In Girls of Canby Hall #1,
Roommates, Dana, Faith, and Shelley begin their sophomore year at Canby Hall as roommates in Baker House, Room 407. Dana is a New York City girl; Faith is levelheaded; and Shelley is a country girl who has never been to a big city. At first, the girls get off to a bad start when Shelley is uncomfortable being around Faith, who is black. Shelly is also terribly homesick. By the end of the story, the conflict is resolved, and the three girls are good friends.
Shelley is not likable in this book, since she feels sorry for herself for most of the story. I did end up liking her after reading additional titles.
In Girls of Canby Hall #2,
Our Roommate Is Missing, Shelley disappears! Shelley was snatched by mistake instead of Casey. The kidnappers plan to use the abduction to keep Casey's father from testifying in a criminal case. Dana and Faith try to figure out where Shelley is so that they can rescue her.
This book is atypical of the Girls of Canby Hall series in that it reads like a series mystery book and follows the same logic as a series book. For instance, the young people don't tell the FBI agents what they know and instead solve the mystery themselves. The reasoning is that the adults wouldn't have believed them. Right.
This is a very good story.
I have created a Facebook group for enthusiasts of vintage teen books such as the ones reviewed in this post. Please
follow this link to join.
1 comment:
I loved 'The Girls of Canby Hall" as a child. The girls felt fun. What we need to remember about 1980's and 1990's series is that it was quite common to have one-off mysteries. 'Sweet Valley High', which I assume partially influenced this series, had the occasional mystery. Number 26, 'Hostage', comes to mind. 'The Baby-Sitters Club' even had an entire BSC Mysteries spin-off series. While today it seems odd to alternate genres within a series, it seemed quite normal to me at the time.
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