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The Mysterious Disappearance of Leon [I Mean Noel]
From the Newbery Award-winning author of THE WESTING GAME, more clever riddles and wordplay, clues to be found, and mysteries to be solved!Glub! Blub!Mrs. Caroline "Little Dumpling" Carillon isn't quite sure what to expect when she sets off to meet her husband, Leon. After all, she hasn't seen him since their wedding when she was five and he was seven. But their reunion is cut short when a storm knocks him off their boat, and he disappears completely, leaving only one very waterlogged clue (Glub! Blub!). Will Dumpling be able to find Leon (or is it Noel) again? And just what is a glub blub?
152 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1971
42 people are currently reading
1274 people want to read
About the author
Ellen Raskin
63 books1,109 followersEllen Raskin was a writer, illustrator, and designer. She was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and grew up during the Great Depression. She primarily wrote for children. She received the 1979 Newbery Medal for her 1978 book, The Westing Game.
Ms. Raskin was also an accomplished graphic artist. She designed dozens of dust jackets for books, including the first edition of Madeleine L'Engle's classic A Wrinkle in Time.
She married Dennis Flanagan, editor of Scientific American, in 1965.
Raskin died at the age of 56 on August 8, 1984, in New York City due to complications from connective tissue disease.
Ms. Raskin was also an accomplished graphic artist. She designed dozens of dust jackets for books, including the first edition of Madeleine L'Engle's classic A Wrinkle in Time.
She married Dennis Flanagan, editor of Scientific American, in 1965.
Raskin died at the age of 56 on August 8, 1984, in New York City due to complications from connective tissue disease.
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November 12, 2008A favorite. This book progresses in just the right way. I was fascinated by the word-people when I first read it as a kid, and this time I could clearly see in my mind's eye how this story would read as a film! Oh how dramatic the Glub-Blub scene would be! Mrs. Carrillon kneeling on flotsam, Leon (I mean Noel) sinking into the ocean, "Noel glub C blub all. I glub, new..." And WHAM! Yardarm to the noggin.
It's such a sweet story of people who find they loved each other all along.
Additionally, the lessons learned from the story helped me against bullies in junior high once, when I was chased from the lunchroom across the street to the seminary building by some obnoxious girls who were asking me what kind of underwear I wore. For a shy shy kid, this was too much to bear, and I ran rather than answer them. However, just as I got to the front door of the seminary building I remembered Mrs. Carrillon's personal preference, and turned to face the girls to repeat one of her best lines, "I don't wear underwear - I wear purple-flowered bathing suits!"
And, leaving the two girl bullies with their jaws in the road, I flounced into the safety of the building. Thank you Mrs. Carrillon. Thank you Augie Kunkle. Grape Mrs. Carrillon and GRAPE YOU!
It's such a sweet story of people who find they loved each other all along.
Additionally, the lessons learned from the story helped me against bullies in junior high once, when I was chased from the lunchroom across the street to the seminary building by some obnoxious girls who were asking me what kind of underwear I wore. For a shy shy kid, this was too much to bear, and I ran rather than answer them. However, just as I got to the front door of the seminary building I remembered Mrs. Carrillon's personal preference, and turned to face the girls to repeat one of her best lines, "I don't wear underwear - I wear purple-flowered bathing suits!"
And, leaving the two girl bullies with their jaws in the road, I flounced into the safety of the building. Thank you Mrs. Carrillon. Thank you Augie Kunkle. Grape Mrs. Carrillon and GRAPE YOU!
September 21, 2020
"It’s a funny thing about names. Some are long, some are short; some mean something, others don’t; but everyone and everything has one, or two or three."
Caroline “Little Dumpling” Fish Carillon has quite the backstory for someone so young. She was married at five years old (business is business, after all), orphaned at twelve, and widowed (maybe…no one is quite sure) at nineteen. Throw in twins, an unfortunate incarceration, a cross-country manhunt, and a watery clue that seems practically insolvable and you have a mystery for the ages! With the help of the glub blubs, Mrs. Carillon is quite sure that she’ll be able to find Leon (I mean Noel).
The Mysterious Disappearance of Leon (I Mean Noel) is the perfect read for any young detective. Raskin provides readers with plenty of clues along our heroine’s journey of finding her lost love. While her Newberry Medal mystery The Westing Game can easily be enjoyed by older readers, this book is clearly written for a younger audience. The Mysterious Disappearance of Leon (I Mean Noel) provides pages and pages of slapstick fun and silly good humor. It’s delightful in its utter absurdity and endearing in its over-the-top implausibility. Readers are encouraged to sleuth along with Mrs. Carillon and her twins—Tina and Tony—and helpful tips and hints make for a totally immersive reading experience.
