For a few years now, I've been interviewing my twins after they finish reading their books, posting those interviews on their own goodreads profile. My boy, Miloš, finished reading The Tower Treasure a couple of weeks ago, and I reread it just this week (I always reread the books they've read.) You can see my interview with him at this link. And you can see his interview with me right here:Miloš: Why was the book just okay?Pa: Well, I enjoyed it for what it was. The mystery was fun, and I really liked that most of the mystery was about finding the actual treasure rather than finding the thief, but the fifties world that they lived can't have really existed, except in books and on early TV, and I didn't like the attitudes that Dixon, he's the author, had about society and good & bad. That kind of stuff. Miloš: Okay ... which character did you like better, Frank or Joe?Pa: Are they different characters?Miloš: Yes.Pa: I don't know. They seemed kind of hard to tell apart. I liked Oscar Smuff best actually. But I guess if I had to pick one of the brothers it would be Joe because he fell over the railing in the old Tower and caught himself. I think hints at a more physical role than Frank's, maybe he'll be more impetuous in other books.Miloš: Do you want to know why they're different?Pa: I'd rather "how" they're different, but you can tell me whatever you think.Miloš: This really has nothing to do with it, but Joe is lighter haired than Frank, and Frank is older than Joe.Pa: But those are purely physical things. It's not like they're behaviour is different at all, is it?Miloš: I don't know. Pa: Why not?Miloš: It is different in a way. Pa: What makes Joe Joe? Cause I know you like him best.Miloš: The fact that at the very end he suddenly popped out good ideas, and he was the one that actually really made them find the treasure because he figured out where it was the old water tower.Pa: He was the one who said it was there, but Frank was thinking the same thing, remember?Miloš: Yeah.Pa: Is it that Joe wasn't afraid to think out loud, to maybe make a mistake, and Frank was keeping things to himself, and maybe was more self-conscious?Miloš: Yeah.Pa: Okay.Miloš: But at the same time, Frank is sort of the hero of the tale.Pa: So you like the underdog, the supporting character.Miloš: Yeah, sometimes I do the same thing with villains. I like the villains better sometimes like the Evil Emperor Zurg, or something like that.Pa: I do too. Which is why I like Smuff.Miloš: Because he's an underdog. Yeah Smuff was a really cool character, and it was very rude to make him miss his flight.Pa: I wasn't impressed with the Hardy's treatment of Smuff. Like you, that bothered me. it also bothered me that they always assumed Smuff was being "greedy" and wanted the reward, when they wanted exactly the same thing. So how can be better than Smuff when they have same motivation?Miloš: True. And at the end there, you can see he sort of says something about, or he arrives last on purpose because he doesn't really like the Hardys, does he? Pa: Or is it because he expects that they're going to humiliate him, so he isn't keen on showing up. Miloš: Exactly. He doesn't want get mocked for not finding the treasure, and at the end he sort of tells us that since he's been a detective he never is the one to figure it out it is always someone else, which makes him feel even more stupid because he hasn't found anything. So he tells them that.Pa: Yeah, poor Smuff. So do you have any other questions for me?Miloš: Not other than, "Was it a good book?"Pa: It was okay. I'm not sorry I read it again, and I am looking forward to reading the second one --Miloš: -- The House on the Cliff. Besides sometimes the third or the second can be better than the first.Pa: Looking forward to you getting through it, after James and the Giant Peach of course.Miloš: Okay.
It's clear, from various reviews on this site, that some people have read the original 1927 version and others have read the revised 1959 version. They are significantly different and it's unfortunate that the reviews have been all mixed together.I just finished reading the 1927 version. It was very poorly written, wildly implausible, and quite an insult to the intelligence of anyone at any age.It's bad enough that society in that era wanted to keep women 'in their place' as virtual domestic slaves. But it's also made clear that even in those days people with very little money were stereotyped and looked down upon. That is still a very big problem.The author was sloppy and could not keep his plot elements straight. Chet's car was stolen and found hidden in the woods within a day, but then the author has it that the car has been stashed there for about a week. Errors in continuity like that are very annoying. And while there was enough room to maneuver the car back into the woods, Frank and Joe couldn't get their motorcycles into the woods that far!The boys and their friends engage in mean-spirited jokes at the expense of people who don't deserve it. One of the most over-the-top and ridiculous plot elements is that the boys actually devise a false bomb threat, complete with ticking clock in a sealed box, to keep members of the police force from boarding a train on time! In reality, they would all have been jailed on felony charges for that malicious stunt and that would have been the end of any more stories!With a reward of $1000 in hand, do they use one nickel of it to help a friend's family that is in need? No, they just gleefully pocket the money while patting themselves on the back.The Hardys come across as spoiled and arrogant brats with delusions of superiority.
