Ghost of Dibble Hollow (1965) May Wallace few hours left! only at $10 right now
b
Glenn P.,
> can be seen at
> http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=1579055466
Phew! I actually HAVE a copy of "Ghost Of Dibble Hollow"; haven't thought of
it in YEARS! One thing I was disappointed at in the story, is that the location
of Mile's body is never revealed; the Dibbles never really have closure on what
became of him. I don't understand how (according to ghost lore) Miles can "go
away" while his body remains unrecovered...
Mr. Miller did Miles a grievious wrong by appropriating his body for his own
selfish ends; by doing so he made Miles into a "Missing Child" an became,
ultimately, the cause of the rift between the Dibbles and the Smiths. Had he
but sent proper inquiries to all the local towns, there was ONE couple with
a missing boy who would have been quick enough to identify that body... and
the conclusion that he met with foul play (and was robbed) would have been
natural. True, the money would then have been lost; but the Dibbles and Smiths
would still have been friends!
--_____
{~._.~} "There are a hundred ways in which a boy can injure -- if not
_( Y )_ indeed kill -- himself. The more adventurous he is, and the greater
(:_~*~_:) his initiative, the more ways he will find. If you protect him
(_)-(_) from each of the hundred, he is sure to find the hundred-and-first.
========= Though most men can look back on their boyhood and tremble at the
========= narrowness of some of their escapes, most boys do in fact survive,
W.T.P. more or less intact, and the wise father is the trusting father."
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
:: --= Glenn P. =-- :: --"The Enchanted Places", Chapter 21,
:: <C128...@FVI.Net> :: By: Christopher Robin Milne.
Cori
his own selfish ends; by doing so he made Miles into a "Missing Child"
an became, ultimately, the cause of the rift between the Dibbles and
the Smiths. Had he but sent proper inquiries to all the local towns,
there was ONE couple with a missing boy who would have been quick
enough to identify that body... and the conclusion that he met with
foul play (and was robbed) would have been natural. True, the money
would then have been lost; but the Dibbles and Smiths would still have
been friends!
Glenn, someone said the same thing on this group quite some time ago;
was that you? I lucked into a couple of nice copies, cheap, at a
local used bookstore. I will save the better one and sell the other,
probably on eBay, when I get to it. I bought and read it to see why
it was so much discussed (here, at Loganberry Books, and at Alibris.)
I made a long list of what was wrong with it (plotwise).
Unfortunately, it was on Alibris. I understand their boards are still
up but can't be accessed through the site; you have to have the url,
which I don't have handy. If you can get it, my longer post and
others' comments should still be there, but, in short:
--There were a lot of errors, some unnecessary, others bothersome but
central to the plot. Miles told Nathanael he could only be seen by a
"Dibble boy under 15," then identified Nathanael's grandfather of the
same name as "my little brother."
--If old Nathanael was modern Nathanael's grandfather, his
grandparents and parents would all have to have been married and had
families before age 20, for only 60 years to have passed. Both
problems could easily have been solved by having Miles be the youngest
brother.
--Mr. Miller, huge plot problem. His excuse for not notifying the
Dibbles was he "found out through extraordinary means" who Miles was.
He could have inquired into an unidentified body *without* mentioning
a ghost. Since it was found downstream (in water) starting inquiries
at all towns upstream would be logical--unlike certain real-life cases
where a child was taken by other means and turned up a "John Doe."
John Walsh discovered when his son Adam was abducted that some such
cases are NEVER solved, and this was in the early 1980s when
communication was much improved! I did hear of one interesting case
since posting at Alibris. I read this online on a site about mummies.
The heading is "Stop the Mummy Dummies" if you want to run a Google
search. In the early 1900s (roughly the same time as Miles Dibble
disappeared) a 15-year-old runaway fell, jumped, or was pushed off a
train. In this case, a funeral home got hold of him, somehow
identified him, and contacted his family. They decided the bill was
too much, and failed to claim him. Rather than being buried, the body
was left exposed to air (this was in Texas or someplace where it's
warm and dry) and was preserved as a mummy in a gambling establishment
for 80 years or so! The family must have left the area, as it was
someone else who finally buried him.
