Customer Reviews

Spiderweb for Two: A Melendy Maze (Melendys Family)

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

When I first read *Spiderweb For Two* I was deeply disappointed. Mona, Rush, and Mark are hardly even seen. Then, as an adult, I read the entire series to a much younger friend. I realized I'd underrated this book because it wasn't what I expected. I reread it again a few months ago and I loved it. The clues left for Randy and Oliver are clever. I like where they lead. I like what we learn about Mr. Melendy from one of them. I'm glad dear Mrs. Oliphant wasn't left out. I'm only sorry there aren't any more Melendy books. That young friend I read them to loved them because his own home wasn't very happy. He told me the Melendys showed him what a family could be like. I'm sorry, but I'm a little choked up thinking how much pleasure this series has given me for most of my life. This is a good family. The children are nice without being implausible angels. Mr. Melendy, Cuffy, Willie -- these are good adults for raising children. I heartily recommend the serie! ! s, not just for children, but for adults who aren't afraid of being caught reading "kids' books." Ann E. Nichols

"Spiderweb for Two" is the last book in the series about the Melendy family and it's my least favorite of the four, simply because there are not enough Melendys in it. When the book opens, one year after the end of the third book, the three oldest children are off to boarding school and Randy and Oliver are facing a lonely, boring winter by themselves, until a mysterious letter written on blue paper arrives in the mail, containing the first clue to what will be a year-long treasure hunt. The clues are funny and entertaining, and the adventures Randy and Oliver get into, going from one clue to the next, are enjoyable. But we miss the presence of Mona, Rush and Mark except during the brief period they are home from school for the Christmas holidays, and the adults in the family, Father, Cuffy and Willie, aren't quite enough to take up the slack.

One thing about "Spiderweb" that sets it apart from the first three books is the lack of a time frame. Enright wrote the first three during World War II and the war is at the center of the family's lives and is present in each book; the children are busy presenting a show and working after school to buy war bonds and going on scrap metal drives during the summer holiday. The first three books take place from the later winter and early spring of 1942, through the end of the summer of 1943. But although "Spiderweb" runs from October of 1944 to June of 1945, the war is never even referred to in the book. Even V-E Day in May of 1945 which would have been celebrated all over town, isn't mentioned. Perhaps this is because Enright wrote "Spiderweb" ten years after she wrote the third book and many of her readers hadn't been born during the war; but still, some mention of the events would have given the book a dimension that is present in the first three but lacking in this one.

Another problem with "Spiderweb" is that Enright seems reluctant to let some of her characters grow up. She doesn't even mention Randy's age in the book, although we know Randy is four and half years older than Oliver, which means she's already a teenager. But Randy shows no interest in boys, movie stars, popular music, or any of the things thirteen year old girls normally obsess about. Mona comes home for vacation talking about "When I grow up I want to be..." No young lady going on seventeen talks about "when I grow up", in their minds they're already grown up. Enright's young characters seem caught in a time warp, frozen in time as children.

When I turned the last page of "Spiderweb" after reading it as a child, I was devastated to realize that there would be no more Melendy books. But Enright had the right idea; the next year would have seen Randy herself going off to boarding school and Mona off to college, leaving Oliver rattling around the Four Story Mistake by his lonesome. A depressing prospect indeed. Enright knew where to end it.

