Imagine, Reading A Book Out Of My Past.....Fourth Grade, That Is!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

                                        Several months ago, I spied this very book in a box of discarded books one of the neighbors was discarding.  I recognized its cover, instantly, which is why it caught my attention.  I took it home, intending to read it.

                                         Now, for years, in my childhood home in Highland Park, New Jersey, this book was on my shelf.  Back in elementary school, as I am sure so many of you may recall, Scholastic Book Services offered something to the lower grades called the Arrow Book Club.  When everyone moved into junior high, it became TAB--the Teen-Age Book Club.

                                        This edition of "Emil And The Detectives" appeared when I was in fourth grade.  That would have been the 1964-65 school year, and, in 1964, before his blockbuster success with "Mary Poppins," Walt Disney released an unsuccessful film adaptation of this book, with a bunch of child actors, who went nowhere.

                                          Now, the way the Arrow Book Club, and children, worked, was everyone ordered a pile of books, and received them.  But if they were not read within the first month, they would just sit on the shelf.

                                            Which was the case with 'Emil,' until my father sold the house, in 1980, when the book was lost in a yard sale.

                                                I was intrigued, in the present, upon finding this relic from my own past, in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, and so decided to give the book a try, as an adult.

                                                 It is high grade children's  literature.  The illustrations are charming, and  so is the story.  It is just masculine enough for young boys, but not hoody or hormonal, like, say, "The Outsiders."  The tale of Emil's journey to Berlin, and how he and the "detectives" solve the mystery of Emil's stolen money (given to him by his mother, prior to boarding the train) will delight readers of any age.

                                                I had a ball rediscovering my past.  It made me hungry for others.  So, to all readers I call out--

                                       Can anyone tell me where I can get my hands on copies of "The Happy Hollisters," the "Honey Bunch" books, or the "Honey Bunch And Norman" series?????????????

                                         Second Childhood can have its benefits!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!