We Help Mommy by Jean Cushman, pictures by Eloise Wilkin, 1959.
In this classic Little Golden Book, two small children help their mother with various household chores throughout the day. There is a note in the beginning of the book that says that the children in the story are based on the author’s own children, Martha and Bobby, but the children shown in the pictures are based on two other children, who were asked to pose by the illustrator.
When the two little children in the story get up in the morning, the first thing they do is change from their pajamas into their clothes for the day. Sometimes, they need a little help from their mother because they’re still little. Then, they go downstairs and start making breakfast.
After their father leaves for work, they help make their parents’ bed. Then, they dust furniture and sweep the floors and put their clothes in the washing machine. Martha hangs her doll’s clothes up on a small clothesline, while her mother hangs up the family’s clothes on the high one. The children go to play with some friends next door.
Sometimes, the children go to the supermarket with their mother to buy groceries. When they get home, they put the groceries away and make lunch.
After lunch, they wash their dishes, and Martha makes a special little pie for their father for dessert.
At the end of the day, the children put away their toys. Their father comes to tuck them in when it’s time for bed, and he thanks Martha for the pie and both of the children for helping their parents.
The book is available to borrow and read for free online through Internet Archive.
My Reaction
I remember reading this book with my mother when I was a little kid in the 1980s. It’s just a cute, simple book for young children about helping their mother with daily chores. We still sometimes quote the line from this book, “Napkins for us all” when we set the table because, for some reason, that stuck in all of our minds and just got repeated for years.
At the time, I was too little to think about what year the story is from, and there was nothing in the book that was too seriously out of line with my experiences as a little kid. You can tell by the pictures that it’s from an earlier decade because of the family’s clothes and hair styles (particularly the parents), and the carpet sweeper the mother uses is older than I am. However, I have to admit that my parents still had one of those types of carpet sweepers in the 1980s, so I knew what it was when I saw it in the picture. They hang their clothes up to dry instead of using a clothes drier, but even that isn’t too far out of line because, even today, some people prefer to dry their clothes on a clothesline. In fact, there are 21st century people who consider it more environmentally friendly. The style of the clothesline they use is very mid-20th century, but my grandmother had one like that in the 1980s, too, so I had seen it before. Some of the things I was familiar with as a young child were hold-overs from previous decades, just like this book. Modern children might not be as familiar with some of these things, but this book is such a simple story about small children helping with daily chores that I think even 21st century children would understand it, even if it looks a little old-fashioned in some respects.
When I was a kid, I missed the part at the very beginning of the book about the children in the story being based on the author’s children, but I found it interesting when I looked at the book again as an adult. There is another Little Golden Book called We Help Daddy, which we also had when we were little kids. The two books read a little like companion books and were illustrated by the same illustrator, although We Help Daddy was written by a different author and features a different brother and sister. In We Help Mommy, the children mostly help their mother with chores around the house and buying and preparing food. In We Help Daddy, two kids help their father with yard chores, which somewhat shows how people in the mid-20th century typically expected domestic chores to be divided: the mother doing work inside the house and related to cooking, while the father mostly tends to chores outside the house. I don’t think this is a problem because, when the two books are taken together, both parents are still helping out and spending time with the children, but I thought it was interesting to notice that dynamic as an adult.
One of the things the mother and children buy at the grocery store in this book is a picture book. I didn’t understand that part as a little kid, but as an adult who studies and collects children’s books, I know that this is a reference to Little Golden Books because they were often sold at grocery stores, making them accessible to many families as inexpensive books for young children, sold where families would normally shop anyway. In fact, if you look closely at the cover of the Little Golden Book that the boy is taking out of the shopping cart, you can tell that it’s specifically Kittens: Three Complete Stories.
Inside the Secret Garden by Carolyn Strom Collins and Christina Wyss Eriksson with illustrations by Tasha Tudor and Mary Collier, 2001.
This is a how-to book with activities, crafts, and recipes that fit the themes in the classic children’s book The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett. The book has some of the classic illustrations from The Secret Garden by Tasha Tudor, and there are also illustrations by Mary Collier.
The book begins with an explanation of the story of The Secret Garden and the life of Frances Hodgson Burnett. In the description of the author’s life, the book discusses some of the places where she lived and people she knew who provided inspiration for aspects of the story of The Secret Garden. There is also a timeline of world events during the author’s lifetime.
The second chapter describes the setting of the story with descriptions of Misselthwaite Manor and its gardens. It explains how a large manor house like Misselthwaite would function and the types of staff and servants it would have. It also explains the types of gardens and plants that would have been grown in the kitchen gardens of English manors and cottages.
The third chapter in the book has recipes and menus based on the foods the characters eat during the story. Food is important in The Secret Garden because Mary and Colin didn’t have appetites when they were unhealthy, but after their time working in the garden and getting fresh air and exercise, their appetites improved. The recipes in the book are based on things the characters eat during the story.
The recipes in the book include:
A pot of tea
Porridge (oatmeal)
Treacle (They use molasses with corn syrup and honey to make it.)
Orange marmalade
Homemade bread
Snow-white eggs (soft boiled)
Raspberry jam
Clotted cream
Muffins
Ham
Oatcakes
Doughcakes
Apple Crumble
Crumpets
Robin cake
Roasted eggs (The instructions call for cooking them in an outdoor stone oven, like they did in the book, but it also discusses how to make an indoor version.)
Roasted potatoes (The instructions call for cooking them in an outdoor stone oven, but it also discusses how to make an indoor version in a standard oven.)
Currant buns
A book of activities based on The Secret Garden wouldn’t be complete without gardening activities! The fourth chapter has suggestions for creating your own garden. The gardening tips and suggestions are based on the plants the characters used in The Secret Garden. I’m not sure all of them would grow well in every climate, and planting seasons can vary by region.
The gardening activities include:
Planting a spring bulb garden
Planting a rose in a flowerpot
Making an indoor “secret garden” with potted plants in a tray or pa
The fifth chapter has a selection of crafts and activities related gardening. They include things you can make to use in your garden and things you can make our of plants from the garden, including:
A twig tool holder
Plant labels (little signs for labeling plants in your garden)
Moss-covered flower urns
Key wind chimes
A planter in a watering can
A twig trellis
Pressed flowers and a pressed flower scrapbook
A bouquet of roses
A topiary flower arrangement
A miniature arrangement
A bird feeder
A bird bath
Nest-building station
It also explains how to make your own skipping rope, like the one Mary had in the book, and there is a section of traditional jump rope rhymes.
