A Blast From the Past

[vanillafluffy]

The kids' lit meme has been unexpectedly fruitful. It's been great fun reminiscing with my f'list about common books. I got into a corking discussion with socialhermit about The Three Investigators, and while Googling a point on which my middle-aged blond memory failed me, I discovered that a couple of the books had been written under a pseudonym by the guy who wrote what may very well be my favorite juvenile mystery: Sinbad and Me by Kin Platt (a/k/a Nick West).

I first read it in 5th grade (Not a good year--I lost my first copy to a teacher who caught me reading in class and confiscated it.) Sinbad and Me is one of those books that I've owned multiple times in my life. It's been lost/stolen/permanently misplaced more than once, and I've always managed to get a replacement. (Despite the fact that it hasn't been in print since the late 60's--I'm that fanatic about it.) The "Me" of the title is the narrator, a twelve-year old boy named Steve. He and his bulldog, Sinbad get drawn into a treasure hunt, following riddles left behind by a pirate named Captain Billy Murdock, who died in 1800. (Clues are carved on tombstones belonging to members of the pirate's family. Graveyard! Spookiness! Fun!) Gangsters are also trying to locate the missing loot, and Steve and Sinbad have to survive a variety of dangers on that front---in addition to coping with a local bully who knows ju-jitsu and Captain Billy's ghost.

Steve is an architecture buff, as I am, and although I was interested in old houses before reading this book, this book encouraged that--See, Steve's cool and *he* likes this stuff! There's a lot of detail about styles of houses, which *does* have a point---it's how Steve solves several of the puzzles. I ferreted out my current copy this evening and started rereading it for the...dozenth time? Twentieth time? I've long since lost count. Needless to say, I know it well enough to nod to myself at the architecture rants, and say, "Hey, look out for that copperhead!" "Don't go out in the rowboat!" "You can't trust---" (You get the idea.)

Maybe I ought to put *him* on the "Write me a letter meme"--except I don't think it gets much more obscure than that, and the more popular characters on there haven't even had a nibble....

Comments

[majolika.livejournal.com]

it's such a pity that I don't know any of the books mentioned here because I *love* talking about books I read when I was little. First I thought that I never ever got my hands on something originally from the US, but suddenly I remembered a very american book/series I loved to death, John D. Fitzgerald's "Great Brain"-books. I think I could still tell half of the stories. (Just wish somebody had explained to me wtf *Mormons* are supposed to be) And speaking of pirates, have you ever read Leon Garfield? Another non-german favourite when I was little.

[vanillafluffy.livejournal.com]

I'm not familiar with either of them--but I'm a life-long pirate enthusiast. Was this a series or an individual book?

[majolika.livejournal.com]

it's just one book, "Jack Holborn". I loved it. And WAS it scary!!

[vanillafluffy.livejournal.com]

I'll have to keep an eye out for it.

[socialhermit.livejournal.com]

YAAAAAAAAAY for book discussions (especially much-read and well-loved books from our youth)! ;-)

[vanillafluffy.livejournal.com]

The connection between the Three Investigators and Sinbad and Me came as a complete surprise, but a happy one. One of the 3-I stories Kin Platt wrote was the Secret of the Crooked Cat, which I recall had a carnival setting---and the reason I remember it so well is because the writer actually gave us the clue to the location of the other cat early on---I spent several pages exhorting the boys to go look in the trailer with the damaged animals, and the fact that *I* thought of it before Jupiter made me feel like a genius detective. Go, me!