Quincy Rumpel and the Mystifying Experience

Joan Buchanan is a writing instructor and storyteller, and the author of
Taking Care of My Cold! and The Nana Rescue.

This short-chapter novel, the seventh Quincy Rumpel title, is a humorous
family mystery. Grams disappears just before her big 91st birthday
party, and Quincy naturally starts assembling the clues.

Eight- to ten-years-olds will enjoy the word play and the quirky
characters. For example, Aunt Fan, who puts zucchini in all her bad
cooking, lives at Lake Wannabanana, and cousin Kip, of the Twistle
Pickle family, is staying with Aunt Fan while his parents are at a
“big pickle convention down in the States.”

Reasonably confident but not totally self-assured, Quincy is an
accessible character: a risk taker, a horse lover, a keen traveler, and
an imaginative dreamer. Younger brother Morris constantly thinks about
food, and younger sister Leah loves fashion and romance.

Betty Waterton uses the third person except when letting us in or her
characters’ thoughts, which are in the first person and in italics.
With the exception of the second chapter, where three other
characters’ thoughts appear, all the inner speech belongs to Quincy.
The other characters’ thoughts seem unnecessary, since the story seems
to be Quincy’s. However, this inconsistency is only a slight technical
problem. Irritating stereotypical character traits such as Mrs.
Rumpel’s obsession with her weight and a description of “a motherly
lady in a checkered apron” were other minor annoyances. Nonetheless, I
recommend this book and am sure many readers will speed through it from
cover to cover.