'Pollyanna's Door to Happiness' by Elizabeth Borton

MY THOUGHTS:  

It's a pleasure to get back to the Pollyanna books after a break of several months. 

This time Jimmy sets off for a year on an engineering job where Pollyanna and the kids can't follow. He's an eleventh hour team member joining a high-profile expedition to the South Pole. I must say, he breaks the news to his wife in a tactless, un-Jimmylike way, along these lines. 'Chance of a lifetime... make or break career opportunity... but if you say the word, Pollyanna, I'll turn it down right now.' What does he expect her to do?

Alas, Pollyanna is true to character. Remember in Pollyanna of the Orange Blossoms when she didn't tell Jimmy she was pregnant before he shipped off to the war? This time she hides info she's just discovered that their bank has gone broke. Jimmy assumes his family will live off his savings. It seems strange that he wouldn't check such a vital detail, even with just a day's notice, but oh well, whatever. 

The upshot is that Pollyanna joins the jobseekers in Boston. A lot of her desperation makes no sense in the context of the whole series. Why look for modest rooms to rent, instead of staying with Aunt Ruth and Uncle John, who are loaded with dough? Even if the older couple are away on one of his research trips, isn't that all the more reason why their close family members should move into that beautiful mansion? But John and Ruth don't even get a mention in this story. Again, oh well, whatever. 

Pollyanna ends up as the non-professional assistant of Dr Bennet, a psychiatrist. Her job will be regular chit chat with several selected patients to work her Glad Game magic on them. It sounds dodgy to readers in our era, for somebody with no training whatsoever in the mental health sector to be hired for such a responsibility, but this was the 1930s. Dr Bennet even sets her up in an apartment conducive to entertaining. In other words, Pollyanna will be getting paid for being herself.

At first I facepalmed, for Dr Bennet is doing the very thing Aunt Polly dreaded during Pollyanna's childhood; that is making Pollyanna feel self-conscious and put on the spot. Surely monetizing Pollyanna's gift will take away her beloved spontaneity, especially now that she has to write up formal reports on her new 'friends.' I expected it to destroy the whole spirit of the series, but somehow it works! 

Pollyanna has a humble, caring attitude, holds the doctor's trust seriously, and the job takes a great toll on her. The patients themselves are an interesting bunch. There's a novelist, Rada Masters, who has a complex that people are stealing from her. Deborah Dangerfield is a poor little rich teenager who keeps running away from home, and bereft Mrs Garden keeps shoplifting baby clothes without even realizing. Then there's poor Mr Bagley, a transport company director whose wife and son both die in separate accidents on his vehicles! No wonder Pollyanna gets a bit burned out. 

She has some wise insights about how the human mind works, after all her years of fascination with people.

Pollyanna reflects:

 'Curbed and exercised for our entertainment, the imagination gives us pure happiness. Running wild though, and substituting itself and its manufactured dreams for reality... it plunges us into problems, despair, mental troubles. It's a thing like fire; capable of infinite good and comfort if harnessed and guided and understood, and capable of injuring us in uncounted ways if we permit it to rule us.' 

And again:

'Sometimes we think strange things. They are like little sores on our minds, like measles or chicken pox. We get over them. They aren't natural things... don't last forever.'

Pollyanna's children are 13, 10 and 7, which is a few years younger than they were said to be in the previous book (Pollyanna's Castle in Mexico)! Elizabeth Borton messes up her own timeline, but the kids ring more true at these younger ages. Junior acquires a part time job, helping a newspaper office with his photography skills, and grapples with his own conscience crisis of whether or not it's ethical to throw in his lot with the snoopy paparazzi. Delicate Judy aspires to be a professional dancer. At this stage I wonder whether sturdy Ruth, the plain little plodder, will blossom out and eclipse her talented brother and sister in some remarkable way. Time will tell.

Here's a funny speculation. When Ruth assumes her daddy will be working close to Santa Claus, Junior and Judy exchange amused glances because she still believes in Santa Claus, yet neither seem to twig that she's chosen the wrong polar region. Since Elizabeth Borton has got so many other things wrong within her own stories, I can't help wondering if she realised it herself.   

