The Cuckoo’s Calling by Robert Galbraith

Sep30

Definitely not for everybody. Robert Galbraith’s (J.K. Rowling’s) first book in her crime series about private detective Cormoran Strike is gritty and contains quite a bit of bad language, mostly F-bombs. (By the way, I really like that name, Cormoran Strike. It feels quirky and detective-like and memorable.) I wish Rowling could have toned down the language, but I must admit that in the world of celebrities and super-models where this particular mystery takes place, the dialog probably accurately reflects the characters and their common everyday use of language.

Cormoran Strike is a tortured soul, as most detectives usually are these days. Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple were rather ordinary and well-adjusted, except for their exceptional detecting abilities. Lord Peter Wimsey had a somewhat complicated background and some psychological issues, but nothing like what modern detectives of stage, screen, and literature have to deal with. Cormoran Strike has a dysfunctional childhood and a vengeful ex-girlfriend, and he’s lost one leg to a land mine in Afghanistan. And he’s practically homeless with his detective business about to go bankrupt due to a lack of clients.

So, when the wealthy brother of legendary super-model Lula Landry asks Cormoran to investigate the death, apparent suicide, of his sister, the detective is willing even though he doubts the police could have missed anything in the case, considering all the publicity surrounding Lula’s death. The case itself is a look into the lives of the rich and famous, a world that is not completely foreign to Cormoran Strike, whose mother was a “super-groupie” following his rock star father around for a while back in the 70’s.

The novel is well plotted, and I didn’t figure out whodunnit or how until the very end. There is also a lot of good character development as the story slowly introduces Cormoran Strike, his background, and his personality as well as his detecting methods and habits, learned through his time in the army as an army investigator. We also meet another character who will show up in subsequent novels, I’m sure: Robin Ellacott, the temp secretary and office manager that Cormoran can’t afford to keep on but finds invaluable in ferreting out clues and information for him to use in his investigation. The story is told in third person, but mostly from the viewpoint of either Cormoran Strike or Robin Ellacott, so we get to be privy to some of Strike’s thoughts as well as Robin’s, understanding how they react to one another and to the suspects and witnesses to Lula Landry’s suicide–or murder. The duo work together well, but frequently misunderstand one another in small ways that make the story intriguing and keep the reader guessing as to what will happen next.

I liked it well enough to request the next book in the series from the library, and if the language and grit don’t get any worse, I’ll probably continue to read the entire series. The other books in the series so far are:

  • The Silkworm
  • Career of Evil
  • Lethal White
  • Troubled Blood
  • The Ink Black Heart
  • The Running Grave
  • The Hallmarked Man? (not yet published)

Again, the content is dark, including foul language, drug use, sexual immorality (not described explicitly in this book), and violence (somewhat gritty, but not too much detail). This is a book for adults, not children or teens. But the characters are engaging, and the mystery was satisfying in its conclusion. J.K. Rowling is a good writer with a talent for more than fantasy writing.

Alfred Hitchcock and The Three Investigators in The Secret of Terror Castle by Robert Arthur

Sep27

Read for the 1964 Project, and because I wanted to revisit The Three Investigators series that I remember from my childhood.

The Secret of Terror Castle is the first installment in The Three Investigators series of mystery detective stories, also known as Alfred Hitchcock and The Three Investigators. The original series was published from 1964 to 1987 and comprised 43 finished books, written by at least five different authors and illustrated by a multiplicity of illustrators over time. Robert Arthur, who invented the series and had the idea of using Alfred Hitchcock as a character and a marketing ploy, wrote the first nine books in the series as well as Book #11. After Mr. Arthur died in 1969, subsequent adventures were written by various other authors hired by Random House, the publisher. All of Mr. Arthur’s books and some of the others were given a fictional introduction and epilogue said to be written by the famous movie director Alfred Hitchcock (but actually written by the author himself). Hitch also appears as a minor character in at least the first book.

