The Secret of Terror Castle ...by Alfred Hitchcock

Simple pleasures... and this is one of them. Simple reading from yesteryears. One of my favourite authors when I was in primary school. Jupiter Jones, Pete Crenshaw and Bob Andrews.

I guess reading such books helped to shape my thinking and approach in life. I think I must read almost the whole set... 40++ books. I used to think of Jupiter Jones as one cool dude. He always kept his cool and mind in the most critical situation. I'm sure somehow, reading so many of them must have rubbed off on all of us who were ardent followers of such series. Sometimes too, I wonder whether the lack of such kinds of reading also plays a role in the 'dumbing down' of our kids.

I remember reading those mystery series where the heroes and heroines were smart and independent. They were always trying to figure out a solution, always trying to solve a mystery, always curious. It's hard to find such stuff in the kids I meet and teach today. The kids today seem to naive despite the high tech-ness of their lives. They seem so ignorant despite having the Wiki there for them all the time. If anything I think Google has robbed them of their own originality. It's so easy to plagiarize these days. Plagiarizing is just a couple of taps away on the computer keyboard. Anyway, I think books for kids today are way to emo-based or take the path of 'solution via power'. In the popular Twilight series, it's all about appearance and emo-ness. In Harry Porter, it's about the one with the more powerful magic.... there's very little on the powers of deduction... I could be wrong in my observation.

So, it was a rather pleasant experience reading The Three Investigators again. After all these years, it's still actually very nice. In fact, I appreciate it in ways which I never did before. I read a couple pages with my gal and she found it interesting. I hope she will pick them up and read them. Book 10 - a 'kiddy' book with nice memories.