The Secret of Tate’s Beach – Vintage Kidlit Summer Week #2

My friend Faith Elizabeth Hough (who blogs HERE) and I decided to create a fun reading challenge called Vintage Kidlit Summer. If you missed any of the details on how this challenge works, just go here and you can catch up! Basically, we’re doing 12 categories over 12 weeks, and each week has its own theme. All you have to do is choose a vintage/classic book that fits that week’s theme, read it, and share about it! You can write about it on your blog, or you can post your thoughts on Instagram (or Twitter) as well, by using the hashtag #vintagekidlitsummer. And if you’re in need of recommendations for each week’s theme, check out this blog post!

Our second week’s theme was Moody and Mysterious, and for this theme I chose to read The Secret of Tate’s Beach (1926) by Augusta Huiell Seaman. I’ve read several Seaman books and loved each one. Her stories are very mysterious, engaging, and often feature immersive settings, and this novel was no different.

The book’s opening will give you an idea of what the story is like:

A long, level line of surf fretting the coast as far as the eye could see. Back of the beach the dunes, shaggy, irregular, odorous of glossy bay and rank seagrass. Nestling behind one of the highest dunes, sheltered from the east winds, one low, rambling two-storied house … 

While the pleasure of last week’s selection (Thimble Summer) was all about the small realistic details, this book is all about the joys of things that probably would never happen! The story follows two girls, Merwin and Peggy, on a quest to unravel an old mystery concerning multiple shipwrecks, an unusual diary, and (could it be?) hidden treasure.

If I say any more about the plot, I might be giving spoilers. 😉

I’ve often heard the advice that if you’re writing for children, you should let the kids of the story take center stage and not allow adult characters to solve their problems for them and take over the plot. I always thought this advice was interesting because I have rarely ever seen that happen in a book. But it happens in this one! I was surprised and amused by the fact that halfway through the book, Merwin’s father essentially takes over the solving of the mystery and discovers everything before the girls do. It’s a bit disappointing when you’re used to following the child characters and then it switches, but it was still a very entertaining ending.

I realize that one of the reasons I couldn’t put this book down is because the reader’s attention is never strayed from the mystery. There are no subplots to follow between the action, and the characters never forget about the mystery in order to do something else. While this approach may not be as realistic, it’s definitely more compelling!

What did you read for the Vintage Kidlit Summer this week?