Enright, Elizabeth. The Four-Story Mistake. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1942.
Reason read: Elizabeth Enright was born in September.
The Melendy family has moved to the country. In the previous story, The Saturdays, their brownstone in New York was damaged by fire. Now Father Melendy has moved his four kids (Rush, Miranda, Oliver and Mona), dog (Isaac), handyman (Willy), and housekeeper (Cuffy) to “the Four-Story mistake”, a house that when originally designed was supposed to have four stories but the fourth story was somehow left off during construction. It’s an odd looking house since the fourth story was added after the roof was finished. Father is often away (hence the live-in housekeeper) so the four children are left to explore their new surroundings, the countryside and the house.
Book trivia: the is Book Two of the Melendy Quartet. Yes, I read two of them them out of order. It is important to read them in order because I didn’t know what happened to mom, I wasn’t sure what year we were in, and I could guess as to how Cuffy and Willy fit into the story, but I wanted more information.
Author fact: Enright also wrote The Saturdays, Then There Were Five, and Spiderweb for Two: A Melendy Maze. All of these titles are on my list.
BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter called “Best for Boys and Girls” (p 21).
~*LunaSea*~ 