--Then there's the little matter of Miles's family and everyone else
familiar with the case failing to make the connection with the
newspaper article--which Mr. Miller should have known about! He found
out who Miles was within a year or so--it seems a reprint of the
article in newspapers of all towns upstream would then be appropriate.
--There are other good points to the book, but it's beyond me how to
make the plot work without the non-discovery of Miles's body, and,
considering the manner of his disappearance, he surely would have been
discovered had not someone taken or hidden it. Maybe with a bit of
rewriting, the robbers could have hidden his body (assuming robbers
could have found it in pitch darkness, or would have hung around till
daylight--maybe have them be local guys afraid of being caught!--)
after Miles hid the gold, and kept their guilty secret. Or, Miles
could have hidden in a cave known only to him (otherwise his best
friend would have found it) which then caved in on him or something.
Mr. Miller isn't really necessary--he's an annoyance--but taking him
out, putting something else in, and fixing all the other problems
would involve a huge amount of rewriting! With all the plot problems,
I can see how the book hasn't been reprinted despite its merits.
Read "Mystery of the Witches' Bridge" by Barbee Oliver Carleton, a
ten-times-better book about a longtime family feud involving a missing
fortune, an old man who keeps a secret, and a 13-year-old boy who
solves the mystery. No ghost, alas.
Cori
Glenn P.,
>> Mr. Miller did Miles a grievious wrong by appropriating his body for
>> his own selfish ends; by doing so he made Miles into a "Missing Child"
>> an became, ultimately, the cause of the rift between the Dibbles and
>> the Smiths. Had he but sent proper inquiries to all the local towns,
>> there was ONE couple with a missing boy who would have been quick
>> enough to identify that body... and the conclusion that he met with
>> foul play (and was robbed) would have been natural. True, the money
>> would then have been lost; but the Dibbles and Smiths would still have
>> been friends!
First off, I wish to expand slightly upon my first post: I said that...
>> ...there was ONE couple with a missing boy who would have been quick
>> enough to identify that body... and the conclusion that he met with
>> foul play (and was robbed) would have been natural.
What I *meant* to say was that --
>> ...there was ONE couple with a missing boy who would have been quick
>> enough to identify that body... and [given his state of undress, and
>> the fracture to his skull,] the conclusion that he met with foul play
>> (and was robbed) would have been natural.
[Added text in brackets.]
> Glenn, someone said the same thing on this group quite some time ago;
> was that you?
Not unless my memory has failed me again -- but it's entirely possible. But
if I did, I honestly don't remember doing it! How long of a "quite some time
ago" are we talking about here...?
I didn't actually say all I thought in my previous posting; but the more
one thinks about it the worse it gets. Some people steal other people's
CHILDREN. Well, Mr. Miller is worse: he stole another person's child's
DEAD BODY! Didn't it matter to him at all that there were PARENTS looking
for him??? And if he didn't care about THAT, couldn't he care about the
Golden Rule? For all his maudlin claims about hoping his own (missing)
son is treated the way he treats Miles, I can't help feeling that if HE
had found out that someone HAD found his son's body -- and HIDDEN it
from him -- he'd be REAL MAD!!!
> --There were a lot of errors, some unnecessary, others bothersome but
> central to the plot. Miles told Nathanael he could only be seen by a
> "Dibble boy under 15," then identified Nathanael's grandfather of the
> same name as "my little brother."
Oh. One of "those". :(
> --If old Nathanael was modern Nathanael's grandfather, his
> grandparents and parents would all have to have been married and had
> families before age 20, for only 60 years to have passed. Both
> problems could easily have been solved by having Miles be the youngest
> brother.
Grrr! Errors such as these can leave me climbing the walls; I'm glad I
never noticed either of them (and I'm going to try very hard to ignore
them now!).
> --Mr. Miller, huge plot problem. His excuse for not notifying the
> Dibbles was he "found out through extraordinary means" who Miles was.
> He could have inquired into an unidentified body *without* mentioning
> a ghost. Since it was found downstream (in water) starting inquiries
> at all towns upstream would be logical -- unlike certain real-life
> cases where a child was taken by other means and turned up a "John
> Doe."
