Wednesday, November 2, 2011

2 - Surprise Island



See, now this is a little strange, because it occurs to me that there's nothing on this cover that indicates it is a mystery. And unlike every other book for the next 60 years or so, that goes for the title as well. Imagine you're a kid when this is published, you had read the first book and were considering this one. What would you be thinking? I'd assume it was about the Boxcar Children going to an island, where they have some manner of surprise. Maybe it's another boxcar. Maybe they live in it until another wealthy grandfather comes to get them. Maybe the whole series is them living in an endless series of boxcars in various locales until they are retrieved by an endless series of grandfathers, each kindlier and richer than the last.

Maybe I sound like an idiot for thinking that, but it's 1945. I'm 10 years old, and given that it's 1945, I'm pretty stupid by modern standards. The world's in pretty rough shape, and my dad took some shrapnel at Omaha. He'll be okay, just a slight limp, but still, it makes you think. All I want is a little escapism in my literature, not to be confounded with mysteries. Here's your surprise, 1940s idiot me. The surprise is that the world is full of diamond smugglers or pirate gold or whatever, and not even train-dwelling ragamuffins can escape it.

What I'm getting at here is she could have said "Mystery Island" or something.

No comments:

Post a Comment