The book is available to borrow and read for free online through Internet Archive.
My Reaction
I liked the chapters about the history of The Secret Garden and the life of Frances Hodgson Burnett. I thought it was interesting to see some of what inspired her to write the story. I particularly like the chapter that describes how a manor like Misselthwaite would be run because I like seeing the historical background to stories.
I don’t think that the gardening tips are really universal. I grew up in Arizona, and I know from personal experience that plants and gardening techniques that would work well in cooler and wetter climates don’t work as well in a hot, dry desert climate. However, some of the garden-related crafts looked intriguing. I particularly like the idea of the wind chime that uses old keys as the chimes. I’ve seen antique stores and places that sell crafting supplies that also sell old keys, so know it’s possible to get them.
I like the selection of recipes the book provides, and I think most of them would be pretty easy to make. The most difficult ones are probably roasted eggs and roasted potatoes because they require an outdoor oven, like the kind the characters in The Secret Garden used. The book briefly describes how to make the kind of outdoor stone oven they mean, but I don’t think that kind of oven can be built just anywhere. It’s more for camping and the countryside, where you can safely have fire pits away from buildings. Fortunately, the book also includes instructions for making those dishes inside, in a standard kitchen.
The Secret Garden Cookbook: Recipes Inspired by Frances Hodgson Burnett’s The Secret Garden by Amy Cotler, illustrations by Prudence See, 1999.
This book is a cookbook with recipes based on the types of foods eaten by characters in The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett. Food is important in the story because Mary and Collin didn’t have any appetites when they were unhappy and unhealthy, but their appetites improve when they begin working in the garden and getting more fresh air and exercise. Most of the recipes are types of foods that are specifically named during the course of the story, but others are ones that the characters would have been likely to eat for the time and places where they lived. Because the original story focused on gardening, there is also an emphasis on using foods that would be grown in kitchen gardens
Most of the illustrations in the book are simple green and white drawings of different types of foods that accompany the recipes.
The recipes in the book are sorted into different categories, and each section has historical information about different meals and types of food. Individual recipes also have historical information, trivia, and quotes from The Secret Garden related to the dishes. Some traditional English foods need to be explained to Americans. For example, the word “pudding” refers to a specific type of dairy dessert in the US, but in England, it’s a more general word that can refer to any type of dessert.
I liked the selection of recipes, and I really liked the historical information provided with them!
The sections of the cookbook are:
Yorkshire Breakfasts
These are breakfast foods that the characters in the story ate or might have eaten during the Victorian era.
Porridge
Coddled eggs – Eggs cooked in a cup
Cheese muffins
Little sausage cakes
Cocoa
A Manor Lunch
This section explain the types of things that people of different classes ate as their mid-day meal in the Victorian era.
Yorkshire pudding – These are popovers with meat drippings.
Roasted fowl with bread sauce
Potato snow
Welsh rabbit – This is melted cheese on toast.
Cabinet pudding – This is a molded custard dessert with fruit.
Jam roly poly
An English Tea
This section explains things that Victorian people ate at afternoon tea.
A proper pot of tea
Cucumber tea sandwiches
Scones
Fruit tea loaf
Lemon curd tartlettes
Brandy snap baskets with whipped cream
The Kitchen Garden
This section is about things people would make from fruits and vegetables that they would grow in their kitchen gardens.
Fresh spring peas with mint
Glazed carrots
Summer pudding – This is a molded dessert made with bread and different kinds of berries.
Two fools – “Fools” are old-fashioned fruit-based desserts.
Raspberry jam
Raspberry vinegar
Molded spiced pears
Strawberries and cream
Dickon’s Cottage Food
Poor people, like Dickon’s family, would have eaten different things from the wealthier people in Victorian society.
Tattie broth – A potato soup.
Pease pudding
Yorkshire oatcakes
Cottage loaf – This is a basic bread recipe.
Dough-cakes with brown sugar – A basic dessert made with bread dough.
Parkin – A kind of oatmeal gingerbread.
A Taste of India
These are the types of foods that Mary might have eaten during the time she lived in India.
Fruit lassi – This is a kind of fruit shake made with yogurt.
Sooji – A hot breakfast cereal similar to cream of wheat.
Little bacon and coriander pancakes
Fresh mango chutney
Mulligatawny soup – This soup was invented in India for the British colonists. It’s curry coconut soup whose name means “pepper water.”
Florence Nightingale’s kedgeree – Florence Nightingale has nothing to do with the dish, but the Victorians named it after her because she was famous. It’s a rice and fish dish that was often made from leftovers and served for breakfast or lunch.
Garden Picnics
These are foods that can be prepared outside or are easy to pack for a picnic.
Roasted potatoes and eggs
Currant buns
Crumpets
Cornish pasties – These are savory pies or turnovers with meat and veggies, meant to be eaten with the hands. They’re sort of like larger, better-tasting Hot Pockets.
Chocolate picnic biscuits
The book is available to borrow and read for free online through Internet Archive.
Linnea in Monet’s Garden by Christina Bjork, drawings by Lena Anderson, 1985, 1987.
Young Linnea loves plants and flowers. Linnea’s upstairs neighbor, Mr. Bloom, used to be a gardener before he retired. He knows all about plants, and she likes to talk to him about them. Mr. Bloom has a particular book that Linnea likes about the French artist Claude Monet and his garden. Monet was famous for his paintings of the flowers and water lilies in his garden, and the book also has photographs of him, his wife, their children, and their garden. When Linnea looks at that book, she likes to imagine that she really knows the Monet family and that she’s visiting their garden.
One day, Mr. Bloom tells her that it’s possible to really go visit the garden because it still exists. Monet’s house had become run down and the garden was overgrown, but they have since been restored and turned into a museum. They could visit the garden if they go to Paris. They live a long way from Paris, but Mr. Bloom arranges with Linnea’s family for her to go on the trip with him.
Linnea and Mr. Bloom stay at a tiny, old hotel on the River Seine in Paris that was built in 1640. They can see the Notre-Dame Cathedral from the hotel, and it reminds Linnea of The Hunchback of Notre-Dame.
