Spiderweb for Two: A Melendy Maze

This was one of our daughter's favorite books when we read it to her as a child. She is now twenty and in college and it resides on a shelf with other best book-friends from her childhood, The Chronicles of Narnia, The Hobbit and The Trilogy, The Castle in the Attic,etc.(comfort reads now) This book is full of fun and innocence and safe mystery. It depicts a happy, intelligent family who live a peaceful yet interesting life.

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A good ending

I very much enjoyed all of Enright's books--both the Melendy series and the Gone-Away books. When I found out that she had three sons, I longed to get them together and ask, "OK, which of you is Rush, which of you is Julian, which of you is Oliver?"

I would echo the reviewer who says that the Melendy books would make a great TV mini-series, excpet that (having seen what TV did to some other classic children's books) I'd be afraid that they'd try to modernize them and mess them up. While the Gone-Away books could, perhaps, survive (they are far less time-bound), the Melendy books are tied very specifically to a particular time/place, and attempts to update would ruin them.

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A GREAT FAMILY READ-ALOUD CHOICE

One day I saw my daughter curled up with a book. "What are you reading?" I inquired. She flashed the well-loved cover of my childhood copy of Spiderweb for Two. "I was feeling Melendyish today," she explained. "Melendyish" is the perfect word to describe that sensation experienced by die-hard fans of Elizabeth Enright's four Melendy stories when nothing else will do but to curl up with one of her books and visit the beloved Melendy family once again. When I was a child the four Melendy children sometimes seemed more like real, three-dimensional people than some actual living, breathing kids I knew. Spiderweb for Two was the first Melendy book I read and it inspired me to create many mind-boggling clue hunts for my brother and my friends. The treasure hunts that figure prominently in the way my children and I celebrate holidays today can probably be traced back to those Melendyish moments of my childhood when I read this book over and over and over. (I can still recite some of the story's mysterious clues from memory!) I would suggest that you read the Melendy books in order: The Saturdays, The Four Story Mistake, Then There Were Five, Tatsinda (a fairy tale that is mentioned but not told in Then There Were Five) and finally Spiderweb For Two. Just be sure you don't stop before you get to Spiderweb for Two! Your whole family will enjoy it! If you want more funny, creative, warm and cozy family stories like these, try The Treasure Seekers, The Wouldbegoods, and New Treasure Seekers by E. Nesbit.

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