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!

Reader Response

READER RESPONSE

HESARA    FEB, 1, 2011

          Last month I read “Mascot to the Rescue” by Peter David. I have read 230 out of 230 pages. The genre for Mascot to the Rescue is fantasy. Peter David has written two recent novels including “TIGERHEART: the tale of the anyplace” and “DARKNESS OF THE LIGHT” and is also known for The Incredible Hulk, Spider Man and the Fallen Angel.

          This book is absolutely phenomenal and since Peter Davis has written so many comics, I thought this text might be interesting. The main characters in this text include the protagonist, a 6^th grader named Josh Miller (comic book identity – Mascot) and Kelsey Markus (aka Large Lass) who also takes up a huge role in this book. Doris (Josh’s mom) and Zack Miller (Kelsey’s dad) can also be seen throughout the book. This piece of text is recognized as fantasy because it includes unrealistic material such as ninjas and superheroes. The main setting of this book is in the USA, but taking a deeper look into it, I would say that the main settings are in Northchester, New York city, and at the police station. In this text, I find that it takes place in the near future when ninjas roam the city instead of police officers, although in the book it is not stated. The conflict of this story is that Mascot was voted off to die by readers, in the next issue of Captain Major and Josh has to do something about it before he too is forced to die.

RETELL:

          Basically, this extraordinary story is about Josh Miller, who reads the comic “Captain Major” and happens to believe that everything that happens to “Mascot”, the main character in the story, happens to him. At Demarest Elementary School, a chubby girl who often gets teased a lot arrives at the school by the name of Kelsey Markus. One day when Kelsey was being teased, Mascot (Josh) came to the rescue and helped out Kelsey and from that day forth Kelsey and Josh were best of friends. Kelsey soon came to realize Josh’s problem about the connection between him and the comic. Then there was an online survey where readers have voted off for mascot to die in the next issue. Now, Josh and Kelsey set off on an adventure to find Stan Kirby, the creator of the Captain Major series, and save Mascot and Josh himself before he ceases to exist. Throughout his journey to Stan Kirby’s house, Large Lass and Mascot battle many villains including police officers, kids playing paintball and wild, vicious dogs that appear as obstacles for Mascot and Large Lass making it even more difficult to get to their destination. At the end, Stan Kirby changed the result of the comic so that Mascot doesn’t fall to his death and Josh realized that all those previous connections were just coincidences and that there’s no connection between Josh and Mascot.

RELATE:

       In the past couple of years, I have actually gotten to read Peter David’s very recent novels which include “Tigerheart: A Tale of the Anyplace” and “Darkness of the Light”. At first, when I got to read “Darkness of the Light”, I got bored of it and realized that “Tigerheart” was an even more attention grabbing and a hard-to-put-down book. Even so, as compared to other texts by this author, I think “Mascot to the Rescue” was actually better and more of an adventurous story than the other two. This text made me think about an issue that is unusual but even so, a dangerous situation that some people put themselves in often leading to death. People have gotten obsessed with famous superheroes in comic books. This situation is very similar to Josh’s case where he is pretending to be Mascot. In the past couple of years, people have tried jumping off tall skyscrapers, climbing up skyscrapers and even flying off tall buildings hoping to succeed or jump and survive. People with this type of situation should realize that super heroes are for entertainment and their moves used in comic books shouldn’t be used in real life. If I were Josh, I would start to realize that Kelsey likes Josh for who he is and not when he’s Mascot. Throughout the story, Kelsey tries to get close to Josh as possible and even tries to tell him that she likes her but Josh doesn’t get it and acts confused when Kelsey tries to explain. So if I were Josh, I would change how he reacts to Kelsey when she tries to tell him that she likes him.

REFLECT:

          In this text I actually admire Paul Tinker, the man who guided Josh and Kelsey through their journey to Stan Kirby because he is an innocent and very kind hearted worker at Wonder Comics, the world’s greatest comic book publisher. When Josh and Kelsey came along, he offered to guide them to their destination. Even though Paul isn’t smart and not very good at handling tense situations, he is a person that you wouldn’t find usually find on this planet. If I could speak to the author, the only request I would have for him is for a sequel to “Mascot to the Rescue”. In my opinion, I believe that Peter David left all his readers in a cliff-hanger because the ending to the book was basically like a question that Mascot asks himself about whether Large Lass having a crush on him is a situation he should avoid or not and that maybe it’s a trap. At the end of the book, it says that Captain Major has been Mascot’s dad all along but the Captain just didn’t tell him. Since Josh’s dad disappeared, something that would have made the text more interesting is if Josh too found his dad or maybe he finds out that his dad has been following him throughout the whole journey and that at the end of the text, they get back together and back to their normal lives. Throughout this thrilling novel, I noticed that the author alternates between Mascot’s and Josh’s point of view of the story. This is usually hard to find since it alternates between an imaginary mind of the main character and the main character himself (Josh and Mascot). I predict that in the sequel to this book, Mascot is going to find his dad and then Mascot and his dad go on more adventures together where they battle out villains. Also Josh probably sees to the relationship between him and Kelsey and figures out a solution for it. All and all I’m really looking forward to a sequel to this great book and hoping it comes out in the next couple of years!