Customer Reviews

The Vanishing Shadow

5 star:		(16)
4 star:		(17)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(7)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Judy Bolton was my heroine in the 1960s. Unlike Nancy Drew, she comes from a believable background, and grows up with each story. The Vanishing Shadow combines personal values of honesty, trust and integrity with a gripping story line which has action and mystery, but no gory scenes or gratuitous violence.Although this story was written over 30 years ago, it has aged well. Suitable for pre-teens.

The Judy Bolton series was famous in its heyday, and now, surprisingly, it's back in print, with the feisty, clever teenage heroine taking on truly bad guys -- and beating them -- while enjoying the parties, dances and social events of her own peer group.

Judy is spending a summer vacation with her grandparents in their small Pennsylvania town when she stumbles on a frightening mystery involving the new dam that's just been built in town. Before you can blink, she's been kidnapped by the baddies and held alone, overnight, in a strange and awful place. Oddly, Judy is released when she promises not to tell anyone what she knows (a strange thing for anyone to ask and even stranger for her to promise). But she also knows that something terrible may happen, and being Judy, she takes action to prevent it.

What she does leads to the bursting of the dam itself and the astonishing transformation of her older brother Horace into a local hero, when he rides through town helter-skelter, shouting a warning to the townspeople and saving almost all of them from the onrushing waters.

While this story does start slow, it picks up pace quite soon, and the vanished world of the 1930's (or possibly earlier) is well depicted in language that moves the reader quickly through Judy's various plights.

While not quite as exciting as Nancy Drew or Connie Blair, Judy has her own charm -- and it's easy to see a series like this drawing a lot of fans, many of them older and perhaps nostalgic for the time when they read her as children.

Judy may not be my favorite heroine, but I sure am glad I read her first adventure.

Fans of The Boxcar Children, The Hardy Boys, and Nancy Drew will enjoy Margaret Sutton's Judy Bolton mysteries. In The Vanishing Shadow, fifteen-year-old Judy is spending a lazy summer with her grandparents, itching for some excitement. When she overhears a private conversation with a sinister overtone, she immediately becomes a witness to a crime. The trick is to figure out what that crime is!

The same day, Judy receives a letter with tickets to a spelling bee and party from an anonymous sender. What is even more mysterious is the paper with the strange cross drawn on it that accompanies the tickets. Who invited her to the spelling bee? Now she has two mysteries to solve!

Written in a time period when a person's promise was a binding contract (even amongst criminals) and old timers still feared those newfangled automobiles, Judy's adventure reminds readers of life at a slower pace. Everyone knew everyone in town and children could walk about safely on their own.

There are a few period terms that may confuse younger readers, so be prepared with explanations if this is your child's first introduction to historical literature. Adult readers will also enjoy this nostalgic mystery, so don't hesitate to dive right in and read it for yourself before handing it off to the kids. Judy Bolton is a welcome retreat from today's technology-driven society.

I had never heard of Judy Bolton mysteries but as a kid I always enjoyed Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew mysteries. So I thought I'd check it out. And I have to stay, it's just like them. Same borderline cheesy plots. Friends and 1950's teen angst.
In other words good clean guilty pleasure. Fun read!

Reading through the Amazon reviews of "The Vanishing Shadow", I am somewhat saddened by those who have dismissed the character of Judy Bolton - and her author - on the basis of this one book, the first of more than three dozen titles in what is still the longest-running juvenile series in history written by only one person. (The Nancy Drew Mysteries, by comparison, were written by several authors through the years.) You see, Judy was a friend of mine during the span of my childhood, and we (literally) grew up together.

Judy's creator was Rachel Sutton (nee Beebe and later Hunting after her second marriage), who chose "Margaret Sutton" as her pen name. In "The Vanishing Shadow", Judy is introduced as a restless, adventurous, typically self-centered adolescent girl of fifteen, who doesn't quite understand herself or her family members. She is still grappling with her moral code of ethics, which is why, after she promises under duress never to speak of a dangerous secret she has learned, she seems paralyzed with indecision. Nonetheless, by the story's end, Judy's innate resourcefulness has enabled her to resolve the dilemma she has grappled with, and the stage is set for the next adventure in the series, "The Haunted Attic", which takes place in the months following "The Vanishing Shadow".

This foreshadowing is key to appreciating the difference in Judy Bolton and many of her contemporaries, for unlike the Hardy Boys or Nancy Drew or the Dana Girls, Judy actually grows older and evolves with each book in the series, gradually turning from a pubescent high school girl into a mature (albeit humanly imperfect) young woman with grown-up responsibilities, including a home and a husband. Key characters in the series are introduced and grow older; some of them even sicken, and eventually die. Thus, "The Vanishing Shadow" is but a prelude - an introduction - to the rest of the series, which is fascinating indeed, and was published from 1932 through 1967 (with an additional volume, "The Talking Snowman", printed in the late 1990's), entertaining several generations of young fans.

"Grow up with Judy Bolton," read one of the advertising slugs which promoted the series in the fifties and sixties ... the lucky readers who continue to read the books in order of publication will do just that, and are destined to spend many pleasant hours as Judy's life of mystery unfolds before their eyes.

