or
Sign in to turn on 1-Click ordering
More Buying Choices
Have one to sell? Sell yours here
Tell the Publisher!
I'd like to read this book on Kindle

Don't have a Kindle? Get your Kindle here, or download a FREE Kindle Reading App.
Sorry, this item is not available in
Image not available for
Color:
Image not available

To view this video download Flash Player

 

Then There Were Five (Melendy Quartet) [Paperback]

Elizabeth Enright
4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (21 customer reviews)

List Price: $7.99
Price: $7.19 & FREE Shipping on orders over $25. Details
You Save: $0.80 (10%)
o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o
Only 14 left in stock (more on the way).
Ships from and sold by Amazon.com. Gift-wrap available.
Want it Friday, May 24? Choose One-Day Shipping at checkout. Details

Formats

Amazon Price New from Used from
Hardcover, Bargain Price $7.98  
Paperback $7.19  
Audio, CD, Unabridged $21.15  
Audible Audio Edition, Unabridged $11.95 or Free with Audible 30-day free trial
Summer Reading
Summer Reading
Browse the best books for every age and adventure including popular series, classics, and editors' picks in our Kids Summer Reading Store.

Book Description

January 22, 2008 8 and up Melendy Quartet (Book 3)780L (What's this?)
With Father in Washington and Cuffy, their housekeeper, away visiting a sick cousin, almost anything might happen to the Melendy kids left behind at the Four-Story Mistake. In the Melendy family, adventures are inevitable: Mr. Titus and the catfish; the villainy of the DeLacey brothers; Rush's composition of Opus 3; Mona's first rhubarb pie and all the canning; Randy's arrowhead; the auction and fair for the Red Cross. But best of all is the friendship with Mark Herron, which begins with a scrap-collection mission and comes to a grand climax on Oliver's birthday.

Here is Elizabeth Enright's classic story of a long and glorious summer in the country with the resourceful, endearing Melendy bunch.
 
Then There Were Five is the third installment of Enright's Melendy Quartet, an engaging and warm series about the close-knit Melendy family and their surprising adventures.

Frequently Bought Together

Then There Were Five (Melendy Quartet) + The Four-Story Mistake (Melendy Quartet) + The Saturdays (Melendy Quartet)
Price for all three: $21.57

Buy the selected items together


Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Welcome Back! Old favorites are being reissued in force this fall. Elizabeth Enright's Melendy Quartet follows siblings Mona, Rush, Miranda (Randy, for short) and Oliver. First published in 1941, The Saturdays kicks off the series and centers on the foursome's Independent Saturday Afternoon Adventure Club (I.S.A.A.C.), an allowance-endowed venture formed so one lucky Melendy can enjoy a solo sojourn each week. In The Four-Story Mistake (1942) the family moves from their city brownstone to the country; Then There Were Five (1944) describes what happens when the siblings befriend an orphan; and in Spiderweb forTwo: A Melendy Maze (1951), when everyone else leaves for school, Randy and Oliver are left to solve a mystery. The author's charming pen-and-inks punctuate all four volumes. (Sept.)
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

"The Melendys are the quintessential storybook family...[their] ardent approach to living is eternally relevant." -- Publishers Weekly

Product Details

  • Age Range: 8 and up
  • Paperback: 272 pages
  • Publisher: Square Fish; Reissue edition (January 22, 2008)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0312376006
  • ISBN-13: 978-0312376000
  • Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 5.3 x 0.7 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (21 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #175,474 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

4.8 out of 5 stars
(21)
4.8 out of 5 stars
I cannot highly recommend these books enough to anyone who loves children's fiction. J. Becker  |  6 reviewers made a similar statement
Call me long distance if anything goes wrong! Rilchiam  |  3 reviewers made a similar statement
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
28 of 28 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars My favorite of the Melendy series January 25, 2001
Format:Hardcover
I have read and reread the Melendy Family series -- all four books -- since I was about 8 years old, and that's closer to 40 years ago now than I care to think. These books all have stayed with me emotionally, are all well loved -- and all absolutely are worth discovering as an adult if you missed them as a child.

But "Then There Were Five" remains my favorite of the four. It is the most like a "real" (grownup) novel in its plot, in the way the characters grow and change, and in the very vivid scenes set throughout. I still get shivers from the description of Mark and Rush spying on Oren and his pals at their illegal still, and especially from the chapter about the fire that sends a homeless Mark to live with his friends, the Melendys. The dark edges, to me, are what make this book the most compelling of the series. Yet it also brims with all the familial love and good-natured humor of the other Enright works.

This book, which originally ended the Melendy series ("Spiderweb for Two" came years later), is the one that stands out as a truly dimensional narrative work. I've always thought it would make a terrific family film, if one could only be made that was faithful to the World War II period and to the characters as well as the basic plot.