Throughout Raskin’s book, Mrs. Carillon is forever searching for what she thought she wanted. Endlessly chasing an idea that she thought she needed. American author Meg Cabot—best known for The Princess Diaries—wrote “Sometimes what you want is right in front of you. All you have to do is open your eyes and see it.” Ironically, it was only after Mrs. Carillon stopped chasing a dream that she was able to find her heart.
Caroline “Little Dumpling” Fish Carillon has quite the backstory for someone so young. She was married at five years old (business is business, after all), orphaned at twelve, and widowed (maybe…no one is quite sure) at nineteen. Throw in twins, an unfortunate incarceration, a cross-country manhunt, and a watery clue that seems practically insolvable and you have a mystery for the ages! With the help of the glub blubs, Mrs. Carillon is quite sure that she’ll be able to find Leon (I mean Noel).
The Mysterious Disappearance of Leon (I Mean Noel) is the perfect read for any young detective. Raskin provides readers with plenty of clues along our heroine’s journey of finding her lost love. While her Newberry Medal mystery The Westing Game can easily be enjoyed by older readers, this book is clearly written for a younger audience. The Mysterious Disappearance of Leon (I Mean Noel) provides pages and pages of slapstick fun and silly good humor. It’s delightful in its utter absurdity and endearing in its over-the-top implausibility. Readers are encouraged to sleuth along with Mrs. Carillon and her twins—Tina and Tony—and helpful tips and hints make for a totally immersive reading experience.
Throughout Raskin’s book, Mrs. Carillon is forever searching for what she thought she wanted. Endlessly chasing an idea that she thought she needed. American author Meg Cabot—best known for The Princess Diaries—wrote “Sometimes what you want is right in front of you. All you have to do is open your eyes and see it.” Ironically, it was only after Mrs. Carillon stopped chasing a dream that she was able to find her heart.
September 6, 2009
The Mysterious Disappearance of Leon (I Mean Noel) is an amazing book that can be equally enjoyed by adults and children alike. Adults reading the book see more layers to it than the kids, but the read is just as mysterious and enjoyable (although the idea of marriage at that young an age will be a squicky one). If you have read Ellen Raskin's Westing Game, and even if you haven't, this is a book you really need to get your hands on. I've read some of her other books, but absolutely nothing compares to these two classics. This one comes fully equipped with hysterical characters and plenty of footnotes. It's adorably quirky without trying too hard. Every thing, every hilarious incident, is narrated casually and in a way that just makes it all funnier. Everything is so tantalizingly cryptic, and at times, downright confusing, but it's a huge relief when everything really falls into place and you realize that every event that was narrated is somehow connected to the big picture scheme. Other than all that, it's a very readable book. The chapters are divided up into small sections and just style-wise, it's an easy but really worthwhile read. It really emphasizes the reason why we love Ellen Raskin so much--plot twists and surprises everywhere! The other really nice thing is that the mystery is not at all obvious. Nobody would ever suspect the outcome, but it's such a compelling one! It's got snark, puzzles, humor, definitely not just a kids' book. It is also really nice, at the end, to get closure from all of the characters, so I do appreciate it when authors like Raskin do things like that.
Rating: 5/5
September 19, 2016
Oh I wanted to like this more than I did. But the puzzles made little sense, with too many red herrings and other not-helpful hints, and the mystery made not much more sense. And the HEA ending? Nah....
July 23, 2007
Amusing, lighter fare from Raskin. The puzzle mystery in this one revolves around solving the "glub-blubs," that is, filling in chunks of a sentence that were swallowed by the ocean as a mysterious person drowned while trying to communicate a secret message to Mrs. Carillon. She is assisted in her detecting (solve the riddle, find her missing husband) by twins Tina and Tony and the gentle Augie Kunkel. Charming.
June 26, 2021
That ending was sad and a bit unsatisfying, but sweet.
(Only thing I hated was , that was disappointing.)
(Only thing I hated was , that was disappointing.)
December 17, 2016
3.5 stars. This is not as good as The Westing Game, but has much the same sort of humor, if I remember correctly.
February 4, 2010
Ellen Raskin was one of my favorite authors when I was in elementary school. I kind of thought her books would get less disturbing as I got older, but...no.
November 12, 2008
A favorite. This book progresses in just the right way. I was fascinated by the word-people when I first read it as a kid, and this time I could clearly see in my mind's eye how this story would read as a film! Oh how dramatic the Glub-Blub scene would be! Mrs. Carrillon kneeling on flotsam, Leon (I mean Noel) sinking into the ocean, "Noel glub C blub all. I glub, new..." And WHAM! Yardarm to the noggin.
It's such a sweet story of people who find they loved each other all along.
