Remember what it was like to look at library shelves and see all those books? All those possibilities? All those stories that could transport us to other worlds in the company of other people, who seemed real enough while we were reading those stories.
This month, D. Z. and Janet reminisce about the books we read when we were kids, the books that made us want to become storytellers in our own right. Or write.
D. Z. has a fondness for the Trixie Belden books, while Janet recalls a book by Phyllis A. Whitney.
D. Z. Church
Beginning my Life of Mystery
My first massive read was Gone with the Wind. The movie was being re-released for the umpty-squat time—back when no one found fault with the history portrayed. Now, well, of course, things are different. I was 10. I read the book cover to cover, and even then, I wanted to slap some sense into a few of the characters. I guess Midwestern girls are different than Scarlett O’Hara. When I read the book in my 20s, I realized I missed a few things. But back then, I simply returned to more age-appropriate books.
I hated Nancy Drew and her gazillion mysteries, except for the Mystery of the Tolling Bell. She was way too privileged for me. I was pretty sure if I asked my father for the things she requested, he would strop his razor eyes over my face and do a military turn. We didn’t have extra money, and I didn’t have a nifty car or a Ken doll boyfriend.
But there was Trixie Belden. I bought the whole set with my allowance and still have them. My older sister was buying 45s and 33s of all the latest hits. She read, too, Mom’s books. Her allowance went to music. I read Dad’s magazines, Flying, Pilot, Time, Look, Life, and Saturday Evening Post. He wasn’t a book reader.
Oh, but Trixie. She lived in a little town. Hmmm, like the little town where I lived. She had two annoying older brothers who got to do things she didn’t get to do. I had an annoying older sister who hid Mom’s copy of Exodus from me because I was too young to read it. She also snuck over to my side of the room, around the end of the divider Dad made for us, to the window in our attic room. The house had forced air heat, I was never sure where it was being forced, but I was pretty sure it wasn’t into our room. That may seem like a non-sequitur, but no. My sister opened the window in the dead of winter; it didn’t matter if it was snowing, and sometimes turned on the fan. Once, I woke up with snow on my blanket. Trust me, she was annoying.
Trixie had a best friend, Honey, whom she hung with and who stood by her through her adventures. I had three friends, but our adventures tended to be more like sneaking a bus to the movie theater. Though Marty had a horse, Lissa had two little brothers, and Jane had a chihuahua that bit. Much more in line with Trixie, whose mysteries were not wild or dystopian, her parents were your normal parents. The mysteries were always solved after some detecting, some snooping, and a bit of tension that led the reader to wonder if everyone would be okay. Of all the series I read, Trixie still sticks with me.
Frankly, I liked the Hardy Boys better than Nancy Drew. I enjoyed the Dana Girl books, though somewhere along the line, I tumbled to the fact that the two series were written by the same author despite the name on the cover. There was a series featuring Vicki Barr, who was a stewardess. Flying was big in our family. I always thought I’d be the first female airline pilot. I was among the first women in the Navy to pass the written tests for Air Officer Candidate School. But being short and nearsighted put the kibosh to that.
Before the Navy, Pan American Airlines almost hired me to be a stewardess until I walked into the door as I was leaving. I wouldn’t have hired me either. Truly. To say applying wasn’t inspired by Vikki Barr’s adventures would be a lie.
But Trixie, though I quickly moved on from her books, I still adore them. I can’t tell you why. Maybe they capture a time in my life, maybe it is that I saved my allowance and rushed down to the bookstore to buy them. Or maybe it was the beginning of my life of mystery—writing—that is.
Janet Dawson
Bike Basket Full of Books
I can’t recall a time when I couldn’t read. I’m sure I didn’t emerge from the womb with book in hand, but Dad claimed I was reading at an early age. Mom used to tell me to get my nose out of that book, go outside and play—and “let the stink blow off you.”
When I was in elementary school, we lived in Lamar, Colorado. I would ride my bicycle down to the library. A Carnegie library centered on a whole city block, a beautiful old building. Years later, the city demolished it and replaced it with an ugly, utilitarian city complex. I’m still irked about that. I digress, but it’s my story.
On my library forays, I’d check out piles of books, take them home in my bike basket, read them and be back in a few days for more. I encountered books written for my age group, or young adult books, as they call them now. Betty Cavanna is an author name I remember. Then there were Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys.