One of the things I love about Elizabeth Enright is how she educates her young readers while she entertains them. In "The Saturdays," I learned a bit about Wagner's "Siegfried" through Rush's trip to the Metropolitan Opera, and what petits fours were through Randy's tea with Mrs. Oliphant. In "The Four-Story Mistake," through Mona's radio acting job, I learned that radio was just as important to the 1940s as TV to the 1960s. In "Then There Were Five," thanks to Mark's homegrown talent for natural history, I learned about the Perseids meteor showers that come every August, and that an amanita mushroom is pale poison. (I also learned, thanks to Mona and Randy's kitchen disasters, that canning tomatoes isn't nearly as easy as it looks.) And I found out an amazing number of things about moths from Oliver's hobby of collecting caterpillars.

These are great books. Find them, buy them, read them!

Comment | 
Was this review helpful to you?
11 of 11 people found the following review helpful
By A Customer
Format:Paperback
The Melendy Family books have been favorites of mine for over 30 years -- and getting closer to 40. This is a series that truly deserves to be called classic. *Then There Was Five* continues the kind of adventures and discoveries the Melendy kids had in *The Four-Story Mistake.* There's a new boy introduced in this book, the Mark who makes five. He and Rush get into a pretty hair-raising adventure involving Mark's guardian, the nasty Mr. Meeker. (Don't worry -- Mona, Randy, and Oliver have adventures, too.) As a child I didn't pick up on all of the nuances of this book. As an adult, I can. (The scene with the social worker makes me howl with sympathetic laughter.) If this book was a childhood friend, you'll be glad to meet it again. Parents, this is a good series. Buy it for your children (and if you haven't any children, buy it for yourself). Ann E. Nichols
Comment | 
Was this review helpful to you?
10 of 10 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Darkness and Light October 8, 2002
Format:Hardcover
The third Melendy novel has a darker undertone than the preceding two, with the introduction of Mark Herron, a lonely orphan befriended by Rush and Randy, and his guardian-cousin, the fearsome Oren Meeker. There are thrills and heart-clutchers a-plenty--Rush and Mark spying on an illegal whiskey still, a vividly described house fire--but they're nicely leavened by the lighter incidents like the character of Mr. Jasper Titus, rural gourmand, and the resolve of Mona and Randy to undertake the canning of the family's victory-garden produce. And in the end everything comes out right, as it should in a juvenile. This is the book to which Enright was leading up with the previous two, and perhaps the best she wrote. The whole trilogy would make a splendid miniseries on TV (is any executive reading this? I'll even do the script!).
Comment | 
Was this review helpful to you?
Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars Another great Enright book!
We love these books and highly recommend them for family reading time. The copy we received was in great shape and worth the price.
Published 5 days ago by ladypuddleduck
4.0 out of 5 stars A welcome, intelligent set of children stories.
The four books in the Melendy Quartet are well written. You are drawn into the life of the Melendy children.
Published 1 month ago by George F. Jones
5.0 out of 5 stars Arrived in time for sis' b-day!
Love the Melendy Quartet...introduced it to my sis and her family and they enjoy it too. Full of good, clean, old-fashioned fun. Read more
Published 1 month ago by Deborah Lim
5.0 out of 5 stars Refreshing!!
This book is imaginative, fun and full of lessons! I am weary of the shows and books that are written for children these days. Read more
Published 2 months ago by Craig E. Root
5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful family story
My nine- year-old grandson and I read together every morning on Skype. It is his bedtime in China. We loved the Melendy Quartet and Spiderweb for Two, too. Highly recommended. Read more
Published 14 months ago by Susan G. Beck
2.0 out of 5 stars groan
The worst of the Melendy Quartet.

The series is swimming along beautifully, and then of COURSE the Melendys befriend a poor, luckless orphaned child whose cousin (foster... Read more
Published 15 months ago by M. Heiss
5.0 out of 5 stars Incredible, wonderful books
I've enjoyed these books since I was five or six. Now my kids love them also! I cannot highly recommend these books enough to anyone who loves children's fiction.
Published 16 months ago by J. Becker
5.0 out of 5 stars Simple Life of the 40s
We have read this series several times to our girls, both aloud and as bedtime stories. The Melendy family lives in our hearts, and conversation. Read more
Published on December 12, 2009 by K. Guidry
5.0 out of 5 stars Another Wonderful Melendy Story
I am now in my fifties, but my memories of the fond hours I spent in the company of Elizabeth Enright's Melendy family are still sharp. Read more
Published on October 19, 2009 by John D. Cofield
4.0 out of 5 stars Part of the 4-series Melendy family story
The Melendy family has moved from New York City. It's summertime and their father is in Washington on important business. Read more
Published on April 22, 2008 by Armchair Interviews
Search Customer Reviews
Only search this product's reviews

What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?


Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store

If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store. Learn more

Forums

There are no discussions about this product yet.
Be the first to discuss this product with the community.
Start a new discussion
Topic:
First post:
Prompts for sign-in
 





Look for Similar Items by Category