel”: “That's the conundrum, Brudder Bones. I'se gib it up, sah!”