...From which I can only conclude that Mr. Miller didn't try very hard!
Given that he WANTED to keep the body as a surrogate for his son, it isn't
hard to see why: but surely this makes him a Very Selfish Person? Certainly
NOT worth Mile's special attention! If I were Pug, I would NOT have treated
that old scoundrel so kindly! :/
> --Then there's the little matter of Miles's family and everyone else
> familiar with the case failing to make the connection with the
> newspaper article -- which Mr. Miller should have known about! He found
> out who Miles was within a year or so -- it seems a reprint of the
> article in newspapers of all towns upstream would then be appropriate.
The newspaper article was a problem for me as well; I couldn't figure out
how the Dibbles could have missed it! The only explanation I could think of
is that they were illiterate -- but this hardly seems likely because (1)
Miles himself kept a diary, and I can't see him being literate and his
parents ILliterate; and (2) illiterate people DON'T buy newspapers!
> --There are other good points to the book, but it's beyond me how to
> make the plot work without the non-discovery of Miles's body, and,
> considering the manner of his disappearance, he surely would have been
> discovered had not someone taken or hidden it. Maybe with a bit of
> rewriting, the robbers could have hidden his body (assuming robbers
> could have found it in pitch darkness, or would have hung around till
> daylight -- maybe have them be local guys afraid of being caught!) --
> after Miles hid the gold, and kept their guilty secret. Or, Miles
> could have hidden in a cave known only to him (otherwise his best
> friend would have found it) which then caved in on him or something.
> Mr. Miller isn't really necessary -- he's an annoyance -- but taking
> him out, putting something else in, and fixing all the other problems
> would involve a huge amount of rewriting! With all the plot problems,
> I can see how the book hasn't been reprinted despite its merits.
I also would have liked to have had Miles "identified". I've actually tried
to create a imaginary movie, based on the book, in which this might be
accomplished. The only way I could think of is through DNA -- a comparison
between the dried saliva inside the harmonica with tooth pulp from the body
would do the trick.
Unfortunately, for this to be feasible the whole timeline would have to be
moved forward by at LEAST a few decades, which would just about DESTROY the
whole plot!
> Read "Mystery of the Witches' Bridge" by Barbee Oliver Carleton, a
> ten-times-better book about a longtime family feud involving a missing
> fortune, an old man who keeps a secret, and a 13-year-old boy who
> solves the mystery. No ghost, alas.
I actually HAVE this book, but haven't gotten a chance to read it yet.
Based on the synopsis on the back cover I did notice the similarity to
"Ghost Of Dibble Hollow" right away. :)
One last point before I close: I'm not completely happy with the ending.
The general outline is fine, but Wallace could have done more with it.
When Pug expresses excitement that things have been solved, and assumes
that he and Miles will continue to see one another, Pug's dismay at
learning the truth (that Miles is departing) is not well-played. In my
own version of the story, there'd've been some begging, "Please stay!" on
Pug's part; met with a quiet "Pug, my PARENTS are waiting for me. They've
BEEN waiting for over SEVENTY YEARS." To which Pug would have responded
with remorse (for his selfishness) -- something along the lines of, "Gosh,
I can't imagine being separated from MY folks for even a *month*...!" and
with grief. After all that had happened it seems that the ending comes
very suddenly and is very much downplayed. Ah, well.
By the way, does anyone know if May Nickerson Wallace is still alive? Any
possibility of a re-write?
-- =================================================
: ___ : "Glenn P.," <C128...@FVI.Net> :
: / __|__ : -------------------------------- :
: / / |_/ : User And BASIC Programmer Of :
: \ \__|_\ : Commodore-64 & Commodore-128 :
: \___| : Computers Since 1982, Continuing :
: : On Into The Third Millennium! :
=================================================
Cori
was that you?
> Not unless my memory has failed me again -- but it's entirely possible. But if I did, I honestly don't remember doing it! How long of a "quite some time ago" are we talking about here...?
Um, like, less than two years ago! Poor old Glenn, memory must be
goin'!