It is Mr. Hitchcock who reluctantly gives the three boys of The Three Investigators Detective Agency their first case: they are tasked with finding a truly haunted house for Hitchcock to use as a setting to film his upcoming movie. The boys discover a deserted mansion called Terror Castle, “located in a narrow little canyon up above Hollywood, called Black Canyon.” And they proceed to investigate to see if the castle is really haunted by the ghost of Stephen Terrill, a star of horror pictures from the silent film era.

The Three Investigators are Jupiter “Jupe” Jones, Peter “Pete” Crenshaw, and Bob Andrews. They are young teenagers, about 13 or 14 years old, who maintain their headquarters and crime/photographic lab hidden away in the back of Jupiter’s uncle’s junkyard. Jupiter is the chief detective with a knack for figuring out riddles and puzzles, Pete is the athletic brawn of the trio, and Bob is the researcher and information guy. (Bob works in a library!) The three boys are too young to drive, but they have the use of a car (gold-plated Rolls-Royce) and a chauffeur (Worthington) that Jupiter won in a contest. And their trusty bicycles come in handy for transportation, too.

The whole book gave me “Scooby Doo” vibes. (For the uninitiated, Scooby Doo is a cartoon series from the 1970’s.) Terror Castle seems to be haunted with some very spooky events and activities, but of course, the ghosts and scary incidents and eerie sounds turn out to have perfectly natural explanations. For those who are worried, there’s nothing occult-ish in any of the first 20 or so books in this series, although there is plenty of “woo-hoo” that seems as if it might be the result of spirits and ghosts and fortune tellers—until Jupe and his buddies figure out the real source of the seemingly supernatural phenomena.

Although these books were written for and marketed to middle school boys, I enjoyed them as a ten to twelve year old myself. The books are from an earlier time, when boys (and girls) were free to roam the community they lived in, talk to adults, and become involved in all sorts of exciting but fairly harmless adventures. The boy characters are unsophisticated by today’s standards, not having been exposed to the wonders of the internet, but they also display a vocabulary, a deductive skill, and an intrepid spirit that would put most 21st century boys to shame.

Unfortunately, my hard cover copy of The Secret of Terror Castle disappeared a couple of years ago, and the one I have how is a 1985 revised paperback edition. Because Mr. Hitchcock died in 1980, Random House decided to replace him with a fictional British movie director named Reginald Clarke (in this first book). And then to confuse us all, I suppose, Reginald Clarke turns into some other guy named Hector Sebastian in Books 2-30. I hope those are the only changes made in the revised editions, but I’m not sure, and I don’t like the jettisoning of Alfred Hitchcock as a character. I just switched the introduction and the cameo appearances of “Reginald Clarke” to “Alfred Hitchcock” in my mind, but I wish I hadn’t needed to do so,

If you want to know all you could ever want to know about The Three Investigators series, also called T3I, this website is a goldmine of information for serious readers and collectors. If you just want to enjoy or help your kids enjoy the stories, try your local public library or private lending library. I would suggest the hardcover, unedited editions, if you can find them.

Out and About by Shirley Hughes

Sep27

Hughes, Shirley. Out and About: A First Book of Poems. Candlewick, 2015. (U.S. edition)

Shirley Hughes is a well known author and illustrator on the other side of the pond in Britain. She has won the Kate Greenaway Medal for British children’s book illustrations twice –for her books Dogger and Ella’s Big Chance—and many more awards and honors for her work in writing and illustrating children’s books. The author blurb in my library copy of Out and About tells me that she illustrated more than two hundred children’s books in her lifetime. Ms. Hughes died in 2022.

Out and About is a collection of poems for each of the seasons, spring, summer, fall, and winter. Katie and her baby brother, Ollie, explore nature in the poems and pictures that fill this little 42 page picture book brimful to overflowing. The book begins with a poem called “Out and About” and a picture of Katie walking down the garden path while her baby brother stands in the doorway and watches her. The laundry is flapping in the breeze on the clothesline, birds are flying about, and it looks like an altogether lovely day to be outdoors. In some of the other poems Katie tells us why and how she likes mud and water and sand and wind. The entire book is an ode to nature and the changing seasons, and it would be a great addition to a nature study time or a poetry tea or any read aloud time with younger children.