Additionally, the lessons learned from the story helped me against bullies in junior high once, when I was chased from the lunchroom across the street to the seminary building by some obnoxious girls who were asking me what kind of underwear I wore. For a shy shy kid, this was too much to bear, and I ran rather than answer them. However, just as I got to the front door of the seminary building I remembered Mrs. Carrillon's personal preference, and turned to face the girls to repeat one of her best lines, "I don't wear underwear - I wear purple-flowered bathing suits!"
And, leaving the two girl bullies with their jaws in the road, I flounced into the safety of the building. Thank you Mrs. Carrillon. Thank you Augie Kunkle. Grape Mrs. Carrillon and GRAPE YOU!
It's such a sweet story of people who find they loved each other all along.
Additionally, the lessons learned from the story helped me against bullies in junior high once, when I was chased from the lunchroom across the street to the seminary building by some obnoxious girls who were asking me what kind of underwear I wore. For a shy shy kid, this was too much to bear, and I ran rather than answer them. However, just as I got to the front door of the seminary building I remembered Mrs. Carrillon's personal preference, and turned to face the girls to repeat one of her best lines, "I don't wear underwear - I wear purple-flowered bathing suits!"
And, leaving the two girl bullies with their jaws in the road, I flounced into the safety of the building. Thank you Mrs. Carrillon. Thank you Augie Kunkle. Grape Mrs. Carrillon and GRAPE YOU!
June 9, 2012
I want to give it a 5 but that's because it was a personally transformative book. The transformation, honestly, had way more to do with the context of my life than it did the book. That's not to say it wasn't an awesome piece of lit to put in the hands of a fifth-grade reader in the 1970s. It was recommended to me by my 5th grade reading teacher. Prior to this, I was only interested in reading non fiction or fiction that read like an historical account. This book gave me a great big taste of, "Huh?" The goofy plot twists based on a child-bride soup heiress were intoxicating. After that, my reading choices broadened, significantly.
October 25, 2007
I first read this when I was in 6th grade (I'm 36 as of this writing and still read this every once in a while!). Titles are often times the first thing that grabs me when I browse for a book, and this title was no excecption!
This is the first fiction book I read that included unusual footnotes and typography, leading to admirations of David Foster Wallace, James Joyce, and other experimental writers. The fascination with words and symbols were also a plus for me. It's a fast and funny story that I have been waiting for the movie adaptation of since my first read!
This is the first fiction book I read that included unusual footnotes and typography, leading to admirations of David Foster Wallace, James Joyce, and other experimental writers. The fascination with words and symbols were also a plus for me. It's a fast and funny story that I have been waiting for the movie adaptation of since my first read!
February 20, 2017
Fun book with a classic 70's feel. Definitely will be reading this one to my kids. Highly recommend for kids and adults!
September 17, 2019
As a child and thought it was one of the strangest books I'd ever encountered. Years later, I struggled to remember the title. I certainly didn't know the author's name. I couldn't remember many particulars, except something about drowning, but mostly I remembered it had all these crazy footnotes. I despaired of ever figuring out what this mystery book was.
Then, a couple months ago, some details came back to me: Leon. Noel. A red mustache. A quick internet search, and there it was. Author? None other than the famous Ellen Raskin! My daughter had just read The Westing Game, and she even forced me to read it aloud to her.
Soon I had a used copy of The Mysterious Disappearance of Leon, and we read it aloud as well. I was delighted to find it just as quirky as I remembered. My daughter liked it too. The illustrations are quite fun and were done by Ms. Raskin herself.
Then, a couple months ago, some details came back to me: Leon. Noel. A red mustache. A quick internet search, and there it was. Author? None other than the famous Ellen Raskin! My daughter had just read The Westing Game, and she even forced me to read it aloud to her.
Soon I had a used copy of The Mysterious Disappearance of Leon, and we read it aloud as well. I was delighted to find it just as quirky as I remembered. My daughter liked it too. The illustrations are quite fun and were done by Ms. Raskin herself.
January 14, 2019
This book wasn't as good as the Westing Game. However, Ellen won the Newbery for Westing so there's that. This book was done earlier and she might have still been getting her "sea legs". (Hilarious, if you've read the book!)
Leon and Caroline are married at the age of 5 in order to ensure an alliance between their families. Leon is promptly shipped off to boarding school and they only communicate via letters until they are nineteen. They meet in Florida and go on a boat ride. The boat is immediately capsized and as Leon (who has changed his name to Noel) flounders in the water, he relays a mysterious message to Mrs. Carrillon.
When she wakes in the hospital, Noel is gone and she must embark on a mission to find her missing husband. Along the way, she meets new friends and never changes her dress style so that Noel will always be able to recognize her.
This book is great for kids. However, it's a mystery with some clues that even I got annoyed with. No, I'm not saying my age, but suffice to say, I'm not a child. There's some great wordplay that will teach kids about English and they'll get to solve a mystery. And I think the characters are very likeable.
I really enjoy this author and will probably try and read some more by her.