From: Glenn P., (c128...@GTI.Net)
Subject: Re: Looking for "Dibble Hollow" book?
View: Complete Thread (2 articles) Original FormatNewsgroups:
rec.arts.books.childrens
Date: 2001-01-03 01:02:22 PST
On Wed, 3 Jan 2001 at 12:27am, "Larry Hodges" <ttw...@erols.com
> wrote:
I am looking for the title of a children's book I read many, many
years ago. I think it is called something like "Dibble's Hollow," or
something like it.
Say no more! "The Ghost of Dibble Hollow", by May Nickerson Wallace. I
still have my copy -- tattered though it be -- and it's still a
favorite even to
this day! :)
By the way, there weren't two modern Dibbles, only one. :)
(Again, your memory failed. Nathanael did have a sister, but I don't
blame you. The book had way too many potentially interesting
characters with too little development.)
On thing that bugs me about the book, though, is the action of one of
the characters in the book, who finds Miles' (the murdered boy's)
body, and "adopts" it as his own son, lost at sea, and buries it
privately. He never stops to think that the kid he just buried had a
FAMILY, who would be LOOKING for him! I would have like the story a
LOT more if they'd recovered Miles' body and returned it to the
Dibbles for proper burial... The story ends O.K. without this, but to
me this is a loose end, and very unfair...
--_____ "...We'll die if we have to, but not one second
*earlier*
{~._.~} than we have to. Everyone has to die someday; there's no
_( Y )_ escaping that, but *quitting* isn't compulsory."
(:_~*~_:) -- "Lucky Starr And The Oceans Of Venus",
(_)-(_) "Glenn P.," ...By: Isaac Asimov (1954).
(previous post describes errors)
> Grrr! Errors such as these can leave me climbing the walls; I'm glad I never noticed either of them (and I'm going to try very hard to ignore them now!).
How many times do you find yourself reading books yelling, "KILL THE
EDITOR!"? They are supposed to NOTICE things such as the author
giving every character a six-letter name beginning with J, as in "The
Wheel on the School." By the way, the ONLY non-typographical error I
can name in "Mystery of the Witches' Bridge" is that Billy Ben's eyes
are brown on one page and blue on another--and I've read that eight or
ten times! (And I'm tempted to ask Beverly Cleary to explain why
Ramona wore a witch costume to her class Halloween parade in
Kindergarten, but by trick-or-treat time that same year was dressed as
a small red devil--see "Ramona the Pest" and "Henry and the
Clubhouse"--therein lies a tail, er, tale!)
> I also would have liked to have had Miles "identified". I've actually tried to create a imaginary movie, based on the book, in which this might be accomplished. The only way I could think of is through DNA -- a comparison between the dried saliva inside the harmonica with tooth pulp from the body would do the trick.
You can forget about viable DNA from a harmonica left lying out of
doors for over 60 years. Perhaps there was something else, like locks
of baby hair or baby teeth saved, or just compare the body's DNA to
that of modern Dibbles--which Nathanael, his mom, and sister all
possessed.
> Unfortunately, for this to be feasible the whole timeline would have to be moved forward by at LEAST a few decades, which would just about DESTROY the whole plot!
It would further complicate an already shaky plot.
I agree with what you said about the ending.
> By the way, does anyone know if May Nickerson Wallace is still alive? Any possibility of a re-write?
Well, I wondered the same thing. I believe this was before I got a
copy of the book, when I was hearing how rare and sought-after it was,
wondering about the possibility of a reprint, I did a Google search on
the name Nickerson and corresponded with a very nice man. He was able
to inform me of her birth and marriage dates, places she'd lived, that
she died in 1998, but was unaware she was an author! "The Ghost of
Dibble Hollow" was one of at least three books she wrote! At that
time I was able to give him just the titles and maybe he found copies.
It seemed to me she had children, so presumably there'd be an
estate...? I don't know if Mr. Nickerson was in contact with the
children of her and Mr. Wallace.
