Ginny Gordon and the Lending Library

    This was the first Ginny Gordon book I had ever read. I was ecstatic when I found it at a book store because at the time I believed I had already read all of Whitman's series for girls. After reading it I bought the rest of the series online and read them in order. But this is my first time reading Lending Library in order. Interesting how the title simply says "and the Lending Library" instead of Mystery of the Lending Library.

- As the book starts we find out its still October. It's been less than 2 months and Ginny is solving her 4th mystery and the Hustlers are onto their 3rd business venture. Things really move fast in Harristown.

- I don't really understand the point of the lending library. It's like a normal library except you have to pay to borrow books. The only other benefit is that books get delivered to the customers which is supposed to be helpful to shut-ins. But how many shut-ins could one town have and if they couldn't get themselves to the library for any health reasons you think the library employees would be nice to deliver a book to them once in awhile. I just don't understand renting a book when you can get it from the library for free.

- The illustrations are slightly better in this book than the last. The strange close ups of characters faces is gone however the rest is the same including Ginny's big medallion necklace and matching belt buckle. Also check out how old John looks in this illustration and he's supposed to be 15!

- The book Ginny is trying to hunt down was sold to The Hermit who lent it to Joe Dakor who lent it to Doctor Bascom who lent it to Mrs. Blaketon. Honestly, how rude. Why would they all think it's okay to lend something that doesn't belong to them to someone else.

- The Hermit calls Babs a "brazen hussie" which I find absolutely hilarious.

- Babs causes a lot of problems at the Lending Library; she takes out books without marking down what she's taking, she locks the keys to the display window in the display window, and she leaves the shop unlocked and unguarded. They complain about her messing things up so much that I felt like they might as well kick her out of the Hustlers. I personally adore Babs because I admire her appetite but this is a business and she doesn't take it seriously so bye bye Babs.

- "Ginny quickly grabbed the book and put it behind her back. "Both or none. That's our agreement according to your terms Mr. Barker. And I will now make some terms of my own. If you do not behave like a gentleman, I shall not permit you to come inside this Stall again.  I'm not accustom to having strange men come here and order me about. You have no right to come in here and demand anything. We don't want your kind of business in our Book Stall. And, furthermore, I don't have to sell you the books, you know."" 

    My notes simply contain this paragraph and the words "you tell him Ginny".

- The problem of finding Mrs. Arnold a companion is absolutely ridiculous. It's very obvious Mrs. Dakor is going to be her companion but we have to wait until 2/3rds of the book and endless baiting for Ginny to realize Mrs. Dakor is the solution.

- Ginny is actually not very smart but to make her appear smart, everyone around her is extremely dumb, to the point that I feel Lucy might even be a little mentally disabled. That's not a joke either, that's truly how her character reads sometime. John is smarter than Ginny, he has to be so he can rescue her in the end but deducing the situation she is in without her telling him. But to cover up his intelligence Campbell has his character keep his thoughts and suspicions to himself.

- Ginny decides to spring a trap to catch the villain but decides against telling John because "John would only make fun of her" and so she, a 14 year old girl, confronts the big, male, professional criminal, all alone. C'mon Ginny this is your 4th time doing this in 2 months, you know it ain't gonna end well!

- And another book goes by where we don't find out Whiz's real name.

Overall this book is pretty good. The one thing I really like about Ginny Gordon books is how much Harristown is used. I love when Ginny and the gang are constantly on the move going from one person's house to another. That was the problem with the last book, most of it took place in the old barn.

- Ok I have one more note to make. As I'm getting this post put together I'm realizing that this book has way too many pictures! I remember thinking that when I was reading it but I didn't realize just how many it had until I had to scan them all. It has 31 illustrations and a lot of them are unnecessary. For example the first 4 illustrations (shown below) all show the same scene; members of the Hustlers on Ginny's porch talking. There really didn't need to be so many. I'm curious about why there were so many more than other books.

Ginny Gordon and the Mystery of the Old Barn

    The Hustlers' new project is the Snack Barn. It's essentially a teenage club house where they serve sandwiches, burgers, ice cream, soda, etc. On their first night in business a mysterious man appears and requests Ginny to hang onto an envelope. Soon another man appears and demands Ginny hand it over. On top of that food has been inexplicably disappearing.

- It's early October at the start of the book. That places the other books in September since the school year was already started. The events of the last two books were over the course of two weeks. These books were released years apart (1947, 1950, and 1954), I think if I was reading them at the time they came out I'd be a little annoyed with 7 years passing when only a few weeks passed in the books.

