The Walton Boys and Gold in the Snow

by Hal Burton

Hardcover

First published January 1, 1948

Reviews

[Joe · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've never read a Hardy Boys mystery, so I can't tell you how thoroughly The Walton Boys mimic their more famous peers. But Gold in the Snow proved a fun adolescent adventure for kids of all ages, even forty-year-olds.

The biggest surprise was how light the mystery elements are. Sure, there's a hidden gold mine and several dastardly murder-attempts, but there's no clever secret regarding the mine's location and the villains basically announce themselves early on.

The story focuses more on skiing; all three brothers are avid skiers and they talk a lot about slaloms, proper technique, downhill competitions, and the various types of snow. If you wanted to teach your children about proper etiquette on the slopes while engaging them with an old-school adventure, this is the novel for you.

The second thing that struck me were the snow-bound perils. The intrepid middle Walton brother, Bert, nearly dies a dozen times from every manner of mountain calamity. He nearly falls to his doom, gets crushed by rocks, freezes to death in icy water, gets hopelessly lost in a blizzard; he even gets kidnapped a couple of times. If ever there was a kid to bubble-wrap before letting him leave the house, it's Bert Walton.

Overall a fine little gold nugget of a novel; hardly a fortune but not pyrite either.

Edited 3-19-2022

[Susan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I started this book when I went out to SLC for RootsTech and tried to read it each night while I was there. I've finished it since returning home, since I'm running out of stuff to read. This book was an interesting read and either I've never read it myself all the way through or just don't remember much of it. I always agreed with my brother, Chris that there are homosexual elements or things that could be construed that way nowadays, but must have been thought of as normal in the past. What I don't remember was the writing style of "scenes" in the book or other books I've read for this teen-age mystery genre. Reading this again made me wonder if the Ginny Gordon books are written that way but something tells me they're not. The other weird thing with the story is that Bert keeps trying to convince his older brother, Ed that Alan Wallace is a bad kid and that him and his dad are the ones getting them into going into avalanche areas and all sorts of potentially dangerous situations. Yet, Ed doesn't want to listen to Bert and always tells Bert to be more reasonable. The weird thing is Alan Wallace's home is next door to the ski chalet where everyone is staying. He doesn't appear to be a guest at the ski lodge but is allowed to "hang out" in the chalet's living room and it seems eat the food there and participate in skiing competitions that are put on for the guests. Why does everyone think nothing of Alan's constant presence at a place where he is clearly trespassing? Bert never mentions it nor does Ed ever come to that realization about Alan's presence. I found that odd. The other thing I found strange was that Alan Wallace's dad Tom takes Bert up to the mine at the end of the book with the plan to leave him there until the kid starves to death. However, Tom also mentioned to Bert when telling him of his plan that he made trips up to the mine whenever he needed more gold. So in theory Tom would have to return to the mine where Bert's dead body would be. Would Tom really want to return to the mine and have to put up with having a decaying body lying around while he mined his gold or run the risk that he could face an alive Bert who might be lying in wait for him to return so he could attack him and escape the mine.

[Jim Graziano · Rating 5 out of 5]

Childhood memories!

[KerryT · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Walton Boys are great stories for your boys, always full of action! I love them, too! If you or your boys love skiing this story is a good one!