Cori
Cori
January 29, 2002, they are still up and working, though not accessible
through the main page. Here is what I wrote on May 15, 2001, as part
of a long (at least a dozen posts) thread. Obviously some will be a
repeat of my message here, but I thought you might find the nearly 20
similarities to "Mystery of the Wtiches' Bridge" of interest:
Warning, this post WILL be a novel in itself, but I just had to weigh
in on this one. I became incurably curious about "The Ghost of Dibble
Hollow" after seeing inquiries about it here, and on "Stump the
Bookseller," and at rec.arts.books.childrens. When I looked online and
found that ANY copies of this book, not just first editions but
beat-up reprints, sell for $50-$100+, I had to have that book! I
didn't buy it on eBay, where it goes for $10-$40, but lucked into a
near-perfect first edition for 46 cents at a new thrift store! Just
finished it and will offer the following: (Not surprisingly for a
Scholastic book) both the front and back covers are inaccurate. There
is NOTHING in the book about a spade or shovel, and ten was Miles's
age when he carved his name on the bed headboard, not his age at
death, which was 13 years, 4 months, 13 days (p. 61). The reader who
said there are two modern Dibbles, a boy and a girl, and the one who
said there was only the boy, are both right. (These posts must have
appeared on rec.arts.books.childrens--where I haven't been able to
post since google took over deja, as I refuse to spend a fortune to
subscribe to usenet.) The main character, Elisha Nathanael Dibble
"Pug" Allen, has a sister, Helen, but Miles Dibble, the ghost of the
murdered boy, makes it clear that "No one can hear me or see me except
a Dibble boy like me--under fifteen, that is--and one other person,
who is very special to me" (p. 20). So Helen does not interact with
the ghost at all. As for the part of the plot involving Gideon Miller,
Sr., and his appropriation of Miles's body in the place of Gideon
Miller, Jr., it was, indeed, very unfair of Mr. Miller not to let on
what became of Miles while any member of Miles's family was still
living, and even after Nathanael "Pug" finds the location of Miles's
grave, nothing is said of making any effort to move him to the Dibble
plot, where a stone is all ready and waiting for him! This plot device
can possibly be forgiven on the grounds that similar things have
happened in real life. John Walsh's book, "Tears of Rage," dealing
with the murder of his six-year-old son, Adam, recounts his
conversation with a county coroner--that unclaimed bodies must be
buried within a certain amount of time--never mind that the body might
be of a missing child from the next county, and no way existed (or may
still exist in many areas) to coordinate missing persons reports with
unidentified bodies! Another famous case involved the fire which broke
out on July 6, 1944, in the main tent of the Ringling Brothers Barnum
and Bailey Circus in Hartford, Connecticut. At least 167 people were
killed, the numbers 168 and 169 are also given in some sources. Among
the dead was one unidentified and unclaimed body of a girl thought to
be six years old. She did not belong with any of the adults who died
and was way too young to have gotten there by herself. Since her face
was unmarked, she was photographed and the picture and story
distributed both locally and nationally. For fifty years she remained
known only as "Little Miss 1565," aka "Little Miss Nobody." The
incredible part is that, in both the true life case of "Little Miss
1565," and of the fictional Miles Dibble, the story was publicized in
a newspaper account--in the true case not just one article, but
appeared over the years in many printed sources including books--and
not only did the child's family not see it, but no relative or
acquaintance of theirs EVER contacted them about it! It took an
unrelated stranger on a personal quest to return this child to her
family for burial. In the meantime her mother--who was burned in the
fire, but recovered--had died without ever learning of her child's
fate. Which makes the true-life case even MORE bizarre than the
fictional one! You can read about it at www.Hartfordcircusfire.com, a
site publicizing the book "A Matter of Degree," by Don Massey and Rick
Davey, a detailed study of the case. If it wasn't true I wouldn't
believe it, but as authors from Mark Twain to Stephen King have
pointed out, writers of fiction must be held to higher standards than
the freakish events of real life, because of a little thing called
"suspension of disbelief." That is the lesser plot weakness in "The
Ghost of Dibble Hollow." The greater--really unforgivable--plot
weakness, involves "old Nathanael," the direct ancestor of the "young
Nathanael" who is the story's main character. On page 20, Miles's next
words after saying that only a Dibble boy under fifteen could see or
hear him are of old Nathanael, "He was my little brother. You look
just like him." Miles remarks several other times how exactly young
Nathanael is like old Nathanael, but never offers--nor does young
Nathanael ask--how it was that Miles was unable to communicate with
his own younger BROTHER, and had to wait sixty years for a
great-nephew to appear! Unless old Nathanael was adopted, or his
mother's illegitimate love child, and therefore not a "true" Dibble
(which might raise serious questions as to his descendants' rights to
the property) he MUST have been a Dibble boy under fifteen at some
time following Miles's death, since Miles was only thirteen when he
died! A clear oversight on the part of the author and of every
proofreader and editor who followed! It makes me mad when people don't
read books for plot, or logic--especially when the character of old
Nathanael is TOTALLY unnecessary to the plot, as young Nathanael could
just as easily have been descended from Miles's older brother, Ezra.
