The Paris Hat by Mary Cunningham (1958)

Ever since Rex, already a professional ballet dancer at eighteen, had complimented her on her gracefulness and asked for a date, Cathy Darfield had dreamed only of dancing with him. Rex's dancing seemed inspired and excited her imagination. Now Cathy knew that the ballet was the career she too wanted to pursue.

If she hadn't been able to vacation at her Aunt Faith's, Cathy would never have had time to think about being other than a "mother hen"--a role she had had to assume when her mother died. The four youngest Darfields were in camp, and only her twelve-year-old sister, Bettina, was with her. So for this vacation time Cathy was free to dream, to practice her plies and jetes in anticipation of Rex's dates when they would dance together, and to plan a career.

All that was fine until the day a delivery boy arrived with an unexpected, golden, heart-shaped box from Chapeaux de Paris containing an enchanting hat for her beautiful young aunt. The gift could come only from her husband, and implied that Uncle Pat was returning from a diamond hunting venture in Africa and would soon be back in San Francisco. Two years ago another Paris hat had preceded his return from the Air Force, so it looked as through this significant present must be announcing his homecoming. Aunt Faith was stunned, Grandmother furious, and Bettina agog. But Cathy was worried about the family scene Uncle Pat's impeding arrival might touch off at the exact hour Rex was due to meet the family for the first time.

A hidden letter, prowler's footprints in the garden, and other curious happenings further complicated matters. Uncle Pat was notably undependable--Grandmother wouldn't let Aunt Faith forget that--but why should he be so mysterious?

When Rex didn't show up or telephone, Cathy equated him with Uncle Pat--talented, adventures, magnetic, but hardly reliable or realistic. She felt that Walt, her dependable high school pal, wouldn't understand her desire to be other than a "mother hen," but she was sure that Rex would encourage her to follow a ballet career. was Cathy just a hero worshipper as Walt hinted? Her glamorous cousin Gerry, a commercial artist and Cathy's confidante, also warned her that this could be true. A telephone call to Rex started a chain of exciting events that gave Cathy insight into the answer to her career problem, and solved the mystery of the Paris hat. (from the inside flap)

Julie Builds Her Castle by Hila Colman (1959)

Why in the world, thought Julie Hartman disconsolately, do we have to travel all the way across the United States to Cape Cod because Dad wants to paint the ocean? California would have been much nearer and just as good.

Julie began her summer on the Cape by building a dream castle and ended it by making plans for a real one. Although Julie, at sixteen, resented her artist father's nonconformity, she actually owed to it many of the summer's happiest moments. For as his daughter she found it completely natural to go out with the young son of a Portuguese fisherman. Peter was a boy you could rely upon, but his older brother Joe was a problem. And when Joe got into trouble, it was Julie's father who straightened him out. During this crisis Mr. Hartman told Julie his creed. "I believe in not going along with the mob for the sake of joining in; I believe in thinking things out and having your own integrity." But Julie had already begun to think out her own program for the future. (from the inside flap)


Skates for Marty by Barbara Clayton (1959)

Sports had little appeal for Martha Ann Fuller.  Although her beautiful mother had been an excellent ice-skater in her teens, Marty--plump, awkward, and self-conscious--never had any inclination to follow in her mother's footsteps. When Mrs. Fuller's job takes her to California, Marty is thrust into a new world. Moving to her grandmother's old stucco house in Ringport, Massachusetts, demands serious adjustments. Well-meaning grandmother is convinced that Marty can be transformed from a lonely, withdrawn girl into a social butterfly. And one way to accomplish this is for Marty to become a champion figure-skater!

Poor Marty resists in vain. The figure staking lessons she takes with Josef, a famous professional at the nearby Skating Club, are drudgery, and for a long time the rink is unbearable to Marty.

Besides, she has other pressing problems to solve. At the private girls' school she had attended, she never had to think about how to act with boys and they are a real puzzle to her. Now that she has had to transfer to Ringport High, she is really on unfamiliar "ice." Because she is so shy, her first real date is almost a catastrophe. The girls, too, are different, and Marty's unintentional blunders create friction with the prettiest and most popular girl in school, Taffy Wilson.

Yet, when Mrs. Fuller visits Ringport at Thanksgiving, she is impressed and pleased at the change in her daughter. With a glow in her cheeks and several pounds slimmed off from exercise, Marty appears more attractive and outgoing. Too, she is winning some friends, one of whom, a United States champion, kindles some enthusiasm in Marty for skating. But it is not until the Skating Club is host for the National Championships that Marty sees the fascination of figure-skating. She is captivated by the experts who have come from different parts of the country, and she begins in earnest to try to overcome her shyness and to develop as a skater.