The poems in this book reminded me of Robert Louis Stevenson’s A Child’s Garden of Verses. Ms. Hughes’ poems are more impressionistic, like lists of images and brief reactions to them. However, they are, like Stevenson’s poems, about simple childhood experiences: going to the beach, playing in the snow and in the water, Christmas Day, climbing a hill and rolling down, walking in the rain, a fall harvest. I added this book to Picture Book Preschool under the heading of Wind and Weather because so many of the poems are about the seasonal changes in weather and about experiencing the outdoors.

One of my favorite hobbyhorses is the idea that children need to hear and enjoy lots of poetry: nursery rhymes, silly songs, RLS, A.A. Milne, Christina Rossetti, and more. Shirley Hughes’ Out and About: A First Book of Poems would be perfect for the poetry section of your library and of your morning time or read aloud time.

Have You Heard the Nesting Bird? by Rita Gray

Sep19

Gray, Rita. Have You Heard the Nesting Bird? Illustrated by Kenard Pak. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2014.

I read this picture book through once, quickly, and thought it was rather slight, not much to it. Then, for some reason, I decided to pick it up again, and this second time I read through it slowly–and aloud. It’s a book meant to be read aloud because it includes all of the bird songs. For example, the wood thrush says “ee-oh-lay”, and the cardinal says “cheer-cheer-cheer-purdy-purdy-purdy”.

To rewind back to the beginning, two children, a boy and a girl, are outdoors, watching and listening to the birds that are singing their various songs. So the children, and the reader, are introduced to about a dozen species of birds in the pictures and in the text that gives an approximation of their songs. However, the children keep coming back to the tree where there is a robin in a nest and asking each other, “But have you heard the nesting bird?” The nesting bird doesn’t make a sound.

The story ends by revealing what the nesting robin has been doing and why she is so quiet. And a sort of appendix called “A Word with the Bird” has the mother robin answering questions, such as “why are you so quiet in your nest?” and “do you have a song?”.

So, to my delight, there was more here than at first meets the eye. In fact, it’s a book about birds and bird songs, and I added it to Picture Book Preschool under the heading of Hearing and Touching because of all of the bird sounds that are introduced. There’s a note in the back that tells readers that they can hear more robin songs and sounds at a certain web address, but it doesn’t work. Broken web addresses are an occupational hazard, I suppose. Try this website, All About Birds, instead.

Mossy by Jan Brett

Sep5

“One summer morning, my husband, Joe, and I were dangling our feet from our dock on Goose Lake. I was watching some waterweeds on the bottom, thinking they looked just like a giant turtle. Suddenly, they swam up toward us. It was a turtle, a huge snapping one, with an underwater ‘garden’ on its shell.”

Author illustrator Jan Brett was inspired by the turtle with a garden on its back to write Mossy, the story of an eastern box turtle who also grows a garden on her carapace (shell). In the story Mossy the turtle becomes the showpiece of Dr. Carolina’s natural history museum, but Dr. Carolina’s niece, Tory, isn’t so sure that Mossy is happy in her museum habitat. Romance enters the picture when Mossy meets Scoot, a handsome male turtle with ruby-red eyes. But will Mossy be able to get back to Lilypad Pond where Scoot is pining for her?

The book is laid out in Jan Brett’s signature style with lush, colorful illustrations in a central large page or two-page spread painting, framed by smaller pictures of minor characters and objects from the story. Mossy herself is a delightfully expressive turtle with a garden full of leaves and mushrooms and flowers and wild berries on her back. Her male counterpart, Scoot, doesn’t have a garden, but he is indeed a handsome turtle. The human characters–Dr. Carolina, Tory, and a couple of sisters named Flora and Fauna–are dressed in late nineteenth century/early twentieth century clothing to give the book a quaint old-fashioned feeling that goes along with the story very nicely.