Leon and Caroline are married at the age of 5 in order to ensure an alliance between their families. Leon is promptly shipped off to boarding school and they only communicate via letters until they are nineteen. They meet in Florida and go on a boat ride. The boat is immediately capsized and as Leon (who has changed his name to Noel) flounders in the water, he relays a mysterious message to Mrs. Carrillon.
When she wakes in the hospital, Noel is gone and she must embark on a mission to find her missing husband. Along the way, she meets new friends and never changes her dress style so that Noel will always be able to recognize her.
This book is great for kids. However, it's a mystery with some clues that even I got annoyed with. No, I'm not saying my age, but suffice to say, I'm not a child. There's some great wordplay that will teach kids about English and they'll get to solve a mystery. And I think the characters are very likeable.
I really enjoy this author and will probably try and read some more by her.
November 23, 2020
Continuing on with reading Ellen Raskin...
She really is great. These books are very different from every other children or mystery novel that I know. Even though they were written in the '70s, the style is unique which makes them fresh for me.
This particular book had a solid mystery. I guessed most of the big ideas but there were still several small details revealed at the end to keep me guessing. There was a lot of word play and adult targeted humor thrown in as well. It had a fun cast of characters, lovely found family, and an interactive use of footnotes.
It did drag a little in places, which is sad for such a short book.
Oh and the note/ joke about not writing in books will be ignored. I write in mine! Sue me!
She really is great. These books are very different from every other children or mystery novel that I know. Even though they were written in the '70s, the style is unique which makes them fresh for me.
This particular book had a solid mystery. I guessed most of the big ideas but there were still several small details revealed at the end to keep me guessing. There was a lot of word play and adult targeted humor thrown in as well. It had a fun cast of characters, lovely found family, and an interactive use of footnotes.
It did drag a little in places, which is sad for such a short book.
Oh and the note/ joke about not writing in books will be ignored. I write in mine! Sue me!
April 24, 2019
I have been trying to figure out what this book was called for years- I could only remember the cover, and that I checked it out multiple times in grade school. I was looking up what other books Ellen Raskin wrote, and there it was!! It was as zany as I remembered, and it was fun to read through it again!
January 25, 2019
Great fun to read! It is too much fun to be just for kids.
December 29, 2024
So very charming
March 13, 2025
An awesome, funny read. Suffers a bit from dated attitudes towards women and children, but overall, it still holds up wonderfully.
So after their parents make soup for their Thanksgiving dinner, the impoverished Fish and Carillon families decide that the soup was good enough to make them a million dollars. Since Money Is Money and Fair is Fair, they immediately start fighting over which family actually owns the soup recipe, what to call it, and who has the right to make it, sell it, and have that future million dollars. To settle the matter, the parents decide to marry their two children, Caroline "Little Dumpling" Fish (5) and Leon (I mean Noel) Carillion (7), to each other so that the families can share the soup, its profits, its factory, and all the silliness that follows. Leon is then sent off to boarding school, with Caroline homeschooled by a mean governess, with Caroline's only joy being the short, succinct, and precise yearly letters from Leon.
Then the soup factory explodes, killing the parents and Kunkle the factory foreman.
"Succinct" and "short" are massive understatements. But over the course of 14 years and 13 letters, Leon says hello, changes his name to Noel, grows a red mustache and shaves it off, has a best friend called Pinky, learns to ride a horse, wears glasses, wears a black tie, and absolute hates the family soup (now called "Mrs Carillon's Pomato Soup").
But when Leon's (Noel's) 14th message arrives, telling Caroline to meet him at a beach hotel, Caroline happily leaves the mean governess and her family home behind to join Leon/Noel. But tragedy strikes again: Caroline nearly drowns in a boating accident, and Leon/Noel goes missing, leaving only a cryptic message garbled by Leon (Noel?)'s attempts to swim to safety:
“Noel glub C blub all. . .I glub new. . . .”
Thus kicks off Mrs Carillon's lengthy search for Leon (Noel?), as she attempts to solve his cryptic last words. Along the way, she eats a lot of Chinese food, visits a lot of zoos, sees a lot of Westerns, goes thru a lot of purple-flowered dresses, obsesses over a racing horse called Christmas Bells and the horse's mysterious jockey Seymour Hall, adopts Tina and Tony (who may or may not be Siamese twins), causes a riot at Bloomingdales, and reunites with her childhood friend Augie Kunkle (the son of the exploded Factory Foreman) who is amazingly good with words and the only sane person in the story (for a given value of "sane" anyway).
Confused yet? My explanation only touches the surface of the shenanigans and weirdness in the search for Leon (Noel?). Raskin has a gift for making both bizarre situations and off-kilter characters, with everything that happens turning out to be necessary for solving the mystery. Again, a fun read!