- Not long into the book Ginny has a confrontation with Henderson, a menacing man who threatens to harm her if she doesn't hand over the envelope she'd been given. Ginny keeps her cool the whole time even while she makes a run for it. Since Ginny has had two encounters with villains in the previous books this seems pretty possible. I like that Ginny's experience has kind of shaped her character.

- The illustrations in this book are hideous! The first three books in the series were released with dust jackets and had artwork that was very 1940s-ish. Not quite sure how to describe it, it was pretty average for these Whitman book with a few pretty exceptional illustrations. The books were then re-done as cellophane covers and the artwork got updated and way worse. The original illustrator was Margaret Jarvis and the new illustrator was Margaret Wesley. Anyways all the illustrations feature an up-close shot of a characters face with other characters in the background. They're absolutely horrifying.

- Ginny has twin beds in her room which is very convenient for when Lucy spends the night. These old books always have girls with twin beds in their room so when their friends spend the night they don't have to share a bed. It's so weird to me, just have the characters share a bed or sleep on a couch.

- The man living in the woods and stealing food is obviously Henderson, everything pointed to it but Ginny blindly believes its Chadwell for absolutely no reason other than Julie Campbell hoping it would throw the reader off a bit. However it just makes Ginny look extremely dumb.

    Overall this book is alright. It doesn't have as much action as the other books, which has been one of my favorite things about this series. This book contained a lot of standing around an empty Snack Barn talking, and lots of Ginny thinking over the mystery to herself.

Ginny Gordon and the Missing Heirloom

    "Not twenty-four hours after newspaper headlines acclaim Ginny Gordon for capturing a jewel thief, she is knee-deep in another mystery. Who stole Mrs. Arnold's valuable pin? Was it the same person who set fire to John's workshop? Why did the hoarse voice over the telephone sound so familiar?  Was that a face at the grimey window of the old cupola? A bit of fluff on the window sill set Ginny on a trail --- through a secret passage, down a lonely dark road, into a musty attic --- a trail as breath-taking as the one she followed in Ginny Gordon and the Disappearing Candlesticks."

    Here we are at book 2 in the Ginny Gordon series. This is probably the book I remember most from the series because I found it so creepy. Although the plot is different from the first book it's also the same; an item accidentally given to the Swap Shop by an older resident disappears and Ginny has to find it. You could totally mix both book titles and they would still work fine; The Missing Candlesticks, The Disappearing Heirloom. Yep, there's no real difference. Anyways lets get into it.

- The last book set up the ground work for this mystery. It casually mention that a sewing box was donated to the Swap Shop by Mrs. Arnold. The box is looked at by customers but never bought. John takes the box to his grandmother's to see if she'd like to purchase it but she happens to already have an exact copy of the box. At this time Mrs. Arnold's chauffeur, Carson, shows up at the Swap Shop saying Mrs. Arnold changed her mind about selling the box because she believes a piece of her jewelry is still inside it. At the end of the book John tells Ginny the piece of jewelry was not inside the box and is considered missing and it's up to the Hustles' to find it lest the Swap Shop gets a bad reputation for losing something in their possession.

    All of this fits into the first story really well. The box being looked at by customers is mentioned because the box is worth $5 and the Hustlers' need the $5 to pay the shop's electric bill. Carson showing up at the shop is important because at the time Ginny was trying to be alone in the shop to hunt for the secret passageway. I'm actually impressed by how smoothly Campbell was able to do this. However since this book came out two years after the first it must have been quite annoying waiting for the mystery to continue after being mentioned at the end of the first book.

- Ginny and John talk about how the Swap Shop hasn't "made a cent so far" yet in the last book they sell an ashtray. I remember because Whiz was annoyed at having to use his own money to buy supplies and Lucy said he didn't have to because she'd made a sale and Ginny teaches him how to use petty cash vouchers.

- I'm not sure why Whiz is drawn so much smaller than Ginny. The last book said he was almost 13 and Ginny is 14 so pretty much only one year apart but he's drawn almost 2 heads shorter than Ginny.

- In the last book Babs had gone to visit The Hermits cottage and doesn't come back. Whiz is worried about her so goes to look for her and ends up injured when he falls into a hole in The Hermits yard. In this book Babs goes to check on a secret tunnel that leads to the Bascom's house and doesn't come back. Whiz is worried about her so goes to look for her and ends up slightly injured when he gets caught in a cave-in in the tunnel. For some reason I felt re-using such a similar scene was annoying.

- Babs, Lucy, and John all go missing in this book and Ginny has to find out what has happen to them. I guess Campbell really liked this plot device. Funny how nowadays a cellphone would completely destroy this.