Overall, I enjoyed this far more than Elizabeth Borton's two previous Glad Books, in which she went off the rails, turning the stories into sensationalist adverts for their lavish settings. There's been some much-needed course correction here, and she's finally writing more in the initial spirit of Eleanor H. Porter and Harriet Lummis Smith. This book takes place in a normal city suburb with several people walking around beneath black clouds of depression and despair which Pollyanna helps them clear. Hooray, that's all we really want from a Pollyanna book. It's formulaic maybe, yet not predictable, because there is so much scope.  

🌟🌟🌟½  

Next up will be Pollyanna's Golden Horsehoe (the last of Elizabeth Borton's offerings, whew!)

'The Secret Adversary' by Agatha Christie

Tommy Beresford and Prudence 'Tuppence' Cowley are young, in love… and flat broke. Just after Great War, there are few jobs available and the couple are desperately short of money. Restless for excitement, they decide to embark on a daring business scheme: Young Adventurers Ltd.—"willing to do anything, go anywhere."

MY THOUGHTS: 

We are introduced to young job-seekers Tommy and Tuppence, the only Christie characters destined to age through the decades in real time alongside their author. In this debut they are babes in their early twenties, broke and anxious for work. The year is 1920. Tuppence Cowley possesses elfin charm and oodles of self confidence and energy. Tommy Beresford is a 'pleasantly ugly' young ginger who prides himself on his common sense. Friends since childhood, they agree to start a new business venture named 'The Young Adventurers', in which they'll hire themselves out to anyone who needs them.

An eavesdropper soon plunges the pair deep into espionage and danger. These kids must think on their feet and rely on their wits more than they'd ever expected. (So one moral is don't start a business unless you're certain you can deliver on your hype.) 

Tommy and Tuppence find themselves embroiled in the search for Jane Finn, a young passenger aboard the sinking Lusitania in 1915, who was entrusted with some vital documents as she boarded a lifeboat. Neither Jane nor the precious, inflammatory papers have been seen for five years and foul play is suspected. 

Hot on the trail of the two Ts, who are hot on Jane's trail, is the titular secret adversary, a criminal mastermind who goes by the modest alias, 'Mr Brown.' This slick crook is renowned for popping up in unexpected places, posing as a nonentity. But although others know his methodology in retrospect, nobody has caught him at it. Can the formidable Mr Brown be foiled by a couple of green youths like Tuppence and Tommy?  

One intelligence agent tells them, 'My experts, working in stereotypical ways, have failed. You will bring imagination and an open mind to the task.' Perhaps the enjoyment of this novel hinges on the willingness of us readers to accept that reasoning for involving total noobs. 

If we are happy to swallow that premise, it's a fun read! The story sets us on edge, looking for Mr Brown in the unlikeliest places. Breakthroughs sometimes rely on the slightest details and surprises follow on the tail of each other. And perhaps because Christie isn't a deft hand at writing romance, the romantic snippets are sort of awkward and endearing.

The story takes place only five years after the disaster it draws from; the sinking of the passenger ship Lusitania by a German submarine during WW1. I guess Agatha Christie joins the ranks of opportunistic fiction authors who profit from still raw grief, for over 1000 passengers were drowned in this tragedy. But hey, Covid pandemic novels started hitting our shelves barely three years after 2020, so story fodder is still being left to the discretion of writers and publishers. 

Although this story is not totally flawess, relying heavily on coincidences a few too many times, I think it still deserves full marks for its wonderful twists and subtle clues, especially considering Christie was still quite young and this was just her second novel. She was excellent at anticipating not only my initial suspicions but even my subsequent guesses when I thought I was being smart. 

One thing that puzzles me is why characters such as Tommy initially find the name 'Jane Finn' so outlandish and remarkable. It strikes me as quite a fine and run-of-the-mill name. Would you pause in amazement if you heard some stranger refer to 'Jane Finn'? I wouldn't. If I was able to step into the pages, I'd ask him why he found it so odd.

As for Jane herself, wow, what a memorable character. Talk about taking a trust seriously on behalf of her country. 

🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟  

'Romancing Mark Twain' novels by E. E. Burke

I'm surely not the only reader who finds Mark Twain's famous boy duo lingers in our imaginations long after we finish the books. He wrote two very different classics about two equally divergent boys. It has become easy for Twain fans to ask others if they'd choose 'Team Tom' or 'Team Huck.' The only thing these two characters have in common is that they greatly admire each other. 