So after their parents make soup for their Thanksgiving dinner, the impoverished Fish and Carillon families decide that the soup was good enough to make them a million dollars. Since Money Is Money and Fair is Fair, they immediately start fighting over which family actually owns the soup recipe, what to call it, and who has the right to make it, sell it, and have that future million dollars. To settle the matter, the parents decide to marry their two children, Caroline "Little Dumpling" Fish (5) and Leon (I mean Noel) Carillion (7), to each other so that the families can share the soup, its profits, its factory, and all the silliness that follows. Leon is then sent off to boarding school, with Caroline homeschooled by a mean governess, with Caroline's only joy being the short, succinct, and precise yearly letters from Leon.
Then the soup factory explodes, killing the parents and Kunkle the factory foreman.
"Succinct" and "short" are massive understatements. But over the course of 14 years and 13 letters, Leon says hello, changes his name to Noel, grows a red mustache and shaves it off, has a best friend called Pinky, learns to ride a horse, wears glasses, wears a black tie, and absolute hates the family soup (now called "Mrs Carillon's Pomato Soup").
But when Leon's (Noel's) 14th message arrives, telling Caroline to meet him at a beach hotel, Caroline happily leaves the mean governess and her family home behind to join Leon/Noel. But tragedy strikes again: Caroline nearly drowns in a boating accident, and Leon/Noel goes missing, leaving only a cryptic message garbled by Leon (Noel?)'s attempts to swim to safety:
“Noel glub C blub all. . .I glub new. . . .”
Thus kicks off Mrs Carillon's lengthy search for Leon (Noel?), as she attempts to solve his cryptic last words. Along the way, she eats a lot of Chinese food, visits a lot of zoos, sees a lot of Westerns, goes thru a lot of purple-flowered dresses, obsesses over a racing horse called Christmas Bells and the horse's mysterious jockey Seymour Hall, adopts Tina and Tony (who may or may not be Siamese twins), causes a riot at Bloomingdales, and reunites with her childhood friend Augie Kunkle (the son of the exploded Factory Foreman) who is amazingly good with words and the only sane person in the story (for a given value of "sane" anyway).
Confused yet? My explanation only touches the surface of the shenanigans and weirdness in the search for Leon (Noel?). Raskin has a gift for making both bizarre situations and off-kilter characters, with everything that happens turning out to be necessary for solving the mystery. Again, a fun read!
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
December 29, 2023
I bought this book to gift to my niece for Christmas, but decided since I had enjoyed The Westing Game so much, I might enjoy reading this one just as much. Unfortunately it was dramatically less fantastic than The Westing Game, but it was interesting, and I believe I would have liked it much more as a twelve year old.
The book is entirely dissimilar to The Westing Game. It's style is quirky and light, and the setting is intentionally bizarre and impossible. It is what it aims to be, a clever and fun read with plenty of wordplay and an opportunity for the reader to solve the mystery on their own before the big reveal happens.
I would recommend it to any 10-14 year old who already enjoys reading.
The book is entirely dissimilar to The Westing Game. It's style is quirky and light, and the setting is intentionally bizarre and impossible. It is what it aims to be, a clever and fun read with plenty of wordplay and an opportunity for the reader to solve the mystery on their own before the big reveal happens.
I would recommend it to any 10-14 year old who already enjoys reading.
February 19, 2018
I read this as a kid a BUNCH of times and thought it would be fun to read it again. The puzzles are fun but I don't think the book holds up all that well for this day and age. Still, I imagine a kid that like solving puzzles might like it. Funny, I didn't remember much of it at all or the solution.
I would rate this as either a 3 or 4 for a kid and a 2 or 3 for an adult. Fun book but I bet there are more modern takes on it now (and also since society has changed greatly since this book was written). But, back in the day, this was a great book for me.
I would rate this as either a 3 or 4 for a kid and a 2 or 3 for an adult. Fun book but I bet there are more modern takes on it now (and also since society has changed greatly since this book was written). But, back in the day, this was a great book for me.
May 17, 2013
I just finished reading this to my boys. They loved it!!! We ended up
reading much more than my usual one chapter because we were all enjoying
it so much. It had been years since I read it and I had forgotten the
plot, so I was as eager as the boys to see the puzzle of Leon solved.
I will have to definitely read more Raskin with them.
reading much more than my usual one chapter because we were all enjoying
it so much. It had been years since I read it and I had forgotten the
plot, so I was as eager as the boys to see the puzzle of Leon solved.
I will have to definitely read more Raskin with them.
December 18, 2016
The writing style does not work for me but I do think the mystery is rather good, albeit having some cumbersome explanation in the middle. As a whole it will probably captivate a younger reader so for once even though I usually think adults should be able to enjoy a good middle grade book, I think young audience will appreciate this book more than I do.
August 25, 2016
Read and re-read the library's copy of this, over a couple of years, until I managed to work out all the answers on my own. (Yes, I'd checked them already, but I wanted to see how to get from point A to point B on my own.)
