Phyllis A. Whitney sounds delightful. You'll be less delighted to know that that attitude persists, I, too, have been asked when I'm going to write something "a little more meaningful." Please note that all of my other books are filled with backwards sentence fragments and lorem ipsum. 🤷🏾
Ha! I have this book on my tablet, along with some other children's Whitney titles. But from your description I can't remember whether I've read it or not. I must have? I've read a good number of these, because back when I had young kids, and the oldest was reading *everything*, our local library was impoverished enough that it had apparently never weeded the children's books for anything but condition. There was Cherry Ames, Beany Malone, just wild titles to have on the shelf in like 2007. And there were a bunch of these Whitney stories, which definitely followed this pattern of a sort-of mystery -- a girl exploring the world and making new friends on her own, usually with a large dollop of education about the locale, which might be anywhere.
(Our children's collection is in much better shape now. The county doesn't pay for materials of any kind, only for staffing, but the Friends provide.)
This one involved a [spoiler] ship's figurehead that was hidden in the captain's house (unbeknownst to him) and at some point it gets hidden in the titular Pool, creating the effect of a woman's face under the water, which throws Susan for a loop. In re: the settings of the Whitney books, I read in a few places that she did a TON of travel for research, so I bet she claimed it all on her taxes, hahaha.
OK, that quote from her writing book is fantastic. And as someone who's been asked when I'm going to write a "real" book, deeply relatable.
Right?? Amazing to know that people have looked down their noses at children's lit for 80+ years now, whomp whomp.
🙄
Phyllis A. Whitney sounds delightful. You'll be less delighted to know that that attitude persists, I, too, have been asked when I'm going to write something "a little more meaningful." Please note that all of my other books are filled with backwards sentence fragments and lorem ipsum. 🤷🏾
Ha! I have this book on my tablet, along with some other children's Whitney titles. But from your description I can't remember whether I've read it or not. I must have? I've read a good number of these, because back when I had young kids, and the oldest was reading *everything*, our local library was impoverished enough that it had apparently never weeded the children's books for anything but condition. There was Cherry Ames, Beany Malone, just wild titles to have on the shelf in like 2007. And there were a bunch of these Whitney stories, which definitely followed this pattern of a sort-of mystery -- a girl exploring the world and making new friends on her own, usually with a large dollop of education about the locale, which might be anywhere.
(Our children's collection is in much better shape now. The county doesn't pay for materials of any kind, only for staffing, but the Friends provide.)
This one involved a [spoiler] ship's figurehead that was hidden in the captain's house (unbeknownst to him) and at some point it gets hidden in the titular Pool, creating the effect of a woman's face under the water, which throws Susan for a loop. In re: the settings of the Whitney books, I read in a few places that she did a TON of travel for research, so I bet she claimed it all on her taxes, hahaha.
Ahahaha, good for her!