Tom is a power personality while Huck is a peacemaker.

Tom is choleric, while Huck, I think, slides into phlegmatic.

Tom crams his head with fancy and folklore to arguably unhealthy levels, while Huck tends to be more practical and hands-on, which, I think gives him the survival edge the poor kid needs.  

Tom revels in being the centre of attention while Huck shuns the spotlight. 

Tom is a controller while Huck hates making waves. 

While searching for any fan fiction, I was delighted to stumble across these two books in my scrolling. E.E. Burke has written two bona fide romances about Tom and Huck as adults - the perfect indulgence to feature for Valentine's Day. Kudoes to her! I enjoyed them both immensely. And it's fitting that just as Mark Twain's own two books about this duo differ markedly from each other, so do Burke's. 

Check out my initial reviews of Tom and Huck. 

Now for what I dare to call these sexy spin-offs :) 

Tom Sawyer Returns

This novel embroils some of our favourite characters in Civil War espionage.

We readers are probably all sentimental enough to imagine Becky and Tom end up tying the knot, even though as tweenies they infuriate and offend each other quite as often as they are friends.

Becky Thatcher has grown into an attractive but deeply troubled young woman, whose father has been accused of treason; namely printing and distributing seditious propaganda. And her cousin, Jeff, although dearly loved, has placed his uncle, the judge, in some hot water. 

Tom Sawyer is the sudden arrival Becky never expected to see again. He's a spy who gets knocked unconscious as he heads straight for the Thatchers' house. Tom knows he was sent there for a reason, but partial amnesia has obscured whatever it was. With his attraction to Becky rekindled, he fears it won't be anything that will endear him to her. Especially since his cryptic orders were, 'Bring in the evidence you were sent to collect against Judge Thatcher.' Is it possible Tom could be involved in an evil mission and not even remember it? 

This story brings out a pleasing vulnerability in Tom which Twain never really taps into. Yet I can fully believe that with Tom's orphan background, it always existed. Another thing I love is how Tom's secret agent duties prevent him from boasting about his own heroism in the old way. Enforced modesty must almost kill this famous show-off. 

Becky fights her love for the unwelcome Tom, especially now that she's engaged to his old rival, none other than the smug and dapper Alfred Temple. Alongside the main couple, I love the reappearance of other familiar faces from The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. Intervening years have turned Alfred into a man whose motivation Mark Twain surely never foresaw, yet I'm willing to bet he'd be a big fan of the direction in which Burke takes Alfred in this story. Then there's Amy Lawrence, a dour and reclusive young woman who now resents Becky for another reason than her sway over Tom's fickle affection. 

A couple of faces I missed were Joe Harper and Aunt Polly, although I can see there was no place for them in this tightly woven plot. (It's easy to assume Aunt Polly must have passed away.)

I think most of all, I love how E. E. Burke has developed the character of young Sid. Far more than Tom's insipid, goody-goody, tell-tale little brother, he is now the youngest ever appointed Provost Marshall, or head of local police. Sid is shown to have an intriguing inner life of his own. It's a hard pill for Tom to swallow to accede to Sid, whether or not he can figure out if he's even trustworthy. 

There is plenty of action which proves lethal for some and a close shave for others. Some sneaky disguises are also in order, some on the spur of the moment. A very clever book which I thoroughly enjoyed.

🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

Taming Huck Finn

A romance featuring a disgruntled and heart-torn Huckleberry Finn that takes place largely on an old paddle steamer. Yes please! 

The story begins at Atchison, Kansas. Huck Finn, having recuperated from a serious gunshot wound, is almost ready to seek work as a steamboat pilot for which he's been trained. There, he receives a bombshell in the form of a lawyer accompanied by a friendly little boy. Huck's one-time guardian, Widow Douglas, has passed away and left custody of her only grandson to him. While he's still reeling from this news, an intense and bitter young woman shows up. Hallie MacBride wants to claim her nephew, who is her only remaining family member. 

