Most Helpful Customer Reviews
10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
The Eyes Have It, August 7, 2003
Like some of the other reviewers, I first read this book as a child, in 1972. My fourth grade teacher read it to the class, and I loved it so much that, after she was through with it, I went straight to the school library and checked it out for myself. I was completely enraptured by the story at that age. The book centers around two adolescents, a boy and a girl. Like the Bradys of TV fame, they have each lost one of their birth-parents and have been brought together by the marriage of the surviving parents to eachother. At first, there is friction between the two, but they find a common interest after an encounter with two elderly sisters who live together in a huge, old victorian mansion on San Francisco's Russian Hill. A statuette in the form of a green cat is the focus of the mystery. Through it the author introduces the exotic past of one of the sisters involving a handsome, long dead husband, the 1923 Tokyo earthquake, asian antiquities and other things to fascinate the mind. The book is a good, clean read for young people. Although, since it was written in the 1950's some kids may find it hard to identify with the main characters. If you are an adult who was lucky enough to encounter it as a child, it is well worth the price for a trip down memory lane. On the other hand, adults reading it for the first time may find it, well, too juvenile.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Mystery of the Green Cat, April 29, 2008
The marriage of newspaperman Roger Dallas and Mrs. Emily Spencer brings together four young people: Andy and Adrian, thirteen year-old sons of Roger Dallas; and Emily Spencer's two daughters, Jill, twelve, and Carol, eight. The boys resent their father's remarriage and are hostile to their stepmother and the two girls. After several trying episodes, Andy decides to compromise and make the best of the situation, but Adrian's sensitivity keeps him rude and unfriendly. A diversion brings a new development in the family's problems. There are some exciting rumors about the people who live in the old Victorian house next door. Roger Dallas even suggests that there might be a mystery locked behind its forbidding walls. When a rock shatters a window in the girls' room and a strange note about a green cat is found, Jill and Andy decide to investigate. Jill meets Hana Tamura, a Japanese girl whose parents work for the people in the mysterious mansion. Hana has been forbidden to be friendly with anyone in the neighborhood, and when Jill asks about the green cat, the effect on Hana is electric. One thrilling adventure follows upon another and Andy and Jill make some startling discoveries. This is a strange and suspenseful story in which the author has caught the atmosphere and Oriental heritage of San Francisco. The smell of camphor, incense, and dust intermingle within its pages. But MYSTERY OF THE GREEN CAT is more than a fine mystery. . . it is a story of the adjustment that four young people make to each other and to a new family relationship.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
East meets West in the City by the Bay..., July 11, 1997
By A Customer
At 28 years old, I have read quite a few mysteries in my time...however, I have spent the last 19 years looking for this one... As a 4th grade student, I read this Phyllis Whitney, San Francisco-based adventure story. Though the specific details escape me; I can feel the suspense and intrigue wash over me much as the fog city by the Bay in her novel. Two teen-age sleuths learn about friendship, family, history and the mysteries of the Japanese culture in this charming story...I can't wait to revisit the "Green Cat" and once again discover the secrets it holds! A must for any mystery lover 9 years old and up!
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