On their first day in Paris, Linnea and Mr. Bloom go to the Marmottan Museum to see Monet’s paintings. Monet’s youngest son left his father’s paintings to the museum when he died because he had no children of his own to inherit them. Mr. Bloom explains to Linnea that Monet painted in the impressionist style, which means that he tried to capture the rough images and impressions of the moment rather than creating detailed, completely realistic paintings. (I’m nearsighted, so impressionist paintings always look to me like what I see when I’m not wearing my glasses. I see colors and rough shapes, but everything is fuzzy with no sharp lines or fine details. I can still tell what objects are without my glasses, but nothing is distinct. I have impressions of things.) Mr. Bloom says that Monet particularly liked to show how light reflects off water and other objects in his paintings.
The next day, they take a train to the town of Vernon, and from there, and from there, they take a taxi to Giverny, where the Monet house and garden are. Along the way, they also buy some food for a picnic. Then, they go to see Monet’s garden.
When Linnea sees the garden in person for the first time, it’s much bigger than she had imagined from the pictures in the book. Mr. Bloom tells Linnea all the names of the different flowers, and they take pictures of them. Then, they go inside Monet’s house. They’re not allowed to take pictures inside the house, but they get some postcards of the house’s interior.
One of the best moments for Linnea is that she is able to stand on the Japanese bridge in the garden, over the lily pond, as she always imagined she could do when she looked at the pictures in Mr. Bloom’s book! Monet painted pictures of that bridge multiple times. Each painting looks different because he painted them at different times and in different weather, so had different impressions of the bridge each time. The book shows Monet’s paintings of the bridge and how different they are from each other, and Linnea tries to capture her own impressions of the bridge.
They aren’t allowed to have their picnic lunch inside Monet’s garden, so they have lunch by the nearby river. Then, they return to Paris.
Back in Paris, they visit the Jeu de Paume museum to see more impressionist paintings. At the Orangerie, they try to see Monet’s giant water lily painting in the Water Lily Rooms. At first, they are told that the exhibit is closed for repairs, but when Mr. Bloom explains that they have come a long way to see them and Linnea starts to cry, the museum staff decide to make an exception.
For the last day of their trip, Linnea and Mr. Bloom decide that they want to return to Giverny. When they make their second visit, a man recognizes them as return visitors, and he turns out to be a member of Monet’s family, his step-great-grandson, Jean-Marie Toulgouat. He lives nearby, and he is also an artist, although his art style is very different from Monet’s. He talks to them about Monet’s life and family, and it also turns out that his wife was the author of the book about Monet that inspired Linnea and Mr. Bloom to take this journey!
When they return home, Linnea and Mr. Bloom go through all the pictures they took in France, and Linnea puts up a bulletin board with postcards and pictures from their trip. She also has a little wooden box with other souvenirs.
In the back of the book, there is a family tree for the Monet family and a timeline of events from Monet’s life. There is also a section of information about museums and sites in Paris and a list of books about Monet.
The book is available to borrow and read for free online through Internet Archive (multiple copies, including one in Chinese). The book was originally written in Swedish and published in Sweden in 1985. The English translation was published in 1987.
My Reaction
This is a lovely book about travel, art, and the beauty of nature and plants. Initially, Linnea becomes interested in Monet because of her love of plants and flowers, and when her neighbor says it’s possible to visit the garden Monet painted, she becomes interested in Monet’s life and work. I grew up learning about art and famous artists because my mother used to teach art lessons through a special program at my school. I don’t remember seeing this book at that time, although it is old enough that I could have. I found it by accident at a thrift store, and it reminded me of the art books that my mother kept around the house when I was a kid.
I enjoyed how the book brought a historical person to life, explaining Monet’s life story as well as his art and showing child readers that it’s possible to see the setting of his paintings in person. The book shows pictures of Monet’s art and photographs of the garden and flowers he painted so children can see the connection between the artwork and the real places and objects. Although not everyone can go to France just on a whim, the book does show what such a trip would be like, and it also shows kids how they can delve deeper into subjects that interest them and even go to places connected with their passions. The journey in the book is a magical trip that even adult armchair travelers can enjoy!
Emma by Wendy Kesselman, illustrated by Barbara Cooney, 1980.
Emma has had a full life, and she has many grandchildren and great-grandchildren. However, she is often lonely when they aren’t visiting her. Most of the time, it’s just her and her pet cat, Pumpkinseed. It’s not a bad life because Emma loves the many simple things in her quiet life, but she unexpectedly discovers a new interest in life when she turns 72.
Her family comes to visit for her birthday, and one of the presents they give her is a painting of the small village where she was born. Although her family doesn’t entirely understand her attachment to her memories of her home village, they know that she is very fond of remembering it. 
However, the painting bothers Emma because it doesn’t look the way she remembers she remembers her village. The village has probably changed since she was last there, but the way the artist has painted it isn’t the way she remembers it. Emma realizes that she wants to capture those memories. Because no one else can paint her village the way it looks in her memories, Emma decides that she will do it herself. She buys an easel and paints and makes her own painting of her village. 
It makes Emma happy when she hangs her painting up in place of the painting that her family gave her because it looks like her memories. However, she doesn’t want her family to think that she didn’t appreciate their gift, so she is careful to replace her painting with the one they gave her whenever her family comes to visit. Everything changes one day when she forgets to makes the switch before her family visits her.
Everyone notices that the painting on the wall is different from the one they gave her, and they ask her where it came from. Emma is embarrassed and admits that she painted it. At first, she wants to put it away, but her family tells her not to do that because it’s a wonderful painting, and they encourage her to paint more.
Emma admits that she already has painted more, and she brings out her other paintings for everyone to see. From then on, she paints more paintings of her village and all of the little things around her that she loves to notice, and she openly displays them. Aside from her family’s visits, she also starts receiving other visitors who come to see her paintings. There are still times when she is alone, but she is no longer lonely when she is alone because she has her art to keep her busy and her memories of all the places and things she loves hanging on her walls.
The book is available to borrow and read for free online through Internet Archive.
My Reaction
I’ve been trying to figure out what this book is for years! I vaguely remember my mother telling me about this book when I was little. I can’t remember if she read it to me or just told me that she had seen the book somewhere, but the vague concept of the story about a grandmother who started painting because her relatives gave her a painting of her home town that didn’t look the say she remembered it stayed with me.
What I didn’t know or didn’t remember was that the grandmotherly painter in the story is based on a real person. In the back of the book, the American author explains that she met Emma Stern when she was living in Paris. Emma Stern was German, and she was born in 1878 and died in 1970. She is known for painting countryside scenes and village life. I’m not sure exactly where the village or small town where she was born was, although this website, which shows a selection of her paintings, has labeled most of them as being St. Wendel.