Box turtles “generally live for 25-35 years but have been known to survive to over 100 years old,” according to my internet research. The author implies at the end of the book that Mossy. with her turtleback garden, might still be living near Lilypad Pond where she first appears in the story. I certainly hope so.

I’ve added this book to Picture Book Preschool under the heading of Reptiles and Fish. (Turtles are reptiles, right?) I have two other Jan Brett title listed in Picture Book Preschool: The Hat and Brett’s illustrated version of The Night Before Christmas by Clement Clark Moore. However, Ms. Brett is a prolific author and illustrator, and I have many of her books in my library. Do you have a favorite Jan Brett book? Tell us all about it in the comments.

Ratty by Suzanne Selfors

Sep2

Ratty Barclay isn’t supposed to be a four foot tall rodent. He was born a boy, but something, maybe the Barclay Curse, turned him into a rat soon after his birth. And now Ratty wants to come out of hiding and somehow break the curse. He’s in hiding because people generally hate rats, especially human-sized talking rats. And his uncle Max has protected Ratty from the world of rat-hating humans for almost thirteen years, but Ratty thinks he can break the curse if he can return to Fairweather Island and the Barclay family estate where it all began.

What Ratty doesn’t know is that on Fairweather Island, indeed on the Barclay Estate itself, lives Edweena Gup, granddaughter of the manor’s groundskeeper and Ratcatcher Extraordinaire. Edweena is obsessed with rats, even though the island has no rats and she herself has never had the opportunity to catch or kill one. She has certainly studied them, gathered the tools for exterminating them, and considers herself the heir of her great-great-great grandmother’s legacy and skill at rat-catching.

Will Ratty be able to break the Barclay Curse? Will Edweena find Ratty and trap him before he can? Will something catastrophic happen to Uncle Max on Fairweather Island? What is the Barclay Curse? Why have so many Barclays died in mysterious circumstances? Why is Edweena so afraid of rats? Why is Ratty a rat when he was born a boy to human parents?

Here’s where the spoilers come into this review. If you don’t want to know the answers to the above questions, or at least some of the answers, don’t read any further. It’s a good little story, entertaining and clever and clean of everything except rats, lots of rats, and I recommend it for those who enjoy quirky. If you don’t mind introducing the idea of a family curse (it’s fiction, guys!), Ratty is good, wholesome reading for nine to twelve year olds who enjoy odd little stories about unusual characters and events, with a little humor thrown into the mix.

However as an adult, living in the 2024 world of gender dysphoria and identity confusion, I couldn’t help looking for signs that this simple story had a hidden meaning. Is Ratty’s discomfort with his rat body an allegory for body dysmorphia? Does Ratty’s desire to break the curse and change back into a human boy with a human body mirror the desires of many young people nowadays to change their bodies and to become something they are not? I don’t think kids will read any of this into the story, but I’m not a child. And I’ve seen too many children’s books lately that have a barely hidden agenda.

Well, long story short, here’s the spoiler: at the end of the book, Ratty decides that the Barclay Curse is not what made him a rat, and he accepts the body he has and his rat habits. He stays a rat, albeit a really large and somewhat human-like rat (R.O.U.S?). We never find out how or why Ratty became a rat. So, if the book was intended to support in some way the gender confusion of this decade, it doesn’t work that way. I think it’s just a quirky story, reminiscent of The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins in its inexplicable mysteriousness, about a rat and a family curse and an island and a girl who learns that friendship and firsthand knowledge can overcome fear.

