A chance posting on a message board I frequent got me thinking about favorite books from my childhood - not learning-to-read picture books but chapter books that intrigued or amused me to the extent that I still remember them. [For what it’s worth, my favorite picture book is, was and always will be Maurice Sendak’s “Where The Wild Things Are”.] I was surprised and a bit disconcerted at how much I could remember of characters, plot points, minute details, but how few titles and authors. Perhaps not taking notice of an author seems typical of an eight- or nine-year-old, except that my reading habits then were not unlike my current ones: if I read a book that I enjoy, I look for more by the same author, so I would have expected an author’s name to make more of an impression. Even odder was that I could remember so few titles.

A-ha, a quest! I set out to track down my favorite children’s books and identify them. Did you read any of these? Did you like them?

The Bad Times of Irma Baumlein was easy to recall. It helped that her name was part of the title. Irma Baumlein is the new kid in a small town who tells a lie, saying she owns the biggest doll in the world. Of course the kids want to see it and she’s in a tight spot, having no giant doll to produce. I remembered such oddball details as: Irma lies her big doll some cerulean blue eyes, Irma’s friend, whose name I don’t remember, has a hamster named, “Orbit”, so Irma names the hamster the friend gives her “Orbit Two”. Irma’s great-aunt gives her an antique doll (sadly, not large enough to help Irma) named Bertha Evangeline Esther Peebles. I remember all this, but not the author, who turns out to be Carol Ryrie Brink. I thought the title was “Irma’s Big Lie”, but it seems that was only a phase it was going through.

A favorite was about a boy named Hollis who was staying with a cousin or family friend in an old mansion for the summer. In her garden was a magical dolphin fountain and when Hollis splashed its water into his eyes, he could see shadow people and shadow things that lived in the garden. He made friends with a shadow family and played with them all summer. I remember his first sight of the cousin/family friend being when she rolled out from under her old car, greasy from working on it. There was something about a 10-gallon hat that Hollis wanted for his birthday - I think one of the shadow people really wanted one and Hollis asked for it so he could take it to the garden and cast a shadow. I believe it had a sad or otherwise unsatisfactory ending, about which I'm unclear. This turned out to be The Shades, by Betty Brock.

My love of mysteries began early and one that hovers on the edge of recall is about a girl named Sherry who goes to stay with an aunt or family friend (kids sure did get shipped off a lot in the 70s, didn’t they?) and there was some mystery involving a dead cousin called Miranda that no-one wanted to talk about to Sherry. Something about a fake medium, a pond that I think Miranda drowned in, roses and a ceramic owl with love in its eyes. I didn’t have that one quite right - Miranda is Sherry’s dead half-sister - but it’s The Ghost Next Door, by Wylly Folk St. John.

Once I heard that name, it rang a bell and indeed, the story about three children - Becky, I think, plus her brother and sister - staying with their grandparents for the summer (where are all these kids’ parents, anyway?) in a cabin by the lake hunting for a stash of Confederate gold was also written by her and entitled The Secrets of Hidden Creek. There was a redneck boy whose mother sold "yarbs" (herbs). I think Redneck Boy's surname was Chance. Arie Chance? Stuff about wormwood, silverfish, getting lost in a boxwood maze, robbers who kilt Redneck Boy’s paw, an Indian Red rock visible when the lake goes down...further research revealed that Ms. St. John was from Social Circle, Georgia, so that must be why I was supplied with many of her books. My mom probably went to high school with her.

What about that story about a house which might be haunted by a poltergeist or, then again, maybe only by a surly teenager? Amanda, child literature’s first Goth, dresses oddly, has a pet crow, burns lots of incense and is “into” witchcraft *insert spooky wooooooo sound* She doesn’t like her stepsiblings but offers to make them her neophytes so she can boss them around and put them through ordeals. I remember one ordeal had to do with wearing a reptile around all day while not getting caught by the stepmother. Another ordeal was to get through the day without ever touching metal, and the little girl gets around this by wearing bunny mittens at dinner, which disgusts Amanda because after all, Merlin wouldn’t wear bunny mittens. I remembered all that, but I never would have connected the title, “The Headless Cupid” with that story. Author: Zilpha Keatley Snyder.

I remembered naughty brat Maureen, pretending she was Maureen Messerman and lived in the run-down, boarded-up Messerman mansion, and something about her sneaking in, stealing a bracelet and getting trapped in the past, but The Wicked Pigeon Ladies in the Garden didn’t occur to me. Once I saw the cover, though, I remembered! Something about the title font and the greeny/blue clouds (or is it hats with feathers?) fascinated me, which is why I chose that book at the library. I don’t remember the pigeon ladies being particularly wicked, though, just sort of disappointingly selfish. Now, if they’d been trying to make Maureen Pie for dessert, that would have been something, at least. They’re still around, though nowadays they’re The Wicked Wicked Ladies in the Haunted House. Hmpf, I hardly think they deserve a double wicked but maybe they did something worse that I don’t recall.

Remember Jane-Emily, the book that made me frightened of gazing balls? I had forgotten all about that book until a few years ago, when gazing balls were “in” again and I saw a display of them at Michael’s. Emily is a vengeful spirit, I think of a dead granddaughter, and Jane, the living granddaughter, is her target. Jane and her older cousin? aunt? go to stay with Jane’s grandmother for the summer (again, with the shipping off of children!). There’s a doctor who’s in love with the older cousin/aunt and he talks about Ghiberti’s doors, which I remember because I had no idea what those were and had to look them up. Hey, I was only 10 or 11, I'd never been to Florence.

I was thinking of trying to round up some of these, most of which are out-of-print but I know used copies are available from my identification quest. I wonder if that would spoil them for me, reading from a jaded adult perspective, or if they’d still be as wonderful as I remember?

MONTOYA DELENDA EST!