The story is inspirational because it’s an example of someone who found a new interest in life and a new talent when they were elderly. There are other examples in life of people who were “late bloomers” and found new careers or achieved something amazing in life at a time when many other people are just retired or taking it easy. It’s never too late to do something you really love!
The Most Beautiful Place in the World by Ann Cameron, drawings by Thomas B. Allen, 1988.
Juan is a little boy living in the town of San Pablo in Guatemala. It’s not a very big town, but it is very busy. The town is on a lake with several other towns around it, but Juan has spent his whole life in San Pablo.
Juan is from a poor family, although he doesn’t consider his grandmother poor because she owns her own house and is able to take in other relatives whenever they fall on hard times. He knows that his father was the caretaker of a big house in the town, but he abandoned him and his mother when Juan was still a baby. His mother says that his father wanted to continue partying with his friends like he did when he was a single man, spending more than they could afford. After they argued about it, he left his family and went to a bigger city and never tried to see them again. Juan’s mother moved back in with her mother, so Juan grew up in a crowded little house filled with other relatives who needed help because they had gotten sick, lost their jobs, had marital problems, or various other things going wrong in their lives.
Juan’s grandmother supports herself by making arroz con leche and selling it in the marketplace. When Juan is still a small boy, his mother remarries to a man who doesn’t want anything to do with Juan, so his mother abandons him, leaving him with his grandmother. Juan is distressed by his mother’s abandonment, but his grandmother continues to look after him and begins preparing him to live an independent life from a young age. She has him help her sell arroz con leche in the marketplace, and later, she teaches him how to shine shoes so he can earn his own money. Juan is still very young, but his grandmother knows that life will tough for him without his parents.
Juan knows that his mother has had another child, and he feels jealous of his younger half-brother because he gets to live with his mother, and he doesn’t. (I question whether the younger half-brother is really going to be better off in the long run, but I’ll explain why below.) However, he is really jealous of the other children in town who get to go to school. Not all children in town go to school because many are from poor families, who need them to work and earn money, but Juan wishes that he could go to school, too.
He quietly teaches himself to read the signs in town and a newspaper, but he’s afraid to ask his grandmother about letting him to go school at first. He’s worried that, if he asks for that, his grandmother may tell him that she only cares for him because of the money he earns. If his grandmother abandoned him or withdrew her affection for him because he asked for too much, Juan doesn’t know what he would do. However, when he finally brings up the subject of school with his grandmother, he learns how much she really does care for him, how much she plans for his future, and how proud she is of him.
The book is available to borrow and read for free online through Internet Archive (multiple copies).
My Reaction
Juan’s family is poor, and at first, Juan doesn’t understand fully how poor they are. His grandmother’s life is more secure than others because she owns her own house, while others don’t, but even she has limited resources. The house has running water, but it doesn’t have electricity because she can’t afford it. She takes in other relatives when they are in trouble because she cares about her family, but she also has to make sure that everyone does whatever they can to support themselves because she can’t do it alone.
At first, Juan thinks that maybe she just keeps him because he earns money shining shoes, and she keeps most of his wages. However, when he talks to her about school, he learns that she has not spent any of his wages on herself or on other relatives. Instead, she has secretly saved them up because she knew that he would need money for his education, and she uses it to buy school supplies for him. At first, his teacher doesn’t want to accept him in class because the school year has already started, but when he demonstrates that he has already learned math from working in the marketplace and has taught himself to read, she accepts him. He exceeds everyone’s expectations for him, and his teachers even say that they will contribute to his education, if necessary, to keep him in school.
Juan’s grandmother cannot read, and she reveals that her parents wouldn’t let her go to school when she was young, even though she wanted to go. Her parents were afraid that she wouldn’t learn to do any practical work in school, so they didn’t want her to get an education, but she’s always felt disadvantaged because of it. She’s managed to get by in life, but she realizes that she could have done better with an education. She says that if Juan continues to work after school and does well in school, she’ll support his education, as far as he wants to go, even to the university. She says maybe he’ll even be able to figure out some of the big questions in life, like “why some people were rich, and some were poor, and some countries were rich, and some were poor, because she had thought about it a lot, but she could never figure it out.” Juan worries that he won’t be able to live up to his grandmother’s expectations for him, but she tells him not to worry about that. She just hopes for the best for him and wants to see him do the best he can because she loves him, and that’s what Juan really needs to hear.
The title of the story comes from a tourist poster that Juan reads to his grandmother, calling their town, “The Most Beautiful Place in the World.” Juan’s grandmother thinks that the most beautiful place in the can be anywhere where a person can be proud of who they are, but Juan privately thinks that the most beautiful place in the world is somewhere with someone you love and who loves you back. Juan has been deprived of love because of his parents’ abandonment of him, but he has found the love and support he needs from his grandmother, who wants him to succeed in life because she loves him and not just for what he can do for her.
Parts of the story are sad because Juan’s parents callously abandon him, and even his mother tries to act like it’s nothing because she knows his grandmother is taking care of him. I tried to decide how selfish Juan’s mother is in the story. On the one hand, I can see that she is poor and desperate and may have felt compelled to accept the first marriage proposal she was offered just to get out of her mother’s house, but she is very callous to her little son and his feelings and needs.
At first, he doesn’t even quite understand why his mother has left him, not even leaving him the bed they shared, so he has to sleep on some empty rice bags. He goes to his mother’s new house and tries to spend the night there. His mother lets him stay the night but hides him because she says his stepfather will beat him if he catches him in the house, which is why Juan never goes there again. I don’t know whether the stepfather ever beats Juan’s mother or the child they later have together, but the mother’s comment makes me think that it’s likely. Yes, Juan’s mother succeeded in getting remarried and out of her mother’s house, but I don’t think she’s really headed for a better life, and I have doubts about the future her younger child will have. It looks like the stepfather is selfish and temperamental, probably every bit as immature as Juan’s father was, and the children’s mother will always place her own needs first. As hurtful as it was for Juan to be abandoned by his mother, his mother is not going to nurture him and his future in the way his grandmother does. His grandmother has to be tough sometimes because of the family’s poverty, but she still does her best to look after everyone, even at her own expense, because she does love her family and wants the best for them and their futures, not just to get what she wants from other people and get ahead by herself. I would say that’s the quality that makes her different from Juan’s mother. At one point, she even marches Juan to her daughter’s new house and demands that she and her new husband at least provide a real bed for her son, reminding them of their responsibilities.