I grew up liking Nancy Drew - the mystery, the intrigue, not to mention the fact that it was about a female heroine in a male dominated role. Judy Bolton is the same way, although as another reviewer pointed out, maybe a little bit more believable. It is a book that is hard to put down and is perfect for people of all ages. Hint, hint...stocking stuffer.

My wife Kathy's review: It was a surprise and joy to me as I read the book to realize I was reliving my youth! As I read I found myself experiencing the same friends and places I'd visited before.
For me it was a wonderfully refreshing trip I kept thinking as I read: "my granddaughter Katherine would love that" and "wouldn't Megan laugh at that." My granddaughters love to read, so I am sending this book to them to enjoy. I gave "The Vanishing Shadow" 4 stars as it has characters kids can readily relate to, a touch of history, suspense, a solid moral issue resolved, and even a kitten for comfort. I would read Margaret Sutton's stories to my grandchildren as bedtime stories.

I went to a Catholic elementary school which didn't have the advantage of the money public schools got. One of the things people thought was backward was the small school library, but I didn't think so at all.

The library was jammed full of original editions of books like the Nancy Drew series; Judy Bolton books were among the delicious finds.

Now I can't say for sure that devouring 1930s editions of Judy Bolton and Nancy Drew books had me reading at a college level when I was in fifth grade, but it sure didn't hurt!

Just remember that the language in these books was what kids were reading 70 years ago, and then compare it to the dumbed down and politically cleaned-up titles in these series, and then you can weep for today's kids. How much they miss, not being able to put themselves in a different day and time by reading the original literature of the era!

These books were ancient when I discovered them in the Catholic school library, but I loved them! I loved the language, the descriptions of times gone by, and yet the stories still held my interest (a mystery is a mystery, and I flew through them.)

My daughter loves these books, but since I collect the original titles, she was reading them when she was 8 years old (yes, your kid can, too!) I love rereading them myself, particularly when I'm home sick. There's something about snuggling under the covers, sipping lemon tea, and curling up with an old fashioned, fun book like this.

For those who can't collect the originals, Applewood Books is doing you a great service. Buy these books for yourself, and definitely invest in them for your kids. No better way to get them to see the world through a different light, and their vocabulary and spelling skills will skyrocket - guaranteed!

I got this book to pass on to my granddaughter. She is too young for it now (only 7), but I am sure she will be able to read it in a couple of years.

When I received the book, I thumbed through it, and I thought to myself, this looks like something from the 1930's. I looked the publishing date up, and sure enough, 1932. The book is true to its roots. Not a thing, except I would say the back cover, has been changed. This should be interesting, I think to myself. A life without electronics! Written during the Great Depression, I wondered if there would be a lot about that in the book (there isn't).

Actually, there are very few things in the book that stand out as dated. The heroine's father is a doctor who makes house calls, she wears only dresses, and the big social event is a county-wide spelling bee. There are a few other little things I noticed, but those are really the big ones. Also, there are several places where the dialogue is definitely yesteryear.

This is not, however, all a bad thing! How were the Little House on the Prairie books so successful, being from another time? The story itself must measure up! I must say this one could have been a bit better, only a bit, but overall, it was a good short mystery. It appears to be the first in a series of girl mysteries, somewhat like Nancy Drew.

Our heroine, Judy Bolton, is a 15-year old high school girl on summer break at her grandparents' farm while her parents take a vacation. Judy has an older brother, Horace, who works at a newspaper in one of the nearby small towns. She only sees him on the weekends.

Horace was a sickly child, pampered a lot by his mother and grandmother, and grew up afraid of nearly everything. Judy has a fair amount of contempt for Horace's fears, and I found that rather irritating. Judy is only 15, and they didn't have drugs for almost everything in those days, so we have to cut them a little slack on that, I think.

I don't want to ruin the book by saying too much. The book is only about 215 pages, a good length for young readers. It is broken up into fairly small chapters. By about page 20, our young heroine is kidnapped, later thrown from a horse. There is a broken dam and subsequent flood and damages. Horace has a life-altering experience that gives him a lot of new confidence.

At the end of the book, due to the flood, the Bolton home is destroyed, and they are going to move into a reputedly haunted house. Excellent segue to the next book. Sounds interesting!

IMHO better (& more believable) than Nancy Drew!
The setting is around the time cars and horse buggies were both on the road. Judy and her brother Horace are spending the summer with their grandparents, as her doctor father and mother are away. Judy is bored in general, but has a fantasy about being an investigator/mystery solver one day. There is a dam being built in town, which seems kind of ho-hum, but then she overhears a conversation about the dam, not understanding what she really overheard. Next thing she knows, someone wants her to keep quiet about the conversation, and is willing to buy her silence, and even kidnap her to scare her into silence, but what is this "secret", and why would anyone go so far to keep it?

The descriptions of life in those days are wonderful! Berry picking, feeling like her brother is more loved than her, the sibling rivalry between the two, but also the sharing and love between them as well, like any real brother and sister.

I found the characters much more believable and more alive than the old Nancy Drew characters I loved as a child. This is a series I'm sure my grandkids will love! I wish I had know about this series when I was young, but am enjoying them now as light reading.