Thursday, August 3, 2017

Seneca Hill and Buried Indian Mask by Margaret Goff Clark

In The Mystery of Seneca Hill, the Burnham family may lose its motel.  Their business has dropped, and funds are low.  One night, Doug sees a mysterious light on Seneca Hill.  When the children investigate, they discover that someone has been digging on the hill. Through clever deduction, the children realize that an old fort might have once been on the hill, and if they can provide proof, the family might be able to keep their property.

I had trouble getting into the book at first because I could not figure out where the motel, the neighbor's house, the river, the hill, and the road all were with respect to each other.  A map would have helped greatly.  I was so confused.

The story is overall good, but it is not very suspenseful.  This is one of my least favorite books by Margaret Goff Clark.

In The Mystery of the Buried Indian Mask, Julie works on an archaeological dig as her summer job.  Artifacts begin to disappear, and Julie works on finding the culprit.

The author does a good job with misdirection, making several people appear to be suspicious.  I was intrigued with the plot as I tried to figure out the true identity of the culprit.

This book is more for older children since it has a hint of romance, and two people get knocked out.

This is an excellent book which is very suspenseful.

2 comments:

Michael Nabholz said...

Your library rebound copy of The Mystery of Seneca Hill probably does not show the entire wraparound dust jacket art.
The wraparound jacket covers the entire back, and shows the motel cabins along the river.
(It does not show the river road, but I assume that it follows the river.)
The jacket acts as a map.

Seneca Hill is for a younger audience.
The jacket is marked "AGES 10-12."

I have a question about your rebound copy of Seneca Hill.
It is similar to a different rebound title that I have, with a poor quality cover, that seems like looking through a dense window screen.
Do you know anything about these poor quality covers?
Were they originally that poor, or have some deteriorated over the years?
My example has a "New Method Book Bindery" sticker on the front paste down end paper.

Jennifer White said...

Thanks for sending the scan of the dust jacket. It does help the reader greatly in picturing the scene. What had confused me initially was that I pictured Seneca Hill as across the road from the motel cabins. I'm not sure why, but I guess it was because the road was mentioned often. After several chapters, I finally realized that the hill was behind the motel cabins.

The cover of my book is quite worn down and would have have originally looked much nicer. The painted (for lack of a better word) surface of many library editions is quite delicate and wears off very easily. Not all library bindings have that problem, but ones made by some binderies are prone to having the illustration wear off, making them look very ugly.