The book doesn’t go into the details of Guatemalan society and events in the 1980s, when this book was written, which was something I wanted to see. It’s pretty simple story for elementary school level children, but there is more going on behind the scenes that Juan would be aware of as a young boy living in a small town. The time period when this story was taking place was during the Guatemalan Civil War, which lasted from 1960 to 1996. The war and sharp differences in social class are partly responsible for the economic and societal inequities that Juan’s grandmother describes, although the economic and social disparities in Guatemalan society were part of the reason for the war in the first place. There was also general dissatisfaction with government incompetence and interference in Guatemalan affairs on the part of the United States, which sought to use Guatemala as part of its Cold War strategy, including using it as a training ground for Bay of Pigs Invasion against Cuba. These are complicated and long-term situations that would require more explanation than a children’s book of this level can provide, and because the characters in the story live in a small town, they may not be seeing many of these events directly. As he gets older, Juan will probably become more aware of the wider world and the circumstances that have shaped his family’s lives, as his grandmother hopes and expects, especially if he does end up going to the university in the capital city.
Magdalena by Louisa R. Shotwell, illustrated by Lilian Obligado, 1971.
Magdalena is switching classes at school. She’s happy about it because she found her old class too chaotic. She thinks she will be happier in her new class. Her friend in her current class at school, a boy named Saul, tells her that she must be an IGC, an Intellectually Gifted Child, in order to get transferred to that class because that class only takes gifted children. However, she is told that she will also have to wait a little for them to give her a desk in the room. When months go by without her being told that there is a spot ready for her and she can make the switch, Saul thinks that they were probably lying to her about her being able to switch classes.
Finally, in January, she is able to switch to the new class, but right away, she runs into trouble with the class bullies. A boy named Andy and his friend start calling her “Miss Two-Ropes” because of her long braids, and the name sticks. Magdalena wishes that she didn’t have to wear her hair in braids, but her grandmother, Nani, insists on it. She loves Nani, who is from Puerto Rico and has looked after her for last two years, ever since her mother died when she was nine years old, but Nani has some old-fashioned ideas about how girls ought to be raised.
Magdalena’s father is a sailor, and he spends much of his time away at sea, so Magdalena and her grandmother are alone most of the time. Nani speaks Spanish to Magdalena at home because she thinks that’s proper for a Puerto Rican family like theirs, although Magdalena speaks English at school. She thinks that her grandmother probably knows more English than she pretends. Nani also keeps a portrait of Great-Grandfather Mendez, which she brought from Puerto Rico. Although he has been dead for years, the portrait always feels like a living person to Magdalena.
After some further teasing from the boys in her class, Magdalena decides to tell her grandmother that she doesn’t like her braids. Nani says that not unusual, that many children don’t like their braids, but they get over it. Magdalena doesn’t think she’s going to just get over it. Like a lot of kids, she would rather just look like everyone else so she won’t get teased, but Nani doesn’t approve of the short hairstyles that are popular among American girls at Magdalena’s school. She says that Magdalena’s braids are a mark of pride and a caring grandmother who brushes and braids her hair. She thinks the American girls wear their hair short because their mothers can’t be bothered to spend time on caring for long hair, and they don’t have grandmothers to nurture them. When Magdalena tells her that the boys at school are calling her names because of her braids, her grandmother decides that she should talk to the teacher about it. Magdalena thinks that having her grandmother talk to the teacher might be more embarrassing than having the boys call her names, so she persuades her grandmother to forget about it for now and let her handle it.
Then, Magdalena is called to the principal’s office at school. At first, Magdalena is upset because it sounds like she’s in trouble, and she can’t understand what she could have done to cause that. She is calmed a little when a black boy in the office, who is also waiting to talk to the principal, is nice to her. It turns out that Magdalena isn’t really in trouble. Instead, the principal wants to talk to her about one of her classmates, a girl named Daisy Gonzales, who is also transferring into her new class.
Madgalena is surprised because Daisy hasn’t struck her as a gifted child. Most of the other students call her “Spook” because she tends to lurk around the school and suddenly jump out at people to scare them, and she is known to frequently skip classes. The principal says that Daisy might be gifted, but it’s difficult to tell. The teachers think that she’s at least bright, but she’s an “under-achiever.” The principal explains that means that Daisy could do better at school than she does, but for some reason, she doesn’t seem motivated to do better. That’s why they’ve decided to transfer her to the class with the gifted students. They think that she isn’t being challenged enough in the class where she is. The teachers are also concerned that Daisy has no friends at school. They’ve noticed that the other girls at school seem to be afraid of Daisy, although they don’t seem to understand about Daisy’s “Spook” act. They do know that Daisy has behavioral problems and an unhappy home life. The reason why the principal is telling Magdalena about this is that she wants Magdalena to try to be Daisy’s friend when she transfers into her new class. The reason why she selected Magdalena to be Daisy’s new friend is because Daisy’s family is also Puerto Rican, like Magdalena’s family, so she thinks that the girls might understand each other better than their other classmates. The principal thinks that Daisy might settle down at school if she had a friend to help her feel more comfortable there. Magdalena isn’t comfortable with the idea of trying to be Spook’s friend because she also finds Daisy spooky, but the principal persuades her to try but not to let on that the principal asked her to do this.
Magdalena has no idea how to approach Daisy/Spook to be friends, since she’s not the easiest person to approach about anything. Then, Sue Ellen, the most popular girl in class tells Magdalena that she wants to be friends with her. She says that she’s been feeling empathy for her since the first day that she came to class and the boys started teasing her, and she felt it again when she got called to see the principal. She asks her what the principal wanted, and Magdalena explains that she asked her to do something, but it’s something really hard, and she isn’t supposed to talk about it. Sue Ellen offers to help her with whatever the principal’s task is. Magdalena thinks maybe making friends with Spook won’t be so bad if Sue Ellen helps, so she takes Sue Ellen into her confidence. Sue Ellen agrees with Magdalena that making friends with Spook would be hard because she’s so weird and spooky. Both girls admit that they’re a little afraid of her, but Sue Ellen agrees to try to be basically nice to Spook along with Magdalena and see what happens. Sue Ellen says that the principal ought to have more empathy for the students and see just how hard it would be to get along with someone like Spook.
