Wondering what to read after the Giggleswick trilogy? Check out Matthew Mainster's stand-alone novel for children, The Periwinkle Turban, here!
Synopsis:
The Swope family has everything they could possibly want to make 1920 a good year -- a Model T motorcar, a telephone, indoor plumbing, electricity, and a successful grocery store -- but when the Ku Klux Klan burns down Mr. Swope's store in a fiery reaction to his paid black employee, Watson, the Swopes are suddenly thrown upon hard times. Everett and Charles Swope, ages eight and seven respectively, are emboldened to help their family through this crisis, and with the aid of their cousin Clara and trusty dog Poncho, they discover the magical capabilities of a family heirloom -- a periwinkle turban. Granting them any talent they wish for (and sometimes ones they don't wish for), the turban is right atop their heads for each adventure they embark upon in their quest to solve the family's money troubles. What they'll soon learn, however, is that some talents may be more trouble than they're worth ...
Roar into the 1920's with the Swope children -- an age where adventure, resourcefulness, and imagination ruled the day!
Excerpt:
"Charles and Everett were so eager for Halloween to arrive that once it had, they quite wished it hadn’t so quickly. The best things always seem to happen much too fast, don’t they? I’ve never understood why this should be the case when nasty things such as dentist visits and school exams insist upon dragging themselves out to such unbearable proportions, but there you have it.
After supper on the evening of All Hallows’ Eve, Mother was fitting Charles and Everett into their costumes while the boys discussed the rhymes and songs they should shout at their neighbors after banging upon their doors. This particular tradition has fallen by the wayside in recent years, but a hundred years ago it was quite customary to shout things at your neighbors on Halloween.
Charles, who was quicker with words, suggested:
Nuts and sweets I like to eat
so please don’t be a mean-y,
for I’ll scream and shout and stomp my feet
if candies you don’t feed me.
On my face I wear a mask
so you shan’t chance to see me,
but if you do all that I ask
I’ll wish you happy Halloween-y!
Now you might be thinking this poem is a teensy bit rude, and to say such things to your neighbor on any other day of the year most certainly would be, but Mother knew that Halloween was all about good-natured pranks and practical jokes, and found Charles’s poem very clever indeed. She clapped her hands together when he had finished. “How splendid!” she said, for Mother loved a good poem.
Not wishing to be left out, Everett then thought very hard to compose his own poem, thinking up many fancy words, and trying to string them together as hard as ever he could, but no matter how hard he tried, the words Everett strung together seemed quite incapable of rhyming, and as you know, poems are hardly any fun at all if they don’t rhyme. It’s only very boring adults who enjoy dull, rhyme-less poems.
“Never you mind,” Mother told Everett, sweetly. “I don’t suspect pirates are often very good at poetry.”
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