I don’t remember when I first picked up one of her books.  I imagine it was a long hot summer day when I was in upper elementary or intermediate school. Maybe I was 10?   My mom had been a teacher, and also a collector of books by Southern writers, and so she had a few of these.  I probably read all my books from the public library and so she pointed me to these.  I enjoyed them so much, I think I read all of them at least twice, not a normal thing for me, because after the first time around I, of course, already knew the answer to the mystery.  These were like Nancy Drew, only better, because they featured normal kids solving mysteries and puzzles…I could identify with them.

Digging in my memory, I believe I read The Ghost Next Door (which, if you go here, obviously is not really a forgotten book, although many people have struggled to recall the title…and which, for its time was remarkable in its respect for the young reader, with a very ambiguous ending), The Gingerbread House Mystery (Even though it wasn’t about houses made of gingerbread, I learned about real houses with gingerbread trim), Uncle Robert’s Secret (which I may have read more than twice…I was fascinated with the rhyme and the figuring out of what each part meant to find the hidden treasure and was nominated for an Edgar), and The Mystery of the Other Girl (which is the one I am struggling to remember, but I believe featured a group of teens, some of whom worked in a diner/restaurant and one of whom had a catfish he took for walks on a leash–this was a book about people I wanted to be, wanted to be friends with because they were cool.)

Remembering these books has made me long to read them again, plus all the ones I didn’t read the first time around.  I see from reading online that The Mystery Book Mystery definitely is a must read.  Unfortunately, these are all out of print.  So thank goodness for the public library and the internet, so that her work lives on.  I am off to request a few my my library.