Instead: "'Kiss and make up' was a rule in the Tucker house, carried out in a gay ceremony which took the sting out of being at fault." When their cat gets injured, Penny even dons a nursing outfit to take care of it. When they got in fights, they didn't hold grudges for days or generations. They got to motor their own boat ("The Tub") across the lake by themselves. They were already several years old when I purchased the first two, and I think Woolworth's soon thereafter replaced The Tuckers with the kind of cheesy TV tie-in books that Whitman was infamous for publishing.īut I must admit I read these first two volumes over and over and over, drawn into the drama and fun of the happy Tucker family - emotional big sister Tina, nine-year-old twins Terry (typical boy) and Merry (typical girl), family cypher Penny, and preschooler Tom who is always described as having a "deep, sober, older-than-five voice," or "a voice as deep as a well." There was just something so. this family. And months later I bought TROUBLE ON VALLEY VIEW on a rainy morning that similarly matched the illustration on the cover of the book. I think I was drawn to HERE COMES A FRIEND! because it featured the Tucker kids running barefoot across a field - perfect symbolism for summer vacation, which had just begun that afternoon for me. The design was uniform, but each had a different colored spine: brown, red, blue, yellow, etc. I just remember walking to Woolworth's on the last day of school and gripping that dollar in my fist until it got damp as I tried to decide which one of the books on display I should select. I have no idea where I got the dollar to buy the first one. Woolworth's used to sell them for a dollar - smack in the middle of the toy section. Pictured above are two of my guilty pleasures: volumes in "The Tuckers" series, written by "Jo Mendel" and published by Whitman in the early 1960s. ![]() ![]() ![]() Or sliding a vellum edition of PILGRIM'S PROGRESS off the shelf only to have Judy Blume's BLUBBER tumble out after it. Imagine picking up a first edition of ULYSSES and finding a copy of Nancy Drew's THE CLUE OF THE TAPPING HEELS wedged behind it. Every reader, no matter how serious, probably has a few "guilty pleasures" tucked away on a back shelf.
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