Their first attempts at making friends with Spook are clumsy. Sue Ellen tries offering her advice, pointing out that she wore the wrong thing to the school assembly, but criticism and advice aren’t the best ice-breakers. Then, to Magdalena’s surprise, Spook approaches her in the school library, when she is trying to find a specific book for her grandmother. The school library doesn’t have the book she wants, but Spook says that she knows where to find it. However, she will only help Magdalena if she plays hooky and goes with her right now. Magdalena hesitates because she doesn’t really want to skip class and get in trouble, but Spook says that Magdalena will have to come with her because she’s “emotionally disturbed” and might do crazy things if she doesn’t get her way. Magdalena points out that school will end in only 20 minutes, and she asks Spook to wait for her. Spook makes her promise that she won’t change her mind and let her down in that time.
When Magdalena waits for Spook, she doesn’t show up at first, but Spook jumps out at her just when she’s giving up waiting. Spook says that she just wanted to see if Magdalena was serious about wanting to come with her. The place where Spook knows they can find the book turns out to be the Brooklyn Public Library. Along the way, Magdalena begins to learn more about Spook. The reason why she wasn’t dressed right this morning was that the sweater she was wearing was the only thing she had to wear that was clean. She skipped out during the school assembly to go home and see if her mother was back from the laundromat so she could put on something else. Also, Spook isn’t completely friendless. She is friends with a strange woman named Miss Lilley, who wears an unusual, large hat. When Daisy tells Miss Lilley that she got put into the class at school with the smart kids, Miss Lilley congratulates her and tells her that she knew she was smart. Daisy admits that she’s been trying not to let her teachers know that she’s smart because she knows that they will expect more of her and insist that she do all her homework. People don’t expect so much of kids who aren’t bright. There is method to Daisy’s madness. All of her weird and spooky acts are tools that she uses to get her, get out of things that she doesn’t want to do, cover up for problems that she has, and keep people she doesn’t like or doesn’t think would understand her at a distance.
Daisy introduces Magdalena as one of the smart kids from her class, but Miss Lilley thinks that Magdalena’s manners aren’t very polite because she keeps staring. Magdalena has trouble getting over the large hat, which looks like a large pumpkin. Miss Lilley begins evaluating Magdalena’s appearance, and Magdalena comments about how she hates her braids, but her grandmother makes her wear them. Miss Lilley says that she understands that her grandmother likes the quaintness of the braids, but she knows how to deal with that. She also knows where to find a good barber. The black boy who was nice to Magdalena earlier, Samson Shivers, makes money after school by shining shoes outside the library, and when Miss Lilley asks him if he would be willing to lend them money for the haircut, he joins the others at the barber shop. Miss Lilley takes the kids to the barber shop, and Magdalena gets a haircut. Magdalena feels wonderfully free after he haircut, although she saves the braids as a souvenir and worries about what her grandmother will say when she gets home.
Nani is very upset when she sees Magdalena’s short hair and worries that Magdalena is rejecting her care for her and her Puerto Rican heritage. Magdalena says that’s not the case and explains about going to the library and meeting Miss Lilley. Magdalena’s grandmother thinks that she’s bewitched and says that she knows how to deal with that. She uses herbs on Magdalena to break the bewitchment.
Getting the haircut changes things for Magdalena. The boys stop teasing her, which is a relief. However, Sue Ellen is annoyed that Magdalena didn’t tell her that she was going to get her hair cut. Magdalena explains that it was a sudden decision and a possible bewitchment by Miss Lilley. Sue Ellen thinks that Spook is probably the one who bewitched Magdalena because she’s so spooky and that maybe Magdalena would rather be best friends with her. Magdalena says that’s not the case and that she doesn’t see why she can’t be friends with both girls. Sue Ellen still expects that Spook is going to do something to ruin the class, but Magdalena notices that Spook is becoming less spooky in their class. She stops skipping classes, does more of her homework, and cuts out some of her previous spooky behavior.
Samson, often called Sam, is a practical boy, and when Magdalena tells him how her grandmother thinks Miss Lilley is a witch and bewitched her, he says that she can’t be a witch. Sam sees her often because he shines shoes by the library, and he realizes that Miss Lilley is actually just a poor, old woman. She goes to the library all the time because she can’t afford proper heating for her apartment. She often has little to eat, and she partly survives off of candy that he gives her. Like Spook, she seems spooky because she looks odd and behaves oddly, but there are explanations for what she does that show that she’s actually unfortunate.
Magdalena’s grandmother meets Spook for the first time when Spook hangs out with Magdalena at her apartment after school. Nani isn’t home at the time, but the girls talk to each other about their lives and families. Magdalena gets to know more about Spook, and Spook admires the place where Magdalena lives. Spook’s family lives in a much poorer apartment, and it’s crowded with Spook’s younger siblings. Spook admires the nice bathtub that Magdalena and her grandmother have and says that she wishes they had one at her apartment. Part of the reason why she looks so strange is that she doesn’t get the opportunity to take baths often. Magdalena tells her that if she wants a bath, she can go ahead and take one. Nani arrives home before Spook is finished with her bath, but Nani stops her when she tries to get out and get her clothes. Nani can see how badly Spook needs some care, so she insists that she finish the bath, clean the tub, and let her shampoo her hair. When she’s done, Nani has Magdalena loan her some clean clothes, and the girls are amazed at the transformation.
After the bath incident, Spook avoids Magdalena for a while, and she can’t understand why, but it’s about Spook realizing what’s been lacking in her life and envying what Magdalena has: someone who really cares for her. She was so emotional when she looked at herself in the mirror that she spit at the image and then was embarrassed that she had done that. Nani surprisingly understands Spook’s behavior. She can see that Spook lacks impulse control and the ability to understand and manage her feelings. Nani comments that she’s angry with Spook’s mother because she can tell that the girl has been badly neglected. Having been a mother and grandmother herself, she knows exactly how to deal with this.
Meanwhile, Sam is correct about Miss Lilley. Miss Lilley is poor and not in very good health, but she also knows what Magdalena and Spook/Daisy need. She is eager to help the girls, but she also needs some help and attention herself. When Miss Lilley decides that it’s time to have a word with Nani about the needs of modern girls and her fears about her granddaughter becoming too American, a number of things get better.
The book is available to borrow and read for free online through Internet Archive.
My Reaction
The heart of this story is understanding and empathy. By the time it’s over, many of the characters come to a better understanding of each other and maybe themselves. Although Spook’s transformation is the most dramatic, the other characters are also changed after their experiences in the story.