Surprisingly, she has competition from her school antagonist, Taffy, who decides to begin skating again. Can Marty handle Taffy and resolve her conflict between school and skating? Why is she suddenly so anxious to sin the coveted figure skating scholarship offered by the Club? And will she be successful? The answers to these questions lie in the suspenseful climax of a story that sparkles with the flash of skate blades, the glitter of the ice rink, and the brave determination of its young heroine. (from the inside flap)

The Scarlet Sail by Betty Cavanna (1959)

Andrea Pierce, spending her summer vacation on Cape Cod, is given a scarlet-sailed Turnabout. But she doesn't know how to manage a sail boat and, being uncertain of herself, she thinks she will never be able to learn. Then Mike, the boy who is to give her lessons, further dampens her spirits by saying that the red sail which she found so cute is actually a safety precaution.

This is just the beginning of Andrea's conflict with Mike and with herself. But soon, through new-found determination, she takes second place in the boat race and wins the admiration of the people she loves ... (from the back cover)

Mystery in Marrakech by Betty Cavanna (1968)

The nine-hundred-year-old city of Marrakech appeared to Dizzy Driscoll very much as she had imagined it.  Medieval ramparts and ten great gates. Mosques with green-tiled domes and the wail of the muezzins calling the faithful. Even though she was visiting her roommate's family, Dizzy found her strange surroundings made her feel somewhat apprehensive.

Still she was unprepared when her vague fears were fulfilled, and her friend Felicia was spirited away from the city. Together with Rick, Felicia's brother, Dizzy set out on an anxious trip across the rugged Atlas Mountains to find help. Their journey led them finally to the ancient Casbah of Telouet, a cluster of ghostly spires reaching into the sky that seemed to emanate evil like a witch's castle in a fairy tale. What would they find concealed in its deserted 600 rooms?

Betty Cavanna, who has taken two extensive trips to Morocco, is a favorite author of young people's books. An exciting mystery plot against the striking Moroccan background makes this colorful adventure one of her most appealing stories. (from the inside flap)

Second Best by Barbara Clayton (1963)

Lucy Ritchard felt that she was always second best.  Her older sister Meg excelled scholastically and socially, her younger brother Brad was a baseball star, and to everyone in Berkshire, Massachusetts, Lucy was sure she was known as "the undistinguished Ritchard girl." Because Lucy and Matador, her golden retriever who is always recovering the wrong things, are involved in calamity after calamity, Lucy's brother has sarcastically labelled her "Lucky Lucinda."

When Professor Ritchard decides to spend the summer months writing a geology textbook on the coast of Maine, Lucy is delighted.  In Maine she'll have a fresh start.  She'll feel different, be different, and--maybe--finally shed the hated badge of second best.

Despite Lucy's dreams, her mortifying introduction to the Kettle Cove Yacht Club starts the summer off on the wrong foot.  Determined to erase that first bad impression, Lucy agrees to take sailing lessons with the Commodore of the Club.  Too late she realizes that sailing involves more hard work and discipline than she had bargained for, and that all of her old difficulties have traveled along with her the four hundred miles from Berkshire to Kettle Cove, Maine, where first is all-important.

A nearly disastrous accident forces Lucy and Marsh Norton, one of the young crackerjack sailors at the Club, to work off together the cost of the damages they have caused. Then, strange lights and happenings on spooky Witchpaw Light tempt the two of them to investigate the deserted island lighthouse and unravel a tantalizing mystery.

Labor Day brings the last exciting race, and as the summer of work, sailing, and racing on Penobscot Bay comes to an end, Lucy finds some of  the answers to her problems.  She discovers one important area where she can be first--and stay first! Armed with this new understanding, Lucy is ready for the return to Berkshire, confident that in the future she can be other than Second Best. (from the inside flap)

Jenny Kimura by Betty Cavanna (1964)

Wearing her kimono, Jenny faced her American grandmother and Alan. Her entrance was as theatrical as if she had planned it for the stage. Alan, the Kansas City boy who was showing Jenny so much flattering attention, liked her thoroughly Japanese appearance. But Mrs. Smith, her grandmother, was horrified to see her dressed so inappropriately for an afternoon wedding.

Mrs. Smith had invited her granddaughter to visit her in the United States, but Jenny, whose mother was Japanese and whose father was American, did not know how to please her domineering grandmother. As the summer flew by, it took even more than an intolerant attitude on the part of Alan's mother to show Mrs. Smith that her own outlook was also biased. All Jenny could do was follow her father's advise and be herself, however difficult that might be.

In this tender and thoughtful story, Jenny compares Kansas City and then Cape Cod to her home in Tokyo, giving readers the unique opportunity to see their country through another's eyes, and Betty Cavanna demonstrates again her complete understanding of the minds of young people. (from the inside flap)