A Different Kind of Book Catalog
 

featuring the works of

Ann Ulrich Miller

compiled by her characters

 

Juvenile Fiction

written under the name

Ann Carol Ulrich

The house I grew up in had a root cellar entrance in the basement. My friends and I were intrigued by this and often went inside it to explore. It was rather hard to crawl around as the opening was near the basement ceiling, and the cellar itself was dirty, dusty and dark with cobwebs. But it stimulated our young imaginations, and the club that Wendy started in this book (the P.E.D.) was actually real ... at least in the imaginations of a handful of 10-year-olds!

The opening scene, in which Wendy awakens in the middle of the night to see a tall man strutting around in her bedroom, actually happened to me when I was 9 or 10 years old. And I was positive that it was our mysterious tall neighbor man, Mr. North! (Of course, nothing was ever proven, and my parents just laughed ...). But I recall many a night when I awoke to weird noises coming from beneath my bedroom, which was right above the root cellar. We invented the names of the "criminals" -- Mac and Sam!

Unfortunately, the Mac and Sam mystery was never solved, and we soon grew into teen-agers with other interests of concern (boys). Mr. North, however, continued to intrigue us, and even to this day when I remember the eccentric neighbor man, I wonder what kind of game he was playing in our young minds.

THE ROOT CELLAR MYSTERY

Chris Nesbit:  Why did we have to leave Milwaukee to come live in this small town in Iowa? I had
to leave all my friends behind, and now I won’t know anyone when I start high school in the fall. My little brother, Philip, doesn’t have a problem with it. I did see a blond boy washing the car across the street and I’m not sure about his age, but he was kinda cute. Moving sucks, but our new house does have an interesting twist ... there’s a root cellar in our basement. I wonder what’s inside it.

Wendy Young:  A new family just moved in across the street. There’s a girl about my age. She walks to the mailbox at the end of our block every day. Maybe I’ll watch and then follow her. I’m excited to get to a know a new girl my age. Maybe I can get her to join my club, the P.E.D., which stands for "Private Eye Detectives." Maybe she’ll help me investigate Mr. North and the milkman!

Virgil North: The house next door sold and there’s a family with two kids that moved in. I don’t expect any trouble from them, but I’d better make sure my secret project is safe. What they don’t know about the house won’t hurt them, though I have a feeling I left something behind ... I can’t find it and may have dropped it somewhere I wasn’t supposed to be.

ISBN 978-0-944851-41-8    June 2015, Paperback, 150 pages     USD $8.95

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