Magdalena’s changes come with her admission to her grandmother that she really doesn’t like her braids and then with her decision to have her hair cut against her grandmothers wishes. She knew that her grandmother wouldn’t like it when she said that she didn’t want braids because her grandmother is a traditionalist, and she knew that Nani wouldn’t react well to the haircut. At first, it was easier for Magdalena to buy into the idea that Miss Lilley was a witch who bewitched her into doing it, but that’s not really the truth. It wasn’t even that Magdalena was getting her hair cut just because of the teasing. When Magdalena and Spook are talking about whether or not they truly understand the reasons why they do things, Magdalena acknowledges that she has reasons for the things she does, and the truth is that she got the haircut because she herself really hated wearing braids. If she had really loved her braids, she could have kept them in spite of the teasing, and she could have turned down the offer of a haircut, but she really wanted to change her hairstyle, and she just took advantage of the opportunity to do it.
Nani understands from the first time she meets Spook that she has not had nearly the level of care and attention that she has needed in life. Spook doesn’t even really understand all of the motivations she has for the things she does. Her behavior is odd partly because she acts on impulse, not fully thinking about the consequences or the affect her behavior has on others. She initially doesn’t have much self-awareness because she has not had caring adults in her life to teach her how to behave, how to understand her feelings, and how to control herself. Because she hasn’t really had any friends before, she hasn’t really had anyone to talk to about these things and help give her some perspective. When Spook and Magdalena talk about why she spit on the mirror, Spook says at first that she isn’t sure why she did it. As they continue to talk about reasons for doing things, though, Spook admits that she did it because, while she was stunned at how nice she looked, she quickly became upset because she didn’t think that nice look could last.
Nani is the nurturing type of person, and she quickly sees that Spook is in dire need of some nurturing and guidance. She also recognizes that Spook doesn’t have much confidence in herself. She is bright, but she has grown used to hiding it. She also thinks, because she doesn’t really understand her feelings or behavior, that is can never really control herself. She thinks that she will always be a “stinker” who does things that she shouldn’t and acts weird. Nani has a frank talk with her and tells her that she can be herself without being a “stinker”, and the first step is believing that she can. Even if she’s not in the habit of understanding and controlling herself, she can learn. People have different sides to their personalities and different ways of expressing themselves, and Spook can learn how to show the best sides of herself in the best possible ways.
Magdalena appreciates that Nani is understanding and helping Spook, but she also has a frank talk with her grandmother about why she doesn’t understand her own granddaughter as well. When Magdalena tries to tell her what she wants or doesn’t want, Nani contradicts her or ignores her feelings. Nani is understanding with Spook because she can tell that Spook is a disadvantaged child, but she doesn’t see her granddaughter the same way, so she doesn’t try to understand why Magdalena sometimes does things she doesn’t like. Nani admits that she wanted her granddaughter to be “perfect”, but maybe she doesn’t really know what “perfect” actually is. She wants the traditional ways for her granddaughter because she really thinks that’s what’s best, but even grandmother doesn’t always know what’s best.
Miss Lilley is concerned about the girls and offers them attention and support. When she goes to see Nani and open her eyes to her grandmother’s needs and the ways of modern girls, she collapses because of her bad health. Fortunately, Nani is a nurturing person, and she nurtures Miss Lilley, making sure that she gets the treatment she needs and even looking after her when she gets out of the hospital. Miss Lilley’s health improves, and the two of them become friends. Although they are both older ladies, they each admit that they have things to learn in their lives, and they can learn from each other. Nani helps her to make changes to her living arrangements so she will be healthier and more comfortable, and Miss Lilley helps her understand what modern American life has to offer for girls like Magdalena.
Samson is always a very understanding character because he is genuinely interested in people, and he meets many different types of people through his shoe-shining business. Although Sue Ellen is the first person who brings up the topic of empathy, she is really the one who understands it the least. I think her relatively narrow view of empathy is because of her relatively narrow life experiences. She feels some empathy for Magdalena because she sees Magdalena experiencing something she understands, but she doesn’t seem to know what to do when she encounters something she doesn’t understand. Admittedly, Spook’s spooky act is off-putting, partly by design and partly because Spook has issues she herself doesn’t know how to handle. However, because Sue Ellen only wants to stick to the familiar and understandable, she doesn’t notice when Spook begins to change and doesn’t see how some support from her could influence her for the better. Sue Ellen’s attempts at friendliness and helpfulness often involve offering some kind of criticism, like pointing out that Spook isn’t dressed right. Magdalena can tell that Sue Ellen is trying to be helpful, but she’s also kind of snippy and smug in the way she does it, and that gets on Magdalena’s nerves, too. Sue Ellen kind of fades out of the story toward the end, so we don’t know if she continues being friendly with Magdalena or not or if she ever recognizes Spook’s transformation.
There is also a subplot that I haven’t mentioned about the literary magazine that the girls’ class starts. Their teacher has some thought-provoking descriptions about what good writing is and does, and the girls’ choices of what to write about are based on their experiences and the changes in their lives.
The book doesn’t shy away from the harsh realities of life. Magdalena’s mother is dead, and her father is away most of the time, so she is being raised by her grandmother. Her father never even makes an appearance in the story. Miss Lilley is a poor and lonely old woman who needs help and friends. It is acknowledged that Spook is a neglected child, and she even tells Magdalena that her favorite brother died at age three because he was asthmatic, and they were living in bad conditions. We don’t know exactly how her family came to be living in such bad conditions, but Spook says that, if she wrote a story about her family, the teacher would think she had a filthy mind.
Since the story is about understanding other people, one could consider whether we might view Spook’s neglectful mother more sympathetically if we knew her past and what led her to the situation they’re now in, but we do not see Spook’s mother at any point in the story. I think it’s also important to note that understanding does not equal approval. You can know a person’s history and reasons for doing things and still not agree with them. Maybe Spook’s mother is another unfortunate soul who needs some help, but if she is, she doesn’t seem to be looking for that help. Her vulnerable children are suffering for it, and one has died. Empathy doesn’t mean saying that things are okay when they really aren’t, and this mother’s neglect of her children is not okay.
Every summer, a boy goes to visit his grandmother. He loves summers with his grandmother because she plays records from her record collection, teaches him to dance, and tells him stories about life in Puerto Rico, where she grew up.
She instills a love of music in her grandson and uses it to share memories with him about his grandfather and their home town. Sometimes, she lets him choose records from her collection to play, complimenting him on his choices. The boy likes art, and he makes sketches based on the album covers.