Jane and the Year Without a Summer by Stephanie Barron

Aug31

I was looking for new mystery detective fiction, having read all of the Agatha Christie, Rex Stout, Dorothy Sayers, and Erle Stanley Gardner that I could find, as well as many more in the genre. A friend suggested the Jane Austen Mysteries by Stephanie Barron. I looked for the first book in the series, Jane and the Unpleasantness at Scargrave Manor, but my library didn’t have it on the shelf. So I just picked one that sounded interesting and thus read Jane and the Year Without a Summer, set in the summer of 1816 when “the eruption of Mount Tambora in the South Pacific caused a volcanic winter that shrouded the entire planet for sixteen months.” (Climate change, indeed!)

The real Jane Austen died in 1817 at the age of 41, so this book portrays a fictional Jane well toward the end of her short life. Jane is feeling unwell with chronic fatigue and stomach upset, and she and her sister Cassandra decide to sample the waters at Cheltenham Spa in Gloucestershire. These books are said to be “based on the author’s examination of Austen’s letters and writings along with extensive biographical information.” But of course, a mystery is inserted into the biographical story to spice things up a bit.

In this particular book, the mystery involves a several of the Misses Austen’s fellow boarders at the lodging house in Cheltenham where they are staying. The actual murder (or unexplained death) doesn’t happen until about three quarters of the way through the book, but the atmosphere and setting that the author creates makes up for the lack of action in the first half of the book. The characters, aside from Jane herself, are somewhat one-dimensional, and the mystery and resolution there of require some suspension of disbelief. Why and how the murderer does the deed is a bit unlikely. Nevertheless, the Regency setting with period details and information about the real Jane Austen’s life and times is, as Jane might say, quite enjoyable.

I liked it well enough to seek out another book in the series, preferably the first, and maybe I’ll read them them all. Stephanie Barron has written fifteen of these books with Jane as the sleuth and protagonist, and the fifteenth one is called Jane and the Final Mystery. So I assume the series is complete. It might be a nice adventure to travel through all fifteen.

Maybelle The Cable Car by Virginia Lee Burton

Aug29

Burton, Virginia Lee. Maybelle the Cable Car. Houghton Mifflin, 1952.

Maybelle the Cable Car! A San Francisco treat!

Virginia Lee Burton wrote and illustrated the classics Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel and The Little House and Katy and the Big Snow. Maybelle the Cable Car ranks right up there with Ms. Burton’s other lovely books. Set in San Francisco, this picture book tells the story of how Maybelle and the other cable cars work hard going up and down the many hills of the city. In their big green barn at night, Maybelle and the other cable car reminisce about the good old days in San Francisco when the city was smaller and slower and every one knew everyone else and everyone appreciated the cable cars. Now the cable cars, who work for the city government, are neglected, and Big Bill the Bus says they are “too old and out of date, much too slow and can’t be safe.”

Like Mary Anne, Mike Mulligan’s steam shovel, Maybelle is in danger of becoming obsolete and being scrapped. But, of course, the book is named for Maybelle, so that can’t happen. “Virginia Lee Burton’s . . . classic story recounts actual events in the city of San Francisco’s efforts to preserve and protect its cable cars and illustrates how the voice of the people can be heard in the spirit of democracy.”

The story of Maybelle the Cable Car might require some explanation of how votes and petitions and ballots work and how people can band together to ask their government leaders to change their plans. But you could just read the book and answer questions afterwards, if asked. Children often don’t need to understand everything in a picture book in order to enjoy it. There are also some technical details about how cable cars work at the beginning of the book that will be of great interest to some children and not so much to others.

I’m adding this book to my guide, Picture Book Preschool, in the new, expanded edition under the subject heading of United States History. It really does show the history of San Francisco from the perspective of the cable cars who remember how the city grew and changed. And with so many picture books and children’s books set in New York City and on the east coast, it’s good to have one that takes place on the west coast. Now, if only I could find a fantastic picture book set on the Gulf Coast!

Farmer Duck by Martin Waddell

Aug22

Waddell, Martin. Farmer Duck. Illustrated by Martin Waddell. Candlewick, 1991.