So, two MAJOR plot weaknesses in a story with well-drawn characters,
pretty well-realized setting, and that most elusive but most important
of all fictional qualities, page-turnability. I was a bit startled by
the large number of striking similiarities of "The Ghost of Dibble
Hollow" (1965) with my favorite book of all time, "The Witches'
Bridge" ("Mystery of the Witches' Bridge" in Scholastic paperback), by
Barbee Oliver Carleton (1967). They are: 1) A 13-year-old boy 2) at
the beginning of the summer 3) arrives at his family's ancient
ancestral home 4) located in the eastern part of the United States 5)
in a rural area 6) near a small town the boy occasionally visits and
7) a river which runs into the ocean. 8) There is a mystery the boy
must solve by the end of the summer or leave his beloved home. The
mystery involves 9) an ancient feud between the main character's
family and another old local family. 10) The boy befriends children
from the rival family. In "The Mystery of the Witches' Bridge," Dan
Pride befriends twins Pip and Gilly Cole, while in "The Ghost of
Dibble Hollow," Nathanael befriends Priscilla Smith and Ernie Pratt,
both of local rival families. Feud involves 11) the murder of a
relative of the main character 12) who played a musical instrument and
13) was killed by a bridge spanning the nearby river and 14) a missing
sum of money over which accusations and distrust have arisen causing
the feud between the two familes. "The Ghost of Dibble Hollow" relies
heavily on the ancient device of a diary and other written documents,
while in "Mystery of the Witches' Bridge" any documents Dan finds or
tries to uncover are of no use to him whatsoever. Both boys do the
usual amount of prying and digging around for clues. Although both
stories feature 15) a message from an ancestor's portrait, Dan Pride
does not have the invaluably useful input of a ghost, and must solve
the mystery himself. Other elements in common are 16) a pet dog, 17) a
hired man who works keeping up another man's property, 18) a local
old-timer unrelated to the feuding families, able to fill in parts of
the story for the kids, 19) an adult angry at the main character's
efforts who tries to hinder him, 20) stones used as markers for an
important spot, and 21) "something creepy about the old place"--rumors
of haunting at the Dibbles' and a curse at the Prides'--which must be
overcome to resolve the mystery. Despite having over twenty close
points as well as a number of lesser similarities, "Mystery of the
Witches' Bridge" has many other elements, and is at least a ten times
better book than "The Ghost of Dibble Hollow." This may be evidenced
in terms of sales. Check www.addall.com and you'll hardly find a copy
of "The Ghost of Dibble Hollow" for under $50, whereas you'll find
scads of "Mystery of the Witches' Bridge" for under $5.00. Try
half.com, where they're practically giving them away! Although it's
been out of print for twenty years, they must have sold a ton of 'em.