Then, his grandmother’s nephew comes to visit from Puerto Rico, along with his band. The boy is thrilled to meet them, and they give the boy and his grandmother tickets to see them perform in New York.
It’s a special occasion! They love the performance, and afterward, they visit with the band backstage. The boy and his grandmother continue sharing music with each other as the boy grows up, and as an adult, he continues to play it in his art studio.
At the end of the book, there are lyrics to one of the songs, In My Old San Juan (En Mi Viejo San Juan – YouTube video), both in English and Spanish. It’s a popular sentimental and nostalgic song for Puerto Ricans living abroad, as this YouTube video explains. The book is available to borrow and read for free online through Internet Archive (multiple copies, including one in Spanish).
My Reaction
The story is really about the author/artist of the book and his own grandmother. At the end of the story, the picture he’s drawing in his studio is the cover of this book. It’s a touching tribute to his grandmother and the special memories he shared with her as they bonded over music! Parts of the story reflect on their Puerto Rican heritage, which is something they share and discuss with the grandmother’s nephew and the members of his band. I like how the author emphasizes that what makes the music so special are the memories associated with it. At first, the memories are his grandmother memories, but through his experiences with his grandmother, he builds memories of his own associated with the music they’ve shared. It is these memories as well as the music that helps to fuel his art.
When Aunt Lena Did the Rhumba by Eileen Kurtis-Kleinman, illustrated by Diane Greenseid, 1997.
Sophie’s Aunt Lena loves music, dancing, movies, and theater, and she especially loves Broadway musicals. She goes to a musical matinee every Wednesday. After seeing a musical, she comes home, singing and dancing and acting out parts from the play she’s just seen.
One particular Wednesday, when she’s acting out a particularly dramatic dance in the kitchen, she accidentally slips and sprains her ankle. She has to stay home and rest until her ankle gets better, which means that she won’t be able to go to next Wednesday’s matinee.
Aunt Lena is so sad about missing the musicals she loves that Sophie gets an idea to cheer her up. Sophie recruits other members of her family to put on their own musical to entertain Aunt Lena.
Not everyone is enthusiastic about the idea at first, but when Sophie gets her grandmother to help her put together a costume fit for a Broadway musical and choose some music, they begin drawing other family members in.
Aunt Lena loves their performance, and when she’s better, she takes Sophie to a matinee so she can see a real Broadway performance, too!
This book is available to borrow and read for free online through Internet Archive (multiple copies). It was also a Reading Rainbow book, and the episode of Reading Rainbow is also available to watch online through Internet Archive.
My Reaction
I didn’t see the original episode of Reading Rainbow that included this book when I was a kid because this book was published after I was too old for that. However, I always liked Reading Rainbow when I was a kid, and later, after I started this blog, I decided to go back and check out some of the books covered by Reading Rainbow after I stopped watching it. If you’re not familiar with Reading Rainbow, it was a children’s television program on public television in the US that encouraged children to read by discussing books and showing children things that were related to the books they were reading. For example, if they were reading books related to animals in an episode, the host, Levar Burton, might take a trip to a zoo and talk to zookeepers about animals in the zoo.
The themes of this particular story and the Reading Rainbow episode are music, dancing, and theater. In the episode, they show a boys’ choir and dancing class and talk about how performing helps the boys and young men develop confidence and maturity. There’s also a comedian who specializes in physical comedy, who talks about how he does his stunts, and an actress who plays one of the cats in the famous Broadway musical Cats.
I love how the aunt in the book shares her love of dancing and theater with her niece. The two of them have similar personalities and interests, so when her aunt is injured, her niece knows how to cheer her up. The ending of the story implies that the niece will now be going to performances with her aunt, or at least, will sometimes go with her. I also liked how the rest of the family participated in the girl’s plans when they saw what she wanted to do, even if they weren’t as enthusiastic about the idea themselves at first. Enthusiasm can be contagious, and I do think that adults sharing their interests with kids can spark lifelong interests in the next generation.
I also noticed that this seems to be an unconventional family, although the family’s living arrangements aren’t the focus of the story. The girl’s parents are never mentioned. She seems to live with just her grandmother, her aunt, and a couple of uncles, and there is no explanation why because it’s not directly important to the story. In any case, it seems to be a happy, close-knit family, with family members caring for each other and supporting each other’s interests.
The pictures in the book are bright and colorful, fitting with the energy, enthusiasm, and theatricality of the story.
Scooby-Doo and the Haunted Doghouse by Jean Lewis, illustrated by Richard Lowe, 1975, 1983.
Scooby-Doo’s friends are building a new doghouse for him! They can’t decide what color to paint it, so they make half of it red and half of it blue. Scooby loves his new doghouse, at first, but then, something spooky happens!
One night, Scooby comes running into the house, scared. While Scooby cringes under the covers of Shaggy’s bed, Shaggy gets a flashlight and goes outside to see what scared Scooby.
When Shaggy looks in the doghouse, he sees a glowing pair of eyes, and then, something white runs past him with a shriek! Scooby and Shaggy both stay inside for the rest of the night, and in the morning, they tell their friends that they think the doghouse is haunted.
Their friends are sure that there must be some other explanation for what happened, but who or what was in Scooby’s doghouse?
The book is available to borrow and read for free online through Internet Archive.
My Reaction
Scooby-Doo was my favorite cartoon when I was a kid, especially Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!, and I’m still nostalgic about it! The mystery in the story is very simple, but suitable for young children with nothing truly scary about it. Even kids might guess what the solution is before the characters realize what’s in the doghouse.
Now that I think about it, it seems out of character for Scooby-Doo to have a doghouse because I don’t think he had one in the original cartoon series. I remember that he had a fancy one in one of the later spin-off series, but in the original series, he just always slept inside with his human friends. Of course, one of the hallmarks of the Scooby-Doo series is that there isn’t really a strict canon. Details about the characters and the Mystery Machine can change from episode to episode to suit the story without any real explanation because it’s a just-for-fun series.
One of the things that I liked about this book was that it reminded me of all the other books I read as a kid that were based on popular cartoon characters. I think most of the cartoon series from my childhood in the 1980s and 1990s also had related books. On the back of this book, there are pictures of other books in this series, based on other Hanna-Barbera cartoon series, including other Scooby-Doo picture book mysteries.
Jestress's Forgotten Books and Stories 