The Mysterious Disappearance of Leon(I mean Noel) by Ellen Raskin Library of Congress in Publication Data: Summary: The Disappearance of her husband is only the first of the mysteries Mrs. Carillon must solve. [1. Mystery and detective stories [2. Humorous stories.] first printing 1971, 1989
Caroline Little Dumpling Fish's parents and Leon Carillon's parents produce a wonderful soup at their thanksgiving dinner, and decide to mass market it. They argue about the name of the soup; Carillon or Fish? until it is decided- Little dumpling will marry Leon, and so it will be named after both families, Mrs. Carillon's Pomato Soup. Leon and Little Dumpling, thereafer called Mrs.Carrilon, are married at once, and their parents run a very prosperous business. Leon is sent off to a boarding school, and Little Dumpling gets a governess. The parents are killed in an explosion after a few years, but this does not really matter to Mrs. Carillon or Noel(or rather Leon), as the parents had not been particularly attentive parents anyhow. Leon always sends Mrs. Carillon a card on their anniversary, until finally, when she is 19, he asks her to meet him at a hotel. She goes to the hotel, and meets a man who says he is Leon. They go boating, and the boat capsizes. The last Mrs. Carillon sees of Leon, he is saying something through a mouthful of water, and she can not make out exactly what he is saying.
Mrs.Carillon spends the next 20 years looking for Leon (remember she owns half of Mrs. Carillon's Pomato Soup). During those years, she carefully keeps her appearance as it was at the hotel. She follows horse racing faithfully, as Leon mentioned wanting a horse in one of his cards to her. One day, she meets twins who are living in an orphanage, and she adopts them. They convince her to settle down in New York. They continue to look to look for Leon there, and as they are no longer moving around to look for Leon, they spend a lot of time working on the message, which they call the glub glubs.
This book can be read with pen and paper and a bookmark as a puzzlebook, or it can be read as a book of humor. The illustrations(by the author) are really fun to look at, because they are made of smaller parts that have to do with the whole. Having been written thirty years ago, the attitudes shown in this book, and the money amounts, will appear outdated to anyone who actually falls in the target audiance- 10 to 14.
LOL or Solvable reading- your choice