- I liked Lucy's little adventure to New York. Maybe it's because Lucy is timid and easily scared but it was fun seeing her do her own detective work and I liked how Mr. Trentor was so kind after finding her hiding in his backseat.

- It was interesting seeing a culprit that is actually mentally insane.

- The first time I read this book I had no idea who the culprit was. I was also terribly creeped out by the two phone calls to Ginny, the lonely stretch of road to Mrs. Arnold's, and the showdown with the culprit. Since I remembered who the culprit was this time I didn't find it so mysterious or creepy.

    To be honest I found some parts of the book to be...overdeveloped I guess would be the word for it. There was a lot to the culprit's evil plan and so many suspects and so much going on that I felt a little overwhelmed at times.

    The end of the first book and beginning of this book fit together so well that I feel more like they're one book together, simply in two parts; Ginny Gordon and the Swap Shop Mysteries.

Ginny Gordon and the Disappearing Candlesticks

    "There is no doubt about it, two of the four silver candlesticks were gone! Yet Ginny Gordon was sure she had locked the door before she left the swap shop. Anyway who would have wanted those tarnished candlesticks? And why had they only taken two of the four?

The business of clearing up the mystery of the missing candlesticks, and at the same time running the Swap Shop, keeps every member of the Hustlers' club busy, for in solving one mystery another is turned up."

    This is the first book in the Whitman series, Ginny Gordon. Although well written this series would become overshadowed by the author's other series, Trixie Belden. There are many similarities between Ginny Gordon and Trixie Belden including recycled plot points and scenes. I've read the series once but don't remember too much from it so lets see how this re-reading goes.

- The book starts out with Ginny sharing her plans for the Swap Shop. Her and her club, the Hustlers, plan on renting a little shop for $15 a month, collecting broken and/or unwanted items from people in the neighborhood in exchange for store credit, and fixing and selling the items. Pretty much it's a thrift store and I think it's a great idea.

- At the beginning of the book we also hear about Ginny's failed attempt to solve a mystery; she had previously thought a citizen was a German spy with plans to blow up the local bank. Turns out he was just an accountant. It's nice to see one of these teen amateur detectives be wrong. I wonder how many mysteries Nancy Drew stumbled on to that weren't actually mysteries.

- Ginny is 14 but already has enough accounting education from school to handle "the books". She goes all into accounts receivable/accounts payable stuff that I have no clue about. Did they actually teach this kind of stuff in school back then cause that'd be cool.

- Ginny immediately takes a strong disliking to Mr. Grinsler, an antique seller who asks the Swap Shop to give him leads to antiques in exchange for a commission. When Lucy asks why she instantly dislikes him Ginny says she can't stand his lisp;

    "She pirouetted around the room, taking little mincing steps and imitating Mr. Grinsler's speech: "Mike hath given me permithin to ficth my mealth on an elecricth plath....Phooey!""

    She also calls him a sissy for cooking his own food instead of going out to eat. I don't know if there's supposed to be a subtext here. Maybe it's because I've been reading some old Nancy Drew books where the villain is always Jewish/Romani/Italian/etc. These books come from a different time so why wouldn't a villain be made gay. Anyways I think Ginny's dislike is supposed to be taken as her 6th sense telling her the guy is bad news but it just comes off prejudice. 

- At one point Babs gets accidentally locked in an old wardrobe and almost suffocates to death. She's in there for hours until Ginny finally finds her. Later when Ginny thinks that Babs has ditched helping her at the Swap Shop to go to a movie Ginny thinks to herself that she wishes she had left Babs in the wardrobe to suffocate to death. Kind of extreme don't cha think?

- When Ginny realizes there's a secret entrance hidden somewhere in the Swap Shop she starts searching the showroom instead of the office even though all the clues she found were in the office. This was just a ploy to make her find it later in the evening for plot reasons and so obvious it was annoying.

- The ending involves all the characters going to a movie, Ginny goes alone to the Swap Shop where she ends up alone with the villain until one of her gang happens to show up because he became suspicious. This same setup was used again by Julie Campbell a few years later for Trixie Belden and the Gatehouse Mystery.

- When Ginny starts noticing the trap door coming up I don't know why she doesn't jump on top of it. It was right in front of the desk so why not step on top and pull the desk over it trapping Grinsler until she gets help.

    Overall this book is entertaining and the pace is excellent. That's one thing I enjoy about Julie Campbell's books for Whitman; there's so much packed into one book but it doesn't feel too fast paced. 

