The Mystery of the Emeralds (Trixie Belden #14) by Kathryn Kenny
finished 05.11.08

My dad found a few Trixie Belden books around the house and thought I might like looking at them. They each have my grandmother’s name inside them, so I know they were her books at one time. The Mystery of the Emeralds was first published in 1962. The edition that I now have is from 1971, so I wonder if they were actually my dad’s sister’s books.

In any case, I thought The Mystery of the Emeralds was fun to read. The girl-detective mystery is so simple because it’s for kids. Also, the age of the book really shows through when they talk about putting on their “gay” clothes and when the dad goes off to work and the mom stays home to clean and cook. It’s funny how Trixie, who is always at the heart of the mysteries, is portrayed and smart and curious and independent, but her teen aged girlfriends are always designated to prepare flowers and tea and that sort of thing.

It seems like Random House is still publishing the Trixie Belden books, or at least they were up to 2006. I wonder if the text has been updated at all.

This is what the book I read looks like:

finished 05.09.08

Another book by Krakauer. I find he jumps around a lot in his writing, which is fine when there is a limited number of characters like in Into the Wild or Into Thin Air, but when you’re taking about the 100+-year-old history of the Mormon church and fundamentalists today, it gets pretty confusing. Still I thought it was interesting, not only to learn about the history of Mormonism, but to start to think about really fanatical people of any religion.

Celebrating Cinco de Mayo with bananas:

Interesting sub-genre of fiction:

America’s Next Top Model in the toy section. Is that really appropriate?

River North, Chicago