The Trouble With Jenny’s Ear, by Oliver Butterworth, is one of those books I loved as a child and couldn’t wait for my own kids to enjoy. I’ve spent the past couple weeks reading it aloud to them (though we read aloud a lot, I have not often read aloud entire long chapter books, and couldn’t believe how long it took us) and last night we finally finished. This has an original publication date of 1960, so it was dated when I read it, and even more so now. The first half of the book involves excitement over wires, microphones, closed circuit television, and tape recorders. It’s a big deal when Joe and Stanley, the electronics loving boys in the story, set up an automated telephone answering machine. I was surprised how much of the story was about that because in my memory the whole book was about Jenny’s ear. Jenny is their little sister and one day she quite suddenly has the ability to hear people’s thoughts. The boys decide they can use this ability to solve the big problem of the story (which I had forgotten about)–that their beloved hillside and brook are going to be sold and turned into a housing development. It’s a classic story of fighting against the profit hungry developer to save land and had the kids quite anxious and on the edge of their seats: on the last chapter, “Mommy, this story seems like it might have an unhappy ending.” The plan they concoct is to have Jenny go on one of the popular quiz shows of the day, win the grand prize of $100,000 and buy the hill. What struck me was how mellow their parents were about the whole thing, as well as about trouble the boys got into. All in all, this remained a wonderful story. Both kids were completely caught up in it. They loved the funny scenes at school where the boys used the newfangled technology to trick their teacher, they enjoyed the suspense of will they or won’t they save the hill, and of course were fascinated by Jenny’s telepathic abilities. It’s worth discovering or revisiting this gem.
Butterworth is the author of another childhood favorite–The Enormous Egg, so perhaps we’ll read that next!
Fourteen Bears 