Nancy Drew: The Picture of Guilt

    "Nancy's spending Thanksgiving in Paris, the city of light, love...and mystery. Her neighbor is Ellen Mathieson, a professor whose study of painter Josephine Solo has suddenly taken a dark and disturbing turn. Ellen's research assistant is dead-- killed in an accident exactly like the one that took Solo's life six months before! 

Josephine Solo left a legacy of secrecy and scandal...even the possibility of a double life. But Nancy begins to suspect that some of the professor's students also have something to hide. Paris is full of powerful temptations-- forbidden romance, secret passions, financial greed-- any one of which could lead to a motive for murder."

    Awhile ago I acquired a fair amount of Nancy Drew Files from a thrift store that was going out of business. After reading them all there was only a few that I liked enough to want to keep and over time that amount was narrowed down to just two books; Secrets Can Kill and The Picture of Guilt. I just re-read Secrets Can Kill and decided to get rid of it as I doubt I'll want to read it again anytime soon. So this book is my last chance to keep a Nancy Drew Files in my collection. Let's see how that goes.

- Because Nancy is in France obviously a lot of people speak French, including Nancy who has spoken French since the original books. The dialogue is written in English since these books are English books for English readers but for some strange reason some words are in French. Here's an example; Nancy and George are almost run over by a motorcycle

"These motards," a middle aged man said angrily in French. "Never do they notice if someone is in the way! Are you alright, mademoiselle? Shall I call for the police?"

    If all the French dialogue is being "translated" to English than why leave a word like "motards" in French. "Motards" means motorcyclist but at first I though it was outdated slang/an insult, a combination of the words motorcycle and...well, you know.

- Nancy asks Ellen if she can use her phone book to which Ellen says phone books are outdated in France and instead everyone uses a computerized version called a Minitel. This sounded quite advanced for 1994, which is when this book was written, so I felt this might have been some fictitious thing but lo and behold it was a real! And it wasn't just a phone book, it was the internet before there was an internet. I had absolutely no idea about this, I found it really fascinating.

- For some reason I really enjoy the secret apartment. It's small, old, and furnished with just a few things, overlooks Paris, and even the raincoat in the corner make it seem so cozy.

- In the end-of-book-showdown with the culprits, villain 1 comes at Nancy with a crowbar. After she knocks him on to the ground villain 2 comes running at her. Nancy picks up the crowbar to defend herself but then, remembering villain 2 had already been knocked unconscious a little while ago, Nancy worries hitting him with a crowbar could cause permanent damage and sets the crowbar down...right next to the conscious villain 1 who is able to use it again as a weapon against her. Villain 2 has already MURDERED an innocent person and threaten/attempted to kill Nancy but she's worried about hurting him too much. Seriously, Nancy?

    I'm not sure what to make of this book. When it comes to the Nancy Drew Files there are no great books in my opinion. I would never consider any of them 5 star books, the most any of them are is 3 stars. So this book isn't great but it also isn't the worst of them. I think Paris is a fun setting and used well. I enjoy the studio party and finding the secret apartment but some stuff, such as the picnic, I found a bit boring. Oh, and I also hate that about half the book is spent trying to solve a murder that wasn't a murder. 

    Oh, and as for the cover art, who is that guy? Is it David? It cant be Keith because he wears all black. But David and Nancy never have any romance between them. Maybe the illustrator just decided to take George's tomboy-ness to the next level.

Nancy Drew: Secrets Can Kill

    Nancy goes undercover as a high school student to find out who has been breaking into lockers, stealing from the video lab, and ruffling through the school records. When Nancy's main suspect turns up dead on the schools stairs she has a new mystery to solve and a murderer to catch.

- "Hands on her hips, Nancy Drew stood in the middle of her bedroom and surveyed the situation. New clothes layed everywhere--strewn across the bed, draped over the backs of chairs, and spilling out of shopping bags. Laughing at the mess, Nancy reached for a just-bought pair of designer jeans. "How do you like the new look in private detectives?" she said, slipping the jeans on." Did this series start out with Nancy standing around in her underwear? Also she's trying to look like a normal high schooler but buys designer clothes for her school wardrobe.

- Right away we're told Nancy has a boyfriend, Ned, who she loves sooooooo much...but that sometimes she's gonna date other people cause how else would we expect this series to be successful in the super sexy 80's without a bunch of buff hunks posing on the covers?

- Nancy, Bess, and George have a pillow fight getting pillow feathers all over Nancy's new designer clothes. Feathers are such a pain to clean up and clean off clothes, it made cringe.

- Why is Nancy using her real name when she's supposed to be undercover? It states she's already a well established amateur detective. You think she'd use an alias especially after getting the threatening tape before even starting the case.