What do You think about The Tower Treasure (1991)?
Pa: So you finished The Tower Treasure last week after a long, long read. How're you feeling about it now?Miloš: Good.Pa: Just good?Miloš: Not exactly. I really did like the book. I like how they were private detectives. I like how it is set on the grounds of a tower, and I don't know, I just liked it and how it was set in the 50s, but I read it in the hundreds, whatever it's called. Pa: I suppose it's the teens now. It's not the noughties anymore.Miloš: Yeah. Pa: So who did you like better?Miloš: Umm ... Joe. Pa: How come?Miloš: Well, I like this moment in it somewhere at the end where Joe just starts thinking of stuff right off the bat. Pa: Like Sherlock Holmes?Miloš: Yeah. I guess I like both of them, though. Frank is the star of it; he's older by a year. They're both reall cool. Pa: Are you going to read more Hardy Boys?Miloš: Yeah. But first I am going to finish Frankie Pickle and the Mathematical Menace, then read James and the Giant Peach, then read book two. Pa: Wow. That's ambitious. Where's James and the Giant Peach?Miloš: I dunno. But I'll try and find it. Pa: I couldn't find it the other night. Miloš: You couldn't? Not in the house.Pa: None of the places I looked. We can both look again. Maybe it should be a Hardy Boys mystery? You could clues and hunt it down. Miloš: I think I know where it is?Pa: So I lookked for a half an hour and after two seconds of thinking you know wehre it is?Miloš: Where?Pa: Didn't you just say you know where it is?Miloš: Oh! In the car. Pa: I see. I'll check when I go to work.Miloš: I can check now. Pa: Anything else to say about the Hardy Boys?Miloš: No.Pa: You're effusive.Miloš: Although it was cool. Pa: I'm going to read it again soon. So we can chat about it. Maybe we should do this interview thing for my review. You can ask me questions.Miloš: Sure.Pa: Groovy. Go look for your book.
—Miloš & Brontë
I grew up loving the Dana Sisters by Carolyn Keene, and I own all of the old ones that were written before they were edited in 1959. Here I am 72 years old and still reading them, and several years ago I began reading Nancy Drew and now, The Hardy Boys. Adult mysteries just don't do much for me.I tried reading the Hardy Boys years ago but didn't care for the book I was reading, so gave up. Then I bought out at our library sale a few years ago and liked it. But still, I was not into them; now I am, finally. The book that I read that got me into the other books was: "The Mystery of Cabin Island." So far that is my favorite, but I have only read three so far.I am now buying them on eBay really cheap. I would have thought that they would cost more now, but maybe with the invention of Kindle books they are losing favor.This book, the first in the series, is a 1st edition written in 1927, and I got it cheap. Why? Well, the endband was missing and taped with paper tape, which I had to re=tape with paper tape. And some pages near the end of the book looked the factory cut them a little bit or a kid did. And there is a hole in one page, but not on words, that looks like a factory mistake.But I wonder who owned this book? Why did they keep it for all these years? Books that are this old and last must have been really loved.I hope that we always have hardback books because they are a treasure. While I own a Kindle, there is still nothing like a hardback book, and really there is nothing more special than reading an old book that a kid has read and kept for years. You know that it has been even loved more when it is almost worn out.
—josey
My thoughts return to Old Mill Elementary School in Wall Township, New Jersey. In the fall of 1976, I was a fifth grader, a fervent Jimmy Carter supporter, and an aspiring detective. I took a short cut home from school through the woods so that I could spend more of my afternoon with Frank and Joe before somebody nagged me about doing my chores or my homework.There were three channels on television-- and a fourth, only if you positioned the rabbit-ear antennas just right. There were no video-games, internet, social media, or smart phones, so my options were limited to playing outside, cheating at board games, or reading books. (TV was only for weekends and included Sanford and Son, The Rockford Files, and Emergency.) It's funny how some of the early books in this Hardy Boy series were written in the 1920's (50 years before I consumed them), but that did not even register. I just know that I tried to race through them, in the order they were written, hoping I could hurry up and get to the ever more lurid covers that beckoned. I remember none of the plots. I just remember that these boys drove a "jalopy" and always had access to boats, freedom, and danger. I also remember one of the few compliments I got from my mother was when I used the word "retort" in a conversation (because I had seen that word in one of these books and dutifully looked it up in the dictionary). Little did I know that I was developing the discipline of a life-long reader. What started with the Hardy Boys would culminate in Shakespeare and Joyce. I would now thank Mr. Dixon, but, unbeknownst to me, he had already died in 1977, while I was still devouring his books. The adventure continues.
—Steve Sckenda