June 6, 2024
One of my favorite books of all time.
December 20, 2017
I remember my sixth grade teacher reading this to us. She started crying, she was laughing so hard.
February 23, 2021
A silly, fun children's mystery book that includes travel over the U.S. Honestly I'm not even sure how this ended up on my virtual tbr pile, but I think it had something to do with seeing it somehow in the same conversation as Where'd You Go, Bernadette. Well, it's not anything like that book, but at the time I must've thought a mystery with the same level of writing as the Bernadette book by the author of the loved Westing Game might be something I want to check out.
The set up is a bit absurd. Two poor midwest farmer families strike it rich by inventing pomato (potato-tomato) soup. One family has a girl (the protagonist of the story) and the other a boy (Leon), and because of disagreements they marry them at around six years old. The parents all die in a freak factory accident leaving the married children orphans. Leon is permanently sent away to grow up in private schools while the girl grows up with a mean nanny, though the two children share very occasional postcards.
Leon is reclusive and has changed his name to Noel, but after they're of legal age agrees to meet his wife on a sailing excursion to discuss things. Unfortunately there's an accident and the girl is knocked unconscious just as she half hears a few last words from Leon. When she wakes he's disappeared without a trace and she determines to spend her life trying to decipher his final words to her which she is sure was an important message and find her lost husband, and because of the soup fortune money can basically do as she pleases. She ages fully into womanhood and also ends up adopting two sibling orphans she meets along the way and this little family travel from place to place in search of the elusive Leon (I mean Noel).
The mystery is actually hard and I, an adult (just in case you weren't sure), didn't solve it, and I think it'd be a very rare child who did. But also, it's obscure and not clearly presented almost as if that aspect were secondhand to what's happening with the main characters at any point in time.
I do remember reading the excellent Westing Game when I was a child. I absolutely loved it, but even though my young mind could sometimes solve a Christie mystery I did not solve the Westing Game one before the reveal, and I remember being disappointed I hadn't put it all together. Decades separate my readings of that and this but after all these years this book gives me a slight reassurance that perhaps that mystery wasn't as solvable as I'd figured it had to have been when I read it. I mean, if I couldn't solve this children's mystery by the same author when an, ahem, grown-ass man then not being able to solve that one as a child makes much more sense. However my recollection still makes me think that one seemed more solvable in the end, but I'll take my reassurances where I can find them.
I don't think this is on anywhere near the same level as The Westing Game, but it's still a good enough little read if you're in the mood for a random children's mystery, or you know (or are) a child interested in mysteries. Just be aware (or warn the child) that the mystery is hard so don't worry or be frustrated if not able to solve it ahead of time. I think the book is notable for including travelling around the U.S. which could be educational for a child reading it. Altogether, sometimes the book is too silly for words but other times it was funny enough to elicit chuckles from me.
The set up is a bit absurd. Two poor midwest farmer families strike it rich by inventing pomato (potato-tomato) soup. One family has a girl (the protagonist of the story) and the other a boy (Leon), and because of disagreements they marry them at around six years old. The parents all die in a freak factory accident leaving the married children orphans. Leon is permanently sent away to grow up in private schools while the girl grows up with a mean nanny, though the two children share very occasional postcards.
Leon is reclusive and has changed his name to Noel, but after they're of legal age agrees to meet his wife on a sailing excursion to discuss things. Unfortunately there's an accident and the girl is knocked unconscious just as she half hears a few last words from Leon. When she wakes he's disappeared without a trace and she determines to spend her life trying to decipher his final words to her which she is sure was an important message and find her lost husband, and because of the soup fortune money can basically do as she pleases. She ages fully into womanhood and also ends up adopting two sibling orphans she meets along the way and this little family travel from place to place in search of the elusive Leon (I mean Noel).
The mystery is actually hard and I, an adult (just in case you weren't sure), didn't solve it, and I think it'd be a very rare child who did. But also, it's obscure and not clearly presented almost as if that aspect were secondhand to what's happening with the main characters at any point in time.
I do remember reading the excellent Westing Game when I was a child. I absolutely loved it, but even though my young mind could sometimes solve a Christie mystery I did not solve the Westing Game one before the reveal, and I remember being disappointed I hadn't put it all together. Decades separate my readings of that and this but after all these years this book gives me a slight reassurance that perhaps that mystery wasn't as solvable as I'd figured it had to have been when I read it. I mean, if I couldn't solve this children's mystery by the same author when an, ahem, grown-ass man then not being able to solve that one as a child makes much more sense. However my recollection still makes me think that one seemed more solvable in the end, but I'll take my reassurances where I can find them.