By the way, I was curious enough about the possibility of reprinting
"The Ghost of Dibble Hollow" that I looked into it. It seems the
rights reverted to the author, May Nickerson Wallace, in 1997. She
died in 1998. She had a son, who presumably now owns the rights, so
anyone that dedicated to preserving the book would presumably have to
hunt him down. The rights to "Mystery of the Witches' Bridge" reverted
to the original publisher, Holt, Rinehart and Winston, in 1992. If
anyone is interested in a write-in campaign to them, no doubt they
have a website, or, if not, I can obtain their snail mail address and
post it here! In my opinion, "The Ghost of Dibble Hollow" may be worth
a read but is certainly not worth $40. Scholastic Books I enjoyed much
better are "Ghosts Who Went to School," by Judith Spearing, and "A
Sound of Crying," by Rodie Sudbery, which can probably be purchased
for 46 cents at your local thrift store. Enjoy!
Glenn P.,
>> How long of a "quite some time ago" are we talking about here...?
> Um, like, less than two years ago! Poor old Glenn, memory must be
> goin'!
:>> From: Glenn P., (c128...@GTI.Net)
:>> Subject: Re: Looking for "Dibble Hollow" book?
:>> rec.arts.books.childrens
:>> Date: 2001-01-03 01:02:22 PST
[ Snip! ]
Yup, that's me all right. Forgot I'd ever written that. :)
> How many times do you find yourself reading books yelling, "KILL THE
> EDITOR!"? They are supposed to NOTICE things such as the author
> giving every character a six-letter name beginning with J, as in "The
> Wheel on the School." By the way, the ONLY non-typographical error I
> can name in "Mystery of the Witches' Bridge" is that Billy Ben's eyes
> are brown on one page and blue on another -- and I've read that eight
> or ten times! (And I'm tempted to ask Beverly Cleary to explain why
> Ramona wore a witch costume to her class Halloween parade in
> Kindergarten, but by trick-or-treat time that same year was dressed
> as a small red devil -- see "Ramona the Pest" and "Henry and the
> Clubhouse" -- therein lies a tail, er, tale!)
Thankfully, I encounter very few errors like these. Good thing too: as I've
said, they drive me up the wall.
> You can forget about viable DNA from a harmonica left lying out of
> doors for over 60 years. Perhaps there was something else, like locks
> of baby hair or baby teeth saved, or just compare the body's DNA to
> that of modern Dibbles -- which Nathanael, his mom, and sister all
> possess.
Hmmm, yes, that'd do it too, come to think of it; but frankly I'd rather
accomplish the same end *without* having to draw blood! Maybe the harmonica
had been saved in a box indoors somewhere (hidden in Miles' room, perhaps?)
instead? But the "drawing blood" bit is good -- it would certainly establish
Miles' identity beyond all shadow of doubt!
By the way -- my understanding is that you can't get DNA from hair per se;
only from the roots, which must be intact. In other words, CUT hair is
useless. (That said, I hear-tell of something called "mitochondrial DNA",
which I believe CAN be extracted from cut hair; but I know very little about
it...)
>> Unfortunately, for this to be feasible the whole timeline would have to be
>> moved forward by at LEAST a few decades, which would just about DESTROY the
>> whole plot!
> It would further complicate an already shaky plot.
I'm not sure one can downgrade it to mere "complication". It seems to me that
the whole business of winning a huge amount (of CASH!) at a fair, and then
being waylaid by robbers, is barely credible for 1900. But not (or, very much
less) so only a couple of decades later. Even as early as 1920 I would have a
hard time swallowing such an incident (and even if I did it just wouldn't have
quite the same FEEL to it. It'd be hard to have the same feeling for an event
that takes place when, for example, electric lights [invented 1880] had been
available for FORTY YEARS!). The absolute latest I'd personally put such an
event would be 1910, and even that would be stretching it.
The problem with this is that even at 1910, the 70 years from "Fair Night"
to "Pug's Arrival" only brings us up to 1980 -- and DNA technology was still
pretty close to its infancy back then. I'm not at all sure that they could
have managed it! Yes, I know that "1980" *sounds* modern -- but remember,
that's already TWENTY YEARS ago!
Making matters worse, by 1910 laws had grown stricter (autopsies, inquests,
and such-like), techonology better (individuality of fingerprints was first
proved in 1885), and communication a lot more widespread (true radio -- as
oppposed to mere wireless -- has been around since 1904); so that for Miles'
body to have gone unidentified in 1910 is simply a LOT less credible than
it is for 1900! It was a period of fairly rapid advancement.
