melannen | FMK #34: Chapter Books

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fmk

FMK #34: Chapter Books

Last week's F winner was the Asimov! The K winner was a multiple-item tie, but the Hamilton had the least number of non-K votes, so it goes.

Over the weekend, instead of catching up on my reading, I wrote a javascript toy that lets me take any arbitrary list and rank it using pairwise comparisons. I feel like this was a good life choice and thus I can tell you that my subconscious definitely, clearly, mathematically provably wants this week's poll to be kids' chapter books.

How FMK works, short version: I am trying to clear out my unreads. So there is a poll, in which you get to pick F, M, or K. F means I should spend a night of wild passion with the book ASAP, and then decide whether to keep it or not. M means I should continue to commit to a long-term relationship of sharing my bedroom with it. K means it should go away immediately. Anyone can vote, you don't have to actually know anything about the books.

I pick a winner on Friday night (although won't actually close the poll, people can still vote,) and report results/post the new poll on the following Tuesday, and write a response to the F winner sometime in the next week.

Link to long version of explanation (on first poll)

Poll #19333 FMK #34: Young Readers

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 33

View Respondents

Cam Jansen: The Mystery of the Stolen Diamonds by David Adler (1980)

F
10 (66.7%)

M
2 (13.3%)

K
3 (20.0%)

Travelers by Night by Vivien Alcock (1990)

F
8 (72.7%)

M
2 (18.2%)

K
1 (9.1%)

The Three Investigators: The Mystery of the Green Ghost by Robert Arthur (1965)

F
7 (38.9%)

M
6 (33.3%)

K
5 (27.8%)

The Search for Delicious by Natalie Babbitt (1969)

F
9 (52.9%)

M
6 (35.3%)

K
2 (11.8%)

Matilda Bone by Karen Cushman (2000)

F
7 (50.0%)

M
4 (28.6%)

K
3 (21.4%)

The Case of the Phantom Frog by E. W. Hildick (1975)

F
7 (53.8%)

M
2 (15.4%)

K
4 (30.8%)

Rumble Fish by S. E. Hinton (1975)

F
8 (61.5%)

M
3 (23.1%)

K
2 (15.4%)

Adventures of the Blue Avenger by Norma Howe (1999)

F
6 (54.5%)

M
1 (9.1%)

K
4 (36.4%)

Diary of a Wimpy Kid by Jeff Kinney (2007)

F
3 (27.3%)

M
3 (27.3%)

K
5 (45.5%)

The View from Saturday by E. L. Konigsburg (1996)

F
8 (50.0%)

M
6 (37.5%)

K
2 (12.5%)

Go Jump in the Pool! by Gordon Korman (1979)

F
7 (46.7%)

M
3 (20.0%)

K
5 (33.3%)

Ishi, Last of His Tribe by Theodora Kroeber (1962)

F
11 (73.3%)

M
3 (20.0%)

K
1 (6.7%)

The Silver Cup by Constance Leeds (2007)

F
9 (75.0%)

M
2 (16.7%)

K
1 (8.3%)

Bill Bergson, Master Detective by Astrid Lindgren (1968)

F
6 (50.0%)

M
3 (25.0%)

K
3 (25.0%)

Anna Smudge, Professional Shrink by MAC (2008)

F
4 (40.0%)

M
1 (10.0%)

K
5 (50.0%)

Hatchet by Gary Paulsen (1987)

F
7 (36.8%)

M
6 (31.6%)

K
6 (31.6%)

We Didn't Mean To Go To Sea by Arthur Ransome (1937)

F
12 (63.2%)

M
5 (26.3%)

K
2 (10.5%)

Ghost Twins #1: The Mystery at Kickingbird Lake by Dian Curtis Regan (1994)

F
5 (50.0%)

M
1 (10.0%)

K
4 (40.0%)

The Witch's Brat by Rosemary Sutcliff (1970)

F
11 (64.7%)

M
5 (29.4%)

K
1 (5.9%)

The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, Aged 13 3/4 by Sue Townsend (1977)

F
9 (52.9%)

M
1 (5.9%)

K
7 (41.2%)

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I have one other sitting around! "The Mystery of the Coughing Dragon", which was the only one I had as a kid, so it is not unread. The dragon in that one wasn't a real dragon, though. Is the ghost in Green Ghost actually a REAL GHOST? That does seem like a departure from the rest of the series - I got they were more about debunking the supernatural mysteries.

Assuming I'm remembering the title correctly, that's the one that has astral projection in it. Maybe that counted as "not supernatural" in the 60s??

You never know in the 60s!

I don't remember The Green Ghost specifically which might be a bad sign because I do remember some of them quite clearly. I'm trying to remember without going down to the basement, but I thought that all of the ones under the Robert Arthur name were early ones in the series. My memory is that the series was better at the point when the books still opened and closed with the boys meeting with Alfred Hitchcock.

I think the one that stuck with me the most was the one with 'Silver Spider' in the title. It wasn't really a mystery so much as a Ruritanian adventure which really didn't fit at all with the rest of the series but was something that small me thought was just amazing and ever so much more interesting than stuttering parrots or screaming clocks.

I remember buying some of the newer books in the series at one point for my younger brother (eleven years younger than I) and then reading one and finding it really terrible. I was relieved that, when I went back to the earlier books in the series, they still had clever puzzles and at least a smidgen of character depth.

The one I had, I mostly remember really liking the sense of place in it - both the junkyard clubhouse, but also the mystery had a lot to do with the geology and history of the Pacific coastline, IIRC, and I loved it a lot.

But that's a series with a really long and complicated publishing history, so yeah. I was a little past the prime of their original popularity in the US so I never found very many.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only