Helen Louise Thorndyke

Honey Bunch and two of her girl friends are sailing little toy boats in china platters filled with water to represent the Great Lakes when Norman comes to show off his new dog, Waggy. Naturally, Waggy makes a mess and Mrs. Miller the washerwoman is provoked. I dare say that Norman's mother was, too, because (unlike Honey Bunch's cat, Lady Clare), Waggy doesn't stick around for the rest of the series. At least our little heroine's friends get to find out about her next trip.

Before the Mortons show more take off again, Honey Bunch manages to get lost in a department store. I was interested in the fact that the store showed films to children 12 years old and younger. They used a sheet for the screen. It's 1930. Talking movies exist, but the kids are watching silents. The store even provides a young man to play the piano for the films. The little girl who tells Honey Bunch about them usually calls them 'motion pictures', by at one point she says 'movies'. It's in leaving this makeshift theater that Honey Bunch gets lost, meets a few people, and is reunited with her mother.

The taxi to the train has to take a detour, but the Mortons make it just in time, My eyes opened a bit wider when a porter to the conductor while Mr. Morton is helping Mrs. Morton up the platform and the taxi driver is flinging their two suitcases. Good thing the conductor caught the girl.

Would a Honey Bunch adventure be complete without a bad child to provide contrast to the well-mannered little girl? Of course not! This book's brat is named Albert Groves. His first trick draws a little blood. Obnoxious as the bully is, readers will probably enjoy what gave Honey Bunch the last laugh in chapter 12. I did.

Besides the description of the places Honey Bunch sees (such as Niagara Falls and Charles Lindbergh's birthplace), and the friends she makes, there are more problems than just Albert. One involves the loss of Honey Bunch's birthstone ring. Another is finding a poor abandoned dog. Let's not forget the big storm.

Honey Bunch's way with words provides some amusement. I liked her reaction to hearing someone being called a 'book-worm'. (I also like finding out about older spellings of words.)

In chapter 8 a deck steward teaches Honey Bunch how to use a watch as a compass. It wouldn't work with a digital watch, but if your watch has an old-fashioned clock face, you might want to try it. Just point the hour hand to the sun. The point between the hour hand and the 7 is south.

One of the persons Honey Bunch meets teaches her a Native American word. I hope Norman was impressed.

As usual, I enjoyed the descriptions of places. If I don't think this entry rises above the series' formula, it's still a nice book. show less

Recently I learned that Mildred Augustine Wirt Benson was the ghost writer for five of the Honey Bunch books, including Her Trip to the Big Fair. I was given most of that lady's Penny Parker series back in 1969, so I reread this book with interest.

I suspect that the big fair Honey Bunch visits is the 1939-1940 New York World's Fair, but that's not actually stated. I like the descriptions of the fair, especially Mrs. Toti's doll making, as well as the scene about making a talking letter.

I show more don't mind Honey Bunch being asked to buy dolls from other countries for a collection to be donated to the Barham Library. The greedy and dishonest Mr. Means is the kind of businessman I like to see lose out. I'm used to Norman Clark and Honey Bunch's cousin Stub getting into trouble. (The stunt Stub pulls when she tries to wash Lady Clare was a bit much. If it had been a 21st century washing machine, I doubt the poor cat would have survived.) I'm used to the Mortons' misplaced faith in leaving their daughter and friend/Stub in the care of some attendant in a public place. I suppose I shouldn't be outraged that a waiter allowed a child to order and eat five or six dishes of ice cream. Certainly the waiter doesn't seem to worry about getting sued even though that child was taken away in an ambulance.

I can grit my teeth over the way the Inuit family Honey Bunch befriends is depicted, especially the father's broken English. I don't believe in the power of the lost Inuit good-luck charm, either, but I think the Mortons were insensitive about the Inuits' belief. I also found it a tad hard to believe that only Honey Bunch could think of a way to keep the escaped polar bear from getting too close to a baby left in its carriage before the Inuit man shows up.

The incident that lowers my rating for this book is the Parade of Nations and Honey Bunch's role in it. I know these books are supposed to be wish fulfilment for their intended audience, but I still thought it went too far.

Remember Hilda, Honey Bunch's biggest doll? Hilda is her favorite doll in this book. Eleanor fans needn't worry, though. She's restored to her position as favorite doll in one of the later books.

Still, the book is worth reading.

By the way, of the 12 Louisa May Alcott books advertised at the end, I don't recall ever hearing of 'A Garland for Girls,' 'Kitty's Class Day,' 'Silver Pitchers,' and "Spinning Wheel Stories'. show less

I was given several Honey Bunch books in 1964. Honey Bunch: Just a Little Girl was not among them. I have finally read it 48 years later and I think it's delightful.