This spurs one of Huck's famous conscience issues. Although he considers himself an unfit guardian for a child, bad memories of his personal experience with Miss Watson drive him to look out for young Tad. He wouldn't forgive himself for leaving an impressionable and lively young lad with another sour spinster - which is his initial impression of Hallie. Huck has no idea that a deeply hurtful experience has branded its mark on her soul. 

For her part, Hallie never anticipates how disarming and irresistible she'll find her infuriating adversary.

And for the record, young Tad badly wants to stay with Huck. He seems by far the cooler option for an eight-year-old. 

There's a lot of fascinating detail about the major responsibilities of a riverboat pilot, including subtle peril spotting in the water and interpretation of other signs, such as wind direction. These days are long before motor cars, so steamboat pilots were really the only drivers as we know them. I didn't miss the nice little Easter egg that Huck started learning his skill under an old pilot named Samuel Clemens. 

The chemistry between Hallie and Huck is sizzling hot, and a formidable enemy posing as a friend raises the danger stakes sky high. My only misgiving at the very outset was scepticism that Widow Douglas would assign guardianship of her precious grandson to Huck without ever telling him beforehand. But before long the convincing storyline won me over. I'm willing to believe that desperation and fond nostalgia made her do it. 

And what a swoon-worthy ending, as our heroine Hallie might say herself.   

🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

Oh, by the way, do you consider yourself to belong in Team Tom or Team Huck?      

'Nothing Else but Miracles' by Kate Albus

From the author of A Place to Hang the Moon comes a hopeful World War II story about three scrappy siblings on the Lower East Side of Manhattan.

This is one of the several WW2 themed novels I plan to read this year. I'm glad the springboard is such a delightful, whimsical read. 

MY THOUGHTS: 

Like almost every other reviewer, I was a great fan of Kate Albus' first novel, A Place to Hang the Moon. I was anxious to read this second story ever since I found out it was another WW2 tale about kids on the home front, but set in New York instead of England. 

 I love this survival story about the three Byrne siblings with their marine-themed names. Dory's father is off fighting somewhere in France. Her brother Fish is technically too young to be in charge of Dory and little Pike, but desperate times call for desperate measures. Their section of New York City's Lower Eastside is quite snug and Mr. Byrne is confident that the neighborhood will provide his children with what they need. This stroke of optimism intrigued me from the get-go, since we so often hear the opposite, that you need to watch your back in impersonal and dangerous big cities. Paired with the title and the middle-school target audience, I anticipated a treat.

Of course sudden strokes of misfortune are part of war and storytelling alike. Mr. Reedy, the diabolical new landlord of their apartment block, heckles the trio with threats of an orphanage, at least for the younger two. That's when Dory and the boys sneak off to squat in an old ghost-hotel that's been boarded up for over half a century.

I wish this book had been in print back when I was homeschooling my kids. There is a treasure-trove of leads to follow up, including ethnic food from delis and cafes to find recipes for, and wonderful nostalgic old 1940s music to listen to.

However it's worth mentioning that some other reviewers including homeschooling parents panned the story because of mischievous Dory's flagrant disobedience. She flouts the authority of her brother and teachers whenever it suits her, which according to some readers gives a dubious message that misbehavior pays off.

 While I see their point, they may be throwing the baby out with the bathwater. The cool flip side of their opinion is that sometimes going our own way, shrugging off conventional caution and pushing through fear may yield astounding rewards. There are times when sneakiness and boldness are required for original thinkers. Rather than being the naughty girl some people call her, Dory Byrne may, in fact, possess the germ of an entrepreneurial spirit. Dare I say that in this respect, she's an excellent example for kids.

I'm possibly biased to love this book, because Fish, Dory and Pike are an almost perfect gender, age and character match for my three children, who are now grown up. I've seen many interactions like the Byrne kids' play out for real in my own household. My older son treated his little brother with the same sort of tender sweetness Fish shows Pike, while their sister in the middle was more inclined to be blunt, practical and adventurous. That's another reason why I wish we had this during their childhood.

What more can I say? I love the comfort Dory takes on board from the strength and character she sees on the face of the Statue of Liberty. And as for a certain diamond, some call it an annoying red herring but I think it's a good twist; true to life and unpredictable.

Yes, I'd add this to my pile of warm and cosy reads. 

🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