The Pink Motel

Amusing, a bit unbelievable -- seems to be a a takeoff on the earlier (1956) NO CHILDREN, NO PETS by Marion Holland -- which is a much better book. As a Floridian, I had real trouble with children jumping in a pond to catch a alligator. And the racial stereotyping of one of the characters is uncomfortable, to say the least.

I LOVE this book. Many good memories of my sister reading it to me as a wee lad, and then to some extent living it as our family took a trip to Sanibel Island. Delightful characters, a roll top desk full of messages, weathervanes, an alligator, career criminals, summertime friendships, a friendly Katie Hepburn type, and sandwiches with bike rides. This book is great for kids and doting adults.

Kirby and Bitsy Mellen's mother has just inherited a motel in Florida from her rather eccentric Uncle Hiram. Being just quiet folk from the great white north, they are a little more than startled when they journey south to discover the motel is a very bright pink, and the odd color attracts even odder guests. With their parents involved in running the motel [and possibly preparing to sell it], the two Mellen children must help as best they can while making friends and keeping an eye on some rather suspicious characters staying with them.

This is an old favorite from when I was younger [don't ask me how young, like Jim Ugly, it's just been floating around my shelves forever], but I found myself rereading it the other evening and was show more vaguely disappointed. It is not in the story itself--that's just a fun free-for-all mishmash of kids meeting crazy awesome adults and suspecting the not-as-crazy-awesome-adults to be gangsters. The story is not a problem. It's that it was written fifty years ago and some things are not as they are now--the kids, save one, are all white. And the one black kid [who I would say is actually my favorite kid of the four] is the only one who sounds anything less than intelligent when he speaks. A bit backwater, you know? But it's appropriate since he is, in fact, backwater. His home, with his numerous other siblings, is a cabin on stilts in the swamp. Now, I doubt this would bother me if there were any other black characters in the book. At all. Not even one of the guests. A sign of the times, I suppose.

Meh. I still enjoy reading it and laughing along with the kids as they go on their little adventures and participate in wacky hijinks. show less

So far this book refers to a child as “colored”. This is easy to skip as a read aloud.

This was a fun book. The first title the Vintage Book Circle read. This book group is reading books that we remember from our childhood. We enjoy seeing how they hold up over the years. Very funny, cute, very pink!

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Weekly Reader information added to title page of first printing.bag sale.