Some people take their picture books way too seriously. I thought this story of a lazy farmer and his rebellious animals was a great read. A bare-chested farmer sits in bed and eats chocolates while the duck does all the farm work. The only dialog in the book is the farmer asking the duck, “How goes the work?” The duck replies, “Quack.” Finally, the duck is so exhausted and discouraged that the other farm animals take pity on him and come up with a plan to relieve his misery by taking over the farm.

Yes, it’s Orwell’s Animal Farm, without the nasty, autocratic pigs. Yes, the ending has the animals working happily together to run the farm. Yes, the farmer is forced to run away, barefoot and still bare-chested, never to return. Yes, it’s a socialist animal-run utopian dream. But I just don’t believe any child (or adult) will become a good little communist after reading this book. However, some of the reviewers on Amazon certainly found the book to be subversive. “Communistic.” “Scary and violent.” “Propaganda book.”

On the other hand, the jacket blurb calls the story “a fable.” If it is a fable, perhaps it IS teaching a lesson. But I don’t believe it’s a communist lesson. Maybe it’s just a lesson about laziness and how eventually the worker duck will get fed up and worn out if he has to do all of the work. Maybe it’s a lesson about helping and working together and “the one who is unwilling to work shall not eat” (I Thessalonians 3:10). Or maybe it’s just a funny story with a happy ending and great illustrations.

Author Martin Waddell received the Hans Christian Andersen Medal in 2004. Helen Oxenbury has won the annual Kate Greenaway Medal, the British librarians’ award for illustration, twice and been runner-up four times. So the team has a reputation. As far as illustrations go, the duck’s expressive face, “sleepy, weepy, and tired” all at the same time, was particularly well done, and I loved the story.

The Hidden Treasure of Glaston by Eleanore M. Jewett

Aug21

In twelfth century England the feud between Archbishop Thomas Becket and King Henry has ended in the murder of Becket, forcing the boy Hugh’s noble father, an ally of the king, into exile in France. Young Hugh, crippled by a childhood disease, is left behind in the care of the Abbot of Glastonbury. Glaston soon becomes Hugh’s sanctuary and his beloved home as he finds both mentors and friends as well as a quest to find remnants and reminders of King Arthur’s and perhaps even Joseph of Arimathea’s presence, centuries prior, in that part of the country.

Hugh’s first friendship formed at Glaston is with Dickon, a young oblate at the monastery of Glaston. (oblate: a person dedicated to a religious life, but typically having not taken full monastic vows.) Dickon’s peasant family has signed him over to the monks of Glaston, but Dickon aspires to become a knight, or at least to serve knight. Hugh wishes he could be a knight and make his father proud, but his crippled legs make this dream an impossibility. The two boys become friends, with very different personalities, but also with a common goal of finding or at least seeing a vision of the legendary Holy Grai

Hugh’s mentors and adult friends are Brother John, the monastery’s librarian (armarian), and Bleheris, a seemingly mad hermit who shares Hugh’s and Dickon’s interest in the vision of the Holy Grail. The story moves rather slowly, but the picture of Hugh’s growth and healing and of the friendships he makes is compelling. I kept reading, not to see whether Hugh and his friends would find the Grail, but rather to see whether and how Hugh would find healing for his physical and spiritual wounds.

Honestly, although I enjoyed this Newbery honor-winning novel, I’m not sure what group of children or young people would be the audience for it. Perhaps those who are deeply interested in the whole Arthurian legend would enjoy this Arthur-adjacent story, or maybe fans of Rosemary Sutcliff’s historical fiction. The plot and characters remind me of the Newbery Award book, The Door in the Wall by Marguerite de Angeli; however, The Hidden Treasure of Glaston is a much more intricate and involved look at life in a medieval monastery and the difficulties facing a young boy with a disability in that society–at a much higher reading level. If The Door in the Wall was a favorite for an eight to eleven year old reader, this book might be a good follow-up for ages twelve and up.

I read this book as a part of the 1964 Project. A reprint edition of The Hidden Treasure of Glaston is available from Bethlehem Books.