Spiderweb for Two: A Melendy Maze
 First Edition | |
| Author | Elizabeth Enright |
|---|---|
| Illustrator | Elizabeth Enright |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Children's literature |
| Publisher | Rinehart & Company |
Publication date | 1951 |
| Media type | Print (Hardback) |
| Pages | 209 pp |
| OCLC | 8989834 |
| LC Class | PZ7.E724 Sp |
| Preceded by | Then There Were Five |
Spiderweb for Two: A Melendy Maze (1951) is a children's novel by Elizabeth Enright, the last of her four books about the Melendy family, preceded by The Saturdays, The Four-Story Mistake and Then There Were Five. The four Melendy children and their adopted brother Mark live with their father, a widowed professor of economics, and Cuffy, their beloved housekeeper. This is the last book in the Melendy series.
Plot
"Randy was certain this was going to be the worst winter of her life."[1] Miranda "Randy" Melendy and her younger brother Oliver find themselves the only children in their family for the first time in their lives. Rush and Mark have gone away to a boarding school, and Mona now lives in New York City with the family's elderly friend, Mrs. Oliphant. Randy hates change of any sort, and even placid Oliver has a hard time dealing with being left behind. Then a mysterious note arrives in the mail, inviting the children to solve a rhyming clue. Each note leads to another one, with the promise of a treasure at the end.
Randy and Oliver find themselves exploring the countryside, their community, and even discovering family history as they race through a maze of guesses and misdirection. The final chapter reveals the authors of the clues to be their family and Mrs. Oliphant, and Randy and Oliver are treated to the "rare reward" they were promised at the start of the game, with everyone together again for the summer.[2]
Reception
After three books about all the Melendy children, some reviewers found they missed the lively personalities of the now absent older siblings as much as Randy and Oliver do in the book. Anita Silvey wrote "The last book in the series... disappoints only because the older Melendy children have left home, though the writing has the usual Enright charm and percipience."[3]
As the Dictionary of Literary Biographies points out, all of the Melendy books "capture the world of the 1940s, where holidays were major family events and children invented their own games."[4] This can be seen in Spiderweb for Two where young Randy and Oliver wander freely around the countryside without any supervision. "All Enright children do things that children dream of doing", according to Irene Haas.[5]
References
- ↑ Enright, Elizabeth, Spiderweb for Two: A Melendy Maze, New York: Yearling, 1951, pp. 3;
- ↑ Enright, Elizabeth, Spiderweb for Two: A Melendy Maze, New York: Yearling, 1951, pp. 42;
- ↑ Silvey, Anita, The Essential Guide to Children's Books and Their Creators, Houghton Mifflin, 2002, pg. 143;
- ↑ Cech, John (editor), Dictionary of Literary Biographies: American Writers for Children, 1900-1960, Gale Research, 1983, volume 22, pp. 142-143;
- ↑ Chevalier, Tracy (editor), Twentieth-Century Children's Writers, St. James Press, 1989, pp. 318;