We mustn't forget, too, that times have changed, and what could be read with
a certain degree of innocence in the 60's, 70's, or 80's is not nearly so
innocent in the 90's and 00's. I refer specifically to the robbers' stripping
of Miles' body: what with all the child-snatchings and sex-fiends out there
today, I can't see how some readers could avoid a (possibly subconscious)
suspicion of sexual undertone to this action, as purely pragmatic as it is.
> I agree with what you said about the ending.
Thanks. :)
>> By the way, does anyone know if May Nickerson Wallace is still alive?
> ...I did a Google search on the name Nickerson and corresponded with
> a very nice man. He was able to inform me of her birth and marriage
> dates, places she'd lived, that she died in 1998...
Aaaarrrggghhh!!! So much for THAT idea! Ugh! :( :( :(
Oh, well...
-- _____ %%%%%%%%%%%%%%% "Glenn P.," <C128...@FVI.Net> %%%%%%%%%%%%%%
{~._.~} ---------------------------------------------------------------
_( Y )_ THE FAR SIDE: [Crocodile to Lawyer, on Witness Stand]: "Well of
(:_~*~_:) *COURSE* I did it in cold blood, you idiot -- I'm a *reptile*!"
(_)-(_) --A "Gary Larson" Cartoon.
Glenn P.,
> (These posts must have appeared on rec.arts.books.childrens -- where
> I haven't been able to post since google took over deja, as I refuse
> to spend a fortune to subscribe to usenet.)
Check again: Google now allows searching and reading of USENET. I believe
Yahoo! also allows posting, free of charge (though you do have to register,
with a "real" E-Mail address).
> ...If it wasn't true I wouldn't believe it, but as authors from Mark
> Twain to Stephen King have pointed out, writers of fiction must be
> held to higher standards than the freakish events of real life,
> because of a little thing called "suspension of disbelief."
My own formulation of this principle is more succinct: "Coincidence is
immune to Ockham's Razor."
Cori
> > I haven't been able to post since google took over deja, as I refuse
> > to spend a fortune to subscribe to usenet.)
>
> Check again: Google now allows searching and reading of USENET. I believe
> Yahoo! also allows posting, free of charge (though you do have to register,
> with a "real" E-Mail address).
Well, I was right about where I saw it: your post *was* here, and I
was VERY impressed at being able to find such old posts; from long
before the switchover! I started posting via Google as soon as I
found out that was possible, which I guess was about a month after it
became available.
Cori
Cori
Witches' Bridge," please post here and let me know what you think of
it.
Elaine Thompson
wrote:
>Glenn (or anyone else who reads it) when you read "Mystery of the
>Witches' Bridge," please post here and let me know what you think of
>it.
If you mean the one by (iirc) Carlson, I reread within the last year,
wondering if it would interest our six year old (decided not yet), and
thought it help up pretty well - I enjoyed it. This is the book
with Danny the fiddler, the Bishop twins, the money lost in the fog
and the tunnel near the water? or is there another with that title?
--
Elaine Thompson <Ela...@KEThompson.org>
Deborah Stevenson,,,
That's the one I know of--it was just _The Witches' Bridge_ in the
original hardback. I liked it a lot.
Deborah Stevenson
(stev...@alexia.lis.uiuc.edu)
Cori
Barbee Oliver Carleton. Hardcover illustrations by Edward Gorey.
Paperback cover by Mort Kunstler, now famous (and probably rich!) for
his Civil War art.
Cori
Glenn P.,
I'm not sure I'll have the time in the near future -- possibly not
until late January (!) (Christmas coming, AND *two* family birthdays!)
-- but I promise you, when I *do* read it, I'll be sure to post about
it. :)
-- _____
{~._.~} %%%%%%%%% [ "Glenn P.," <C128...@FVI.Net> ] %%%%%%%%%
_( Y )_ -----------------------------------
(:_~*~_:) "Welcome Christmas, while we stand / Heart-to-heart and
(_)-(_) hand-in-hand." --"How The Grinch Stole Christmas"