Stone Frog, Ghost Burro Canyon, and Whistling Mountain Mystery by Dorothea J. Snow

In The Secret of the Stone Frog, the Brokie family has recently moved back to Huntertown, Alabama.  Billy Joe has no friends at school, and he cannot break into the cliques.  The only boy who will speak to him is Hans, who is also new.  Billy Joe reluctantly becomes friendly with Hans and soon learns that Hans is worth having as a friend.

Billy Joe learns that an ancestor of his is believed to have robbed the town's bank.  The Brokie family does not believe the story, but the rest of the townspeople think that he might have been guilty.  Billy Joe unexpectedly uncovers some clues and begins trying to prove his ancestor's innocence.  The stone frog in the center of town provides an unexpected revelation.

I picked this book up at a book sale earlier this year.  After reading the first few pages, I wasn't sure if I would like it.  I finally decided to dive in and give it a try.  I ended up enjoying the book far more than I expected.

The story is quite interesting and is a good mystery.  It does drag a little bit towards the end, but otherwise, this is a very good book.

Since I enjoyed The Secret of the Stone Frog so much, I purchased two other children's books by Dorothea J. Snow.

In The Mystery of Ghost Burro Canyon, Ted's family has moved to his grandparents' motel in Colorado.  The motel business is a struggle, and Grandpa worries when travelers select the other motels on down the road, which have better amenities.  The motel needs to be upgraded, but the family does not have the money.  Ted learns about the buried treasure of Ghost Burro Canyon and decides to search for it. 

I love the setting of this book.  The motel setting reminds me of trips taken in my childhood when we stayed in motels.

The summary on the dust jacket of this book reveals the ending, so I am glad I did not read the summary before finishing the book.  The summaries on all three of these books give away too much information, including events from near the end of each story.  I suggest reading only the front flap part of the summaries on these books and avoiding the back flap portion until after each story has been read.

This is another very good book.

In The Whistling Mountain Mystery, Billy and his family have moved to Martinsdale, Alabama, to live in the old family home.  They are dismayed to find the home in extreme disrepair with no plumbing or wiring.  The Todds begin to clean up and plan to save money so that they can gradually get electricity and water.

Billy hears about the legend of the lost Corbett treasure.  The Corbetts were his forebears, and a servant was supposed to hide the family silver in a cave on the mountain in the days when the Yankees were coming.  The servant vanished, and the silver has never been found.  Billy hopes to find it to pay for the electricity, but everyone laughs at him.

The children find an important diary in the trunk of an abandoned house that had been rented out for many years.  I find it impossible to believe that none of the renters would have gotten a hold of that diary.

Chapter II is titled "Rose-Colored Glasses."  The title refers to how optimistic the Todds are about making a home out of a house that is in very bad shape.  On the first page of the chapter,  Mama mentions an old family plantation from before the war and how it had "many servants and field hands for it."  I thought the chapter title rather apropos, since Mama speaks of the plantation as though viewing it through rose-colored glasses, not mentioning the rather important fact that the field hands were actually slaves.

This is a very good to excellent book.