READER RESPONSE

HESARA       31^st MARCH, 2011

          Last month, I took a trip to Sri Lanka and while I was there, I picked up a book that grabbed my attention the first time I looked at it. So, for the month of April, I decided to respond to “The Mystery of the Spiteful Letters,” by Enid Blyton. I have read 227 of 227 pages. This is the fourth book of the series. The genre of this text is fiction and mostly recognized as mystery or adventure. The main characters (The Five Find-Outers) in this case are the protagonists and the antagonist is the spiteful letter writer who I won’t give away. Throughout the book, there are many settings but the most common one was Peterswood, the town where the Five Find Outers live. Also mentioned nearing the middle was Sheepsale, a nearby town and also happens to be the address of the letter writer.

I would also say that this text takes place in the past since the text was first published in Great Britain in 1946. The characters in this novel would include the Five Find Outers (Fatty-the brains, Pip and Bets, and Larry and Daisy), Mr. Goon-the policeman, Mrs. Hilton, Gladys, Mrs. Moon, Miss Tittle, Old Nosey, and Inspector Jenks are a few. In my opinion, the climax of the story was when the Five Find Outers got on the bus to Sheepsale and interviewed the passengers only to find out that none of them turned out to be the culprit. The weird thing was that the mysterious letter writer was supposed to be on that bus at that time, but not a single passenger posted a letter.

RETELL:

When I looked at the title, the first thing that was obvious was that it was a mystery and that it had something to do with malicious letters. At that moment, I knew that it was going to be interesting. “The Mystery of the Spiteful Letters,” is about five young kids who love being detectives and had solved many mysteries throughout the series. The real mystery starts when, one day, the detectives find out that Gladys, the maid at Pips’ house, had received an anonymous letter saying, “We know you’re a wrong-un, and you shouldn’t be in a good place with decent people. Clear out or we’ll tell on you!” Gladys leaves her job as a maid and chose to stay at her aunt’s house until things settled. The Five started searching for clues. They find out that the letters seem to be coming from a nearby town called Sheepsale and people in Peterswood were receiving them.

The gang gets on the bus to Sheepsale and question all the passengers on the bus and to their disappointment, none of them even posted a letter. Later on, they find out that Mrs. Cockles sister got a spiteful letter and that it was a Tuesday and that it wasn’t by post. Nearing the end of the book, Mr. Goon and Mrs. Moon receive a spiteful letter too. One day, Mr. Goon helps them out by handing over a sack to the five which had a dictionary that had words like fruit, thief and others underlined. They also found a bus timetable with the 10:15 bus to Sheepsale marked. The gang and Mr. Goon called up Inspector Jenks and Mr. Goon started to accuse Fatty, saying that he was the spiteful letter writer. Fatty then explained to Inspector Jenks that he did indeed know who the spiteful letter writer was. Fatty went to the door and rang the bell and guess who came running? I’m not going to give away who the writer is since that would give away the whole mystery and I’m pretty sure that giving away the culprit is not the best way to recommend a book. But I can tell you that I was actually surprised by who the culprit turned out to be.

RELATE:

As compared to great titles such as “The Mystery of Banshee Towers,” and “The Mystery of the Vanished Prince,” also by Enid Blyton, this book rose up to its expectations. Every mystery novel I’ve read had to do something with people and even animals going missing and therefore got a bit boring. This mystery was not the same and so, it got me hooked up for hours and hours. If I were to be any character in this text, I would love to be the leader and brains of the gang, Fatty. He is a hard worker, but jolly fun at the same time.

Fatty is a well-known main character throughout the whole series and by reading some of the books, I got to know that Fatty is a person that grabs important, yet very small detail that the others don’t usually see as a clue and this happens to be a very important characteristic that most people don’t have. If I could talk to one of the characters in the text, I would talk to Mr. Goon, the policeman, and tell him that he doesn’t have to be that short-tempered and that accusing Fatty of being the spiteful letter writer was wrong without having any real evidence. I also believe that if Mr. Goon was kind hearted, he could have teamed up with Fatty to easily solve many of the mysteries.

REFLECT:

This text in particular helped me to understand that the best solution when trying to solve a problem is to work together. In this text, the Five Find Outers, all have different roles and jobs that helped solve the mystery. It wasn’t just Fatty doing all the work, Pip, Bets, Larry, and Daisy all had great ideas throughout the mystery and when they did put their heads together, they got answers that one Find Outer alone would have never thought of. I’ve already read four mystery books by Enid Blyton and they have been fantastic.

I liked this text since it was a one-of-a-kind book. Nowadays, not many people have heard about Enid Blyton and her books and I thought that it might be interesting to try a new author and see how it is. The author also used a lot of adjectives to make the situation more interesting and that makes it easier to picture the scene in my mind. I wonder if a more effective ending would have been if they found Mrs. Moon in the midst of writing another spiteful letter because then it would have been more interesting to hear as to what she has to say in her defense.

All and all, I think that the “Mystery of the Spiteful Letters,” was a marvelous piece of text and am hoping to read the “Mystery of the Missing Necklace,” which happens to be the piece after this!