Although my copy is a later printing, I doubt that it was revised from the 1923 edition because the huckster and Mr. Jenson's coal delivery men use horses. Mrs. Morton can buy salad vegetables from the huckster. There are butcher shops with sawdust on the floor. Mrs. Morton can have their Thanksgiving turkey delivered to their show more home. The grocery store has a boy to deliver groceries to homes, too. Mrs. Miller comes to the Morton house on Mondays to wash their clothes in laundry tubs, using a washboard. The whites are first boiled in a tin boiler on the laundry stove. At least she has a wringer so she doesn't have to wring the clothes by hand. Also, in these days before air conditioning, Honey Bunch has a screened porch off her bedroom where she can sleep on warm nights. (I would have loved to have one of those when I was a child in the sixties and it was a big deal that we had an electric fan in the living room.)

Gertrude 'Honey Bunch' Morton will have her 5th birthday early in December near the book. She's a nice little girl who lives in a nice house with both of her parents and her cat. Her father is a lawyer. There's not the slightest hint that he's anything but honest, which is refreshing.

Besides these glimpses into the everyday ways of a middle-class American family who lived in town, we get to follow the fun Honey Bunch has with the other girls on her street. Sure, a cute little dog wrecks havoc at her tea party. Honey Bunch gets into well-meaning mischief. Then there's the problem of forgetting a visitor's name when he could help Daddy save lots of money...

I remember making my first batch of cookies with tiny cookie cutters when I was 5. They didn't turn out well, but not for the same reason as Honey Bunch's first apple pie. Speaking of treats, wish I'd known the recipe for snow ice cream that Mrs. Miller teaches Honey Bunch and her best friend, Ida.

This is a gentle book. If you like children's series from the earlier part of the 20th century, you should enjoy this. show less

Honey Bunch: Her First Little Mystery is my second favorite among the Honey Bunch books I have. Unless she wrote some of the later books, this is the last Honey Bunch book ghostwritten by Josephine Lawrence. The main mystery concerns a basket of the Mortons' laundry that's taken from their yard while Mrs. Morton is dealing with a mess Norman Clark made (magic act, Mr. Morton's hat, 3 eggs -- need I say more?).

Honey Bunch sees a young policeman, Peter Noble, and tries to explain what show more happened. Officer Noble is nice and likes to make jokes. He does take the theft seriously. (Honey Bunch is quite upset that her prettiest dress, a gift from her Aunt Carol, is among the missing.)

Officer Noble tells a couple of interesting stories about employees falsely accused of theft (I sure hope the person who bit into the cookie with the diamond ring in it didn't break a tooth). He also mentions a theft his family suffered when he was a child -- his great-grandmother's trunk full of valuables. It's never been found, but it is the reason he became a policeman instead of a doctor as his family wanted. He also tells Honey Bunch that she could be a police woman when she's older.

Mr. & Mrs. Morton are away for most of the book, leaving Mrs. Miller to look after Honey Bunch. Mrs. Miller is injured in an accident involving Lady Clare the cat. Doctors made house calls in those days so Mrs. Miller doesn't have to leave to be seen.

Honey Bunch and two of her friends, Ida Camp and Grace Winters, take care of the house and Mrs. Miller when they aren't trying to find the missing clothes basket. They form a Detective Club for this. Norman is huffy because he's not allowed to be the lead detective on the case. Still, Norman does something foolish that yields an interesting find: a very nice string of pearl beads and a letter.

Norman goes missing after an incident involving a public fountain. His mother is frantic, but Honey Bunch figures out the truth.

Honey Bunch, Ida, and Grace are tracing another clue and become very tired. The steps they decide to sit on belong to the very church where Officer Noble's sister, Ruth, is going to be married. The girls meet her and her fiance because they've come to talk to the rector. They like Ruth so much that they want to give her a nice wedding present.

Both mysteries get solved in the end. There's an unfortunate family met during the sleuthing, but DR. Wood, Officer Noble, and the Mortons are taking care of that problem. (I have to admit that my eyebrows went up a bit in the scene where no one can find a juice squeezer so Officer Noble cuts some oranges in half to be eaten with spoons. Why not just peel the oranges and eat the segments???)

By the way, Norman doesn't get into all of the trouble in this one. Klutzy cousin Stub comes visiting. Even those eggs and Mr. Morton's hat don't come close to what Stub does.

This is a charming little mystery for fans of children's series from the first half of the 20th century. show less