I don't think this is on anywhere near the same level as The Westing Game, but it's still a good enough little read if you're in the mood for a random children's mystery, or you know (or are) a child interested in mysteries. Just be aware (or warn the child) that the mystery is hard so don't worry or be frustrated if not able to solve it ahead of time. I think the book is notable for including travelling around the U.S. which could be educational for a child reading it. Altogether, sometimes the book is too silly for words but other times it was funny enough to elicit chuckles from me.
September 22, 2023
Probably 3 stars really but it gets an extra star for childhood nostalgia.
I vividly remember the cover of the 1989 Puffin paperback edition of this book, which I suspect I checked out of the library multiple times. I'm not sure what made me think of it recently, but I decided it might be fun to re-read, and it was: I remembered parts of the story but had forgotten others, and there are definitely some things in this book that I find funny now that I wouldn't have noticed as a kid. (Like this exchange: "If Mr. Kunkel's father worked so hard for the business, he should have owned part of it, too," "Tony said. "Young man, you know nothing about business," Mr. Banks said uneasily. "What do they teach you at that school, anyway? Socialism?")
Anyway: this is a silly/bonkers mystery where you very much have to suspend disbelief (there are so many coincidences in the way the paths of characters cross!) but if you aren't looking for realism, it's a fun romp. When the book opens we meet Caroline Carillon, née Fish, and her next-door neighbor, Leon. Her parents are tomato farmers; his are potato farmers; together they hit on the idea of "pomato soup," which ends up making them a fortune. Caroline and Leon's parents make them get married when she's 5 and he's 7 (because it's the only way they can think of to settle their argument about what their soup should be called), but then Leon is sent to boarding school because their parents have decided to keep them apart until Leon is 21. Leon writes to Caroline every year on their wedding anniversary, then tells her to meet him at a hotel, once he's 21. Things happen, and the reunion doesn't go as Caroline was thinking it would. At the end of it, she wakes up in a hospital after a boat accident, and Leon—or rather, Noel (he changed his name while he was at school) is nowhere to be found.
Caroline's quest to find Noel becomes all-consuming and decade-spanning, though she doesn't have very much to go on. She decides, for example, to eat only at Chinese restaurants, because one of his anniversary messages said that he liked wonton soup. Along the way, she ends up adopting two eleven-year-old twins named Tina and Tony, and all of them try to figure out the mystery of the "glub-blubs" - which is the last thing she heard in the midst of the boat accident. I definitely liked the word game/puzzle aspect of this when I was a kid, and I still do—and I probably appreciate the now-vintage NYC setting for a big chunk of the book more than I ever did back then.
I vividly remember the cover of the 1989 Puffin paperback edition of this book, which I suspect I checked out of the library multiple times. I'm not sure what made me think of it recently, but I decided it might be fun to re-read, and it was: I remembered parts of the story but had forgotten others, and there are definitely some things in this book that I find funny now that I wouldn't have noticed as a kid. (Like this exchange: "If Mr. Kunkel's father worked so hard for the business, he should have owned part of it, too," "Tony said. "Young man, you know nothing about business," Mr. Banks said uneasily. "What do they teach you at that school, anyway? Socialism?")
Anyway: this is a silly/bonkers mystery where you very much have to suspend disbelief (there are so many coincidences in the way the paths of characters cross!) but if you aren't looking for realism, it's a fun romp. When the book opens we meet Caroline Carillon, née Fish, and her next-door neighbor, Leon. Her parents are tomato farmers; his are potato farmers; together they hit on the idea of "pomato soup," which ends up making them a fortune. Caroline and Leon's parents make them get married when she's 5 and he's 7 (because it's the only way they can think of to settle their argument about what their soup should be called), but then Leon is sent to boarding school because their parents have decided to keep them apart until Leon is 21. Leon writes to Caroline every year on their wedding anniversary, then tells her to meet him at a hotel, once he's 21. Things happen, and the reunion doesn't go as Caroline was thinking it would. At the end of it, she wakes up in a hospital after a boat accident, and Leon—or rather, Noel (he changed his name while he was at school) is nowhere to be found.
Caroline's quest to find Noel becomes all-consuming and decade-spanning, though she doesn't have very much to go on. She decides, for example, to eat only at Chinese restaurants, because one of his anniversary messages said that he liked wonton soup. Along the way, she ends up adopting two eleven-year-old twins named Tina and Tony, and all of them try to figure out the mystery of the "glub-blubs" - which is the last thing she heard in the midst of the boat accident. I definitely liked the word game/puzzle aspect of this when I was a kid, and I still do—and I probably appreciate the now-vintage NYC setting for a big chunk of the book more than I ever did back then.
March 26, 2020
The real mystery was the friends we made along the way...