Judy Lind

One day I saw my daughter curled up with a book. "What are you reading?" I inquired. She flashed the well-loved cover of my childhood copy of Spiderweb for Two. "I was feeling Melendyish today," she explained. "Melendyish" is the perfect word to describe that sensation experienced by die-hard fans of Elizabeth Enright's four Melendy stories when nothing else will do but to curl up with one of her books and visit the beloved Melendy family once again. When I was a child the four Melendy children sometimes seemed more like real, three-dimensional people than some actual living, breathing kids I knew. Spiderweb for Two was the first Melendy book I read and it inspired me to create many mind-boggling clue hunts for my brother and my friends. The treasure hunts that figure prominently in the way my children and I celebrate holidays today can probably be traced back to those Melendyish moments of my childhood when I read this book over and over and over. (I can still recite some of the story's mysterious clues from memory!) I would suggest that you read the Melendy books in order: The Saturdays, The Four Story Mistake, Then There Were Five, Tatsinda (a fairy tale that is mentioned but not told in Then There Were Five) and finally Spiderweb For Two. Just be sure you don't stop before you get to Spiderweb for Two! Your whole family will enjoy it! If you want more funny, creative, warm and cozy family stories like these, try The Treasure Seekers, The Wouldbegoods, and New Treasure Seekers by E. Nesbit.

This was the first Melendy book I heard. My first school teacher read it to my class all through the hot summer of 1988 and we all loved it. We were all about the same age as the Oliver and Randy and enjoyed trying to solve the clues before them. I have read it hundreds of times since then and it has never lost its shine. It has a timeless quality to it which I associate with the books of E. Nesbit. It remains my favourite book of the series. An American classic

This is one of my favorite books of all time. I first read it when I was 13 years old and it was great. This book inspires everyone to be creative and to have fun with being young.

My mother read us the entire series when I was a child and we soaked them up (including my father who never missed a bedtime story reading!). I am surprised to read the other reviews saying this was their least favourite book in the series - I beg to disagree, naturally because it was my favourite as a child. Since we had also moved to the countryside and loved building tree houses and staging elaborate treasure hunts, this book gave me ample scope for imaginative hiding spots. Elizabeth Enright's books fed my lively imagination as a child and are wonderful adult reads too - I highly recommend them.

I very much enjoyed all of Enright's books--both the Melendy series and the Gone-Away books. When I found out that she had three sons, I longed to get them together and ask, "OK, which of you is Rush, which of you is Julian, which of you is Oliver?"

I would echo the reviewer who says that the Melendy books would make a great TV mini-series, excpet that (having seen what TV did to some other classic children's books) I'd be afraid that they'd try to modernize them and mess them up. While the Gone-Away books could, perhaps, survive (they are far less time-bound), the Melendy books are tied very specifically to a particular time/place, and attempts to update would ruin them.

when i first read this book in 1959, i was a little disappointed in the content. but it still stands as a truly entertaining entry in the melendy family chronicles. i have been an avid elizibeth enright fan ever since i read the the melendy family in the fourth grade. i recently reread the entire series, after managing to find a copy of this book at a garage sale. i still like the clues that randy and oliver find,and the way that their relationship grows throughout the adventure. this is what the family is all about, the bonds that tie the children together as they grow up in the 1940s. there is a great little insight into the life of "cuffy" that really shines in the book. parents, get this series for your children, but read it for yourselves!

This book is the fourth, and last book, in the series about the Melendy children. This particular book is about Oliver and Randy Melendy. Their siblings (Mona, Rush, and Mark) have just gone off to boarding school, and Randy and Oliver are bored. One day, a letter comes in the mail for them! They open it, and inside there is a poem written on a piece of paper. It is the beginning of a treasure hunt. All through the year they search for the clues that the poems talk about.
In this book, sometimes you can tell what is going to happen next and figure out the clues yourself, and sometimes you can not. This book was mysterious like when they got the first clue, but I would suggest that you read the first book before you read this one. It is called The Saturdays.
One of my favorite characters is Miss Bishop because she is nice, tells stories, and never goes to the store. She does not go to the store because she eats wild things and grows things in her garden. She is nice because she helps Oliver when he gets lost.

This was one of our daughter's favorite books when we read it to her as a child. She is now twenty and in college and it resides on a shelf with other best book-friends from her childhood, The Chronicles of Narnia, The Hobbit and The Trilogy, The Castle in the Attic,etc.(comfort reads now) This book is full of fun and innocence and safe mystery. It depicts a happy, intelligent family who live a peaceful yet interesting life.