One author stands out—Phyllis A. Whitney. The A stood for Ayame, her middle name. She was born in 1903 to American parents in Yokohama, Japan, where her father worked for an export company. Phyllis spent her first fifteen years in Asia. After her father died, she and her mother moved back to the US. She graduated from high school and began writing short stories, over a hundred of them, selling them to the pulp magazines. She worked in libraries and bookstores, and in the 1940s, as children’s book editor for newspapers in Chicago and Philadelphia.
Her first YA book was published in 1941 and her first adult suspense book in 1943. Her last book was published in 1997—a long and productive career. Along the way she earned an Edgar award for best juvenile mystery, became national president of Mystery Writers of America, and was chosen as the organization’s Grand Master.
Whitney’s books took readers to locations all over the US, and to other countries, such as Greece, in Seven Tears for Apollo (1963). The Trembling Hills (1956) went back in time, to the San Francisco earthquake of 1906.
The book that was a big influence—so much that as an adult I bought a used copy—it’s The Secret of the Samurai Sword (1958). From the original dust jacket:
When Celia and Stephen Bronson arrive in Kyoto, Japan, to spend the summer vacation with their vivacious book-writing grandmother, they find a strange mystery awaiting them. It seems that the agonized ghost of an old-time samurai has been haunting the garden of their grandmother’s house at night. A distinguished Japanese artist, Gentaro Sato, who lives across the street, is sure that the spirit of one of his samurai ancestors is trying to get a message to him.
Gentaro Sato is very hostile to Americans, and does not like having them for neighbors. But Celia becomes acquainted with his granddaughter Sumiko, a nisei (an American born of Japanese parents who are U.S. citizens). Sumiko has come to Japan with her widowed mother to stay in Gentaro Sato’s house. The two girls become good friends—but Celia finds that Sumiko is terribly unhappy. Although she feels and acts completely like an American, her grandfather and her young cousin Hiro keep trying to make her conform to Japanese tradition.
One night Celia’s brother Stephen persuades Hiro to wait up with him and watch for the ghost in the garden. The two boys actually see the figure, but it disappears before they can discover what it is. Celia, who is always being discounted by Stephen, decides that she herself will unravel the mystery.
I was intrigued and enthralled by the mystery, the location, and the girl taking charge. It was the first book that made me want to go to Japan. I eventually got there, nearly 30 years later. For a good read and a visit to Japan in the 1950s, this one is highly recommended. And so, BTW, is Whitney’s A Guide to Fiction Writing (1982)—also on my bookshelf.
D.Z. Church
The Big Mountain: Whistler, B.C.
It has crossed my mind, more than once, while skiing Whistler’s mountains, that it wouldn’t be hard to disappear, ski off, fall victim to an avalanche, be shot by a high powered rifle, or just run into a tree. Truly. There are multiple access points to mayhem.
The town surrounds the lifts to both Whistler and Blackcomb mountains. The village stroll winds its way up and around hotels, shops, grocery stores, liquor stores, and an ice skating rink. It is charming, one can easily while away a day in the village, eating, watching and buying.
It is best reached by bus from the Vancouver airport for those of us mad enough to fly to British Columbia with our skis, boots, ski coats, pants, gear and other paraphernalia, not counting clothes to wear to a nice restaurant and around town.
The weather is fickle. One day warm, the next freezing with the snow bearing all the characteristics of both. The snow at the tops of the mountains is powdery and wonderful. On the middle of the mountain, more like California snow, you know, a bit grainy. And at the bottom of the slopes edging on soupy. Not all the time though, if there is a temperature inversion, the ski out may be pure ice. Which is problematic, because Whistler’s longest run ends right in the village. You know, ski slope, asphalt, bar tables. That fast. One could come to extreme peril.
Whistler and Blackcomb Mountains’ abundance of ski slopes are accessible via a tram that runs, sways and bobbles between the peaks of the two mountains. I don’t have any brochures handy, but my guess is that one is well over a thousand feet up dangling between the two. Mind you, the tram and view are wonderful and would make a terrific setting for some sort of action/adventure drama. Imagine dangling unpowered over a gorge with skiers from all over the world, one with a grudge, or a hired gunman, or a thief on the run. Well, you get the picture.
Friday nights in Whistler are filled with a considerable amount of ribaldry as students come in from who knows where to drink and frolic in preparation for hitting the slope the next day. For many, sleep is not on the schedule. Friday night sleep is out. Easy enough to avoid by arriving on Saturday to leave the next Saturday, because who really needs a night’s sleep to ride a bus and grab a jet home.