The Mysterious Disappearance of Leon (I Mean Noel) is a relatively charming and very compelling mystery for young readers. It's not quite at the level of The Westing Game but it's also not trying to be. There's a mystery to solve but the story is more interested in the characters doing the detective work. Personally, I picked up on from the very beginning but the rest of the mystery is not something you can solve. This is more of a story where you have to wait to see how things unfold rather than a puzzle where you have all the pieces. The prose is very readable. It's not the sort of book you linger over and, combined with the mystery, that should make it a good book for younger readers who want to train themselves to read more quickly.
As with a certain kind of children's book, the characters fall somewhere between one-dimensional and fully fleshed out. They're certainly idiosyncratic and many of them fall into particular character types but they don't feel like flat cartoon archetypes either. It's a good balance for a book that is this short.
Tina was the most interesting character to me. Raskin created a young female character who was not likable but not villainous either. She was impatient but smart. She was jealous and insecure and petty. She was not afraid of wanting things and pursuing them. She insisted she would be a "real doctor" and became one.
There's also a socialist bent running through the story. If you were disappointed in the problematic mess of The Tattooed Potato, this book has a much clearer (if simplistic) idea of egalitarianism and acceptance of everyone's personal eccentricities and value.
The Mysterious Disappearance of Leon (I Mean Noel) is a relatively charming and very compelling mystery for young readers. It's not quite at the level of The Westing Game but it's also not trying to be. There's a mystery to solve but the story is more interested in the characters doing the detective work. Personally, I picked up on from the very beginning but the rest of the mystery is not something you can solve. This is more of a story where you have to wait to see how things unfold rather than a puzzle where you have all the pieces. The prose is very readable. It's not the sort of book you linger over and, combined with the mystery, that should make it a good book for younger readers who want to train themselves to read more quickly.
As with a certain kind of children's book, the characters fall somewhere between one-dimensional and fully fleshed out. They're certainly idiosyncratic and many of them fall into particular character types but they don't feel like flat cartoon archetypes either. It's a good balance for a book that is this short.
Tina was the most interesting character to me. Raskin created a young female character who was not likable but not villainous either. She was impatient but smart. She was jealous and insecure and petty. She was not afraid of wanting things and pursuing them. She insisted she would be a "real doctor" and became one.
There's also a socialist bent running through the story. If you were disappointed in the problematic mess of The Tattooed Potato, this book has a much clearer (if simplistic) idea of egalitarianism and acceptance of everyone's personal eccentricities and value.
September 12, 2018
Holy Guacamole! I don't even know what to say except, WOW!
Ellen Raskin just has this quirky magic in all her books! I love her odd but fitting names for everyone such as Mrs. Baker (took me a bit to get that one), Mr. Banks and so on. And of course her and her struggling artists. Tina also reminded me of Turtle in Westing Game.
This book was kind of sad. It was also happy. It just sort of drew me in from page 1 and then half way through I was wondering why the heck this book wasn't wrapping up when KABOOM! Everything was happening at once. They solve the case! Not only that but the case was different than what we were led to believe throughout the book.
Some of their logic doesn't make sense, but it's fine because it's by Ellen Raskin. It is truly entertaining. This book also made me laugh out loud a few times.
And might I say that every little thing ties together. Something mentioned that might seem random is a key part of the plot or something that comes up later. I always get this feeling whenever I have read the Westing Game, The Tattooed Potato and other Clues, and this that when she mentions a name it is out of the blue but then later that name is brought up again and I have a hard time recalling when she had mentioned them before. That is why her books are such great mysteries, they are hardly predictable because they are so outrageous but at the same time not.
Though the Westing Game remains my all time favorite, if you loved the Westing Game and The Tattooed Potato and other Clues then you should definitely read this, it is short but that is part of what makes it so great.
Ellen Raskin just has this quirky magic in all her books! I love her odd but fitting names for everyone such as Mrs. Baker (took me a bit to get that one), Mr. Banks and so on. And of course her and her struggling artists. Tina also reminded me of Turtle in Westing Game.
This book was kind of sad. It was also happy. It just sort of drew me in from page 1 and then half way through I was wondering why the heck this book wasn't wrapping up when KABOOM! Everything was happening at once. They solve the case! Not only that but the case was different than what we were led to believe throughout the book.
Some of their logic doesn't make sense, but it's fine because it's by Ellen Raskin. It is truly entertaining. This book also made me laugh out loud a few times.
And might I say that every little thing ties together. Something mentioned that might seem random is a key part of the plot or something that comes up later. I always get this feeling whenever I have read the Westing Game, The Tattooed Potato and other Clues, and this that when she mentions a name it is out of the blue but then later that name is brought up again and I have a hard time recalling when she had mentioned them before. That is why her books are such great mysteries, they are hardly predictable because they are so outrageous but at the same time not.
Though the Westing Game remains my all time favorite, if you loved the Westing Game and The Tattooed Potato and other Clues then you should definitely read this, it is short but that is part of what makes it so great.
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