- I wish Jake was around longer. He's an interesting character; just a teenager but already running a blackmail ring thanks to his above average audiovisual skills. He's also confident and cocky and really gets on Nancy's nerves which I find amusing.

- After nancy's car catches on fire, rich daddy Carson buys Nancy a new Mustang GT convertible. I think Daryl speaks for all of us when he rolls his eyes and says "You've got to be kidding me". Nancy says she'll be using her allowance to pay her dad back for it. Nancy you're 18, why you still getting an allowance. Get a job with all your free time or accept payment from a case.

- Jake uses blackmail to get his victims to do stuff for him. He has Walt give him rides, Hal do his homework, and Connie...well it doesn't say what Connie did for him but she does tell Nancy "I had to do everything he asked"... Jake might have been even more scummy than we thought.

- The part where U.S.S.R. villains have a high speed chase with Nancy through the streets of Bedford was so ridiculous I ended up laughing. Especially at the part where Nancy is shocked to find out a red traffic light isn't going to stop international super villains who were just pointing guns at her.

- Nancy remarks that Jake "probably has something on half the school" yet she only focuses on Walt, Hal, Connie, and Daryl. She doesn't try to find out if Jake was blackmailing anyone else which, spoiler, he was and that's who murdered him.

    Overall this book is pretty ridiculous. I do give it a bit of a pass though because it's the first book in the series and the first books have the burden of introducing you to everything. People who had never read Nancy Drew books before had to be introduced to Nancy, Bess, George, Ned, and even Hannah. And then all readers, regardless of having read ND in the past or not, had to be introduced to the new ultra modern Nancy who's some what of a man-eater and has a nemesis.

Cherry Ames: Jungle Nurse

    "When Cherry Ames is offered a temporary assignment to help establish a health clinic in a small native African village, she sees it as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Not only will she be visiting a strange and exciting part of the world-but, more importantly, she will have a chance to help the underprivileged people of a semi-primitive country.

    But no sooner has the clinic been built than Cherry finds herself caught up in the midst of a mysterious chain of event. Rough diamonds are being smuggled out of Africa and Cherry's acute observations lead her to believe that the clinic itself is the base of the smugglers' operation!

    By carefully putting together obscure bits and pieces of evidence, and at great personal danger to herself, Cherry sets a trap for the criminals.

    How the alert young nurse from the United States manages to put an end to an international smuggling ring provides a whirlwind finish to a fascinating story of mystery and intrigue."

    "For a fleeting moment she wondered if she might run into another mystery when she got back home. But she quickly dismissed the thought. Hilton, Illinois was such a quiet, typical Midwest town that it hardly seemed likely." (Cherry, you've already solved several mysteries at home.)

- Bob brags to Cherry about an African hunting trip his rich daddy took him on 5 years ago and how they killed so many animals. Cherry's pretty disgusted by this so Bob back peddles saying it was a different time then. You know, a whole 5 years ago. However Bob keeps bragging through out the book about hunting; "The shotgun I'll use to bag us a few sand grouse every now and then. There are millions of them down in this part of Kenya, and when they're broiled over an open fire they'll taste ten times better than the partridge or pheasants your twin brother probably hunts every fall back in Illinois." Why's he gotta come for Charlie like that.

- When Bob goes into town Cherry asks him to pick up some flower seeds because she wants to plant flowers around the village. He asks her what kind of flowers and she says "the pretty flowers your mother use to plant in her garden at home." Flowers are so fickle about weather, temperature, and everything that I don't think just any flower that grows in the US will be guaranteed to grow in Kenya.

- The village is aerial sprayed several times with pesticide to get rid of the fly that is making the villagers so ill. The stuff causes Cherry's eyes to burn and her to cough but Bob says its safe. Pesticides in the 60's, safe? Hmm I'm skeptical. Also I don't understand why everyone wouldn't be instructed to remain in their homes while the airplane is spraying.

- Sometimes in the evening Cherry sits with the children of the village and tells them stories such as Mother Goose and American folklore. And sometimes an adult from the village joins her and tells African stories. I thought that was quite neat, the cultures mixing to entertain children. There's very something sweet about it.

    Overall this story is really nice. There's something satisfying about seeing the steps of building a little hospital to bringing in the patients and healing them. The setting is fun, all the characters are interesting, and the mystery is believable.

    I find that most Cherry Ames books are either hit or miss. Out of the 11 books in the series that I've read there's only been two I've liked enough to want to re-read and those two books are not just good but great in my opinion. This is one of them.