The Callender Papers

by Cynthia Voigt

Think carefully...

That's the advice Jean Wainwright always gets from her beloved Aunt Constance, Jean's guardian and headmistress at the boarding school where she lives. It's advice that proves valuable when Jean finds herself spending the summer far from home, sorting out family papers for the reclusive Mr. Thiel, a trustee of Aunt Constance's school and the widower of her childhood friend Irene Callender.

At Mr. Thiel's isolated country estate, Jean is surrounded by bewildering questions from the past. Why is there such hatred between Mr. Thiel and his late wife's brother? Was her death an accident? And what happened to their child, who disappeared after Irene Thiel's death? Do the answers lie in the Callender papers? And will searching for the answers put Jean's own life in jeopardy?

Genres: Young Adult, Mystery, Historical Fiction, Fiction, Childrens, Middle Grade, Historical

261 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1983

About the author

Cynthia Voigt is an American author of books for young adults dealing with various topics such as adventure, mystery, racism and child abuse.


Awards:
Angus and Sadie: the Sequoyah Book Award (given by readers in Oklahoma), 2008
The Katahdin Award, for lifetime achievement, 2003
The Anne V. Zarrow Award, for lifetime achievement, 2003
The Margaret Edwards Award, for a body of work, 1995
Jackaroo: Rattenfanger-Literatur Preis (ratcatcher prize, awarded by the town of Hamlin in Germany), 1990
Izzy, Willy-Nilly: the Young Reader Award (California), 1990
The Runner: Deutscher Jungenliteraturpreis (German young people's literature prize), 1988
Zilverengriffel (Silver Pen, a Dutch prize), 1988
Come a Stranger: the Judy Lopez Medal (given by readers in California), 1987
A Solitary Blue: a Newbery Honor Book, 1984
The Callender Papers: The Edgar (given by the Mystery Writers of America), 1984
Dicey's Song: the Newbery Medal, 1983

Reviews

[Maggie Turner · Rating 5 out of 5]

I found this book while browsing with my mom in the young adult section of the public library. The description caught my eye because the story was about a young girl who was charged with going though and organizing personal papers. I thought what a great author to write about record retention and the screening of archival papers !

Without revealing too much of the story which lead to my conclusions, I will say that being an older reader, I suspected the direction in which the plot was heading by the middle of the book. However, that didn't spoil the ending because it wasn't exactly as I had surmised. Having said that, I would still choose to read this book again and again. My enjoyment of this book has also peaked my interest into what Cynthia Voigt's other novels have to offer.

[Cricket Muse · Rating 5 out of 5]

Well-written gothic mystery which lands oddly between juvenile and adult since the protagonist is twelve, yet the tone and vocabulary seem much more suited at much older readers. Voigt is a talented writer. Though the plot was fairly predicable, it was still an enjoyable read with all the classic structure of the gothic--mysterious circumstances, conflicting hero types, dark emotions, secrets, nightmares. Yes, a great little warm up for those entering into the gothic genre.

[Sanja_Sanjalica · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 A bit predictable, but enjoyable and I liked the characters. The ending was a bit rushed and maybe too easily solved, but the atmosphere was great.

[Rusty · Rating 3 out of 5]

While the narrator of this little book is just thirteen, the story is appropriate for this age and up. Winner of the Edgar Allen Poe Award, the mystery begins with a young girl sorting family papers for Mr. Thiel. Even though he's a friend of her Aunt Constance, she finds him a little terrifying. Instead, she finds herself drawn to another man whose warmth and friendly manner is more appealing to a young person. As the mystery unfolds, she finds herself the center of it all. To tell more about the story would give too much away. My advice is just to read this one and discover the mystery for yourself.

[Janna Craig · Rating 4 out of 5]

First read this in middle school, I think. Definitely holds up to a reread. I love Jean’s personality and the way she attempts to follow her aunt’s advice to “think carefully” about everything. And I love the development of the various relationships throughout the book. Makes me want to go back and reread all the other Cynthia Voigt books from my childhood.

[Boogi Lu · Rating 3 out of 5]

از وسط‌های داستان کاملا گره‌های داستان برام باز شد. فکر کنم بیشتر برای نوجوان‌هایی که تازه شروع به خوندن کتاب‌های معمایی کنند جالب‌تر باشه تا برای "بیشتر پیرهن پاره کرده‌ها" ولی در کل برای تغییر حال و هوا بد نبود.

[Cecily Jones · Rating 3 out of 5]

Great book for younger readers who are starting to like mystery. It was a little predictable and I knew the outcome of the ending midway through the book. The ending also felt a little rushed but over all it was a good book and I think younger readers would really enjoy it.

[Laura Allman · Rating 4 out of 5]

I remembered loving this book in 6th grade, it was a joy to go back and read it with my girls all these decade later!

[Hilary Tesh · Rating 4 out of 5]

A Gothic novel, first published in 1983 and winner of the Edgar Allan Poe Award, written in the style and tone of a good old-fashioned classic, for young teenagers. This is a good introduction to the Gothic genre, without the modern trend for vampires round every corner! Several reviewers have mentioned predictability in the plot, but I think that is because it ticks off the typical elements of a Gothic novel in a style accessible to its target readers. I love the dedication in my copy: "Fur Clara: eine kleine Gothik"

[Gwen Testa · Rating 3 out of 5]

JA mystery takes place in 1894. Voigt has a hard time calling evil what it is.
“Aunt Constance had taught me that unpleasant tasks must be got out of the way briskly. That was her word, briskly, and I liked it because it sounded like a new broom, energetically sweeping away.” Pg. 61
“I would not have known how to recognize evil in a person. This was something I’d never realized before.” Pg. 109
“Never make excuses.” Pg. 254
“It is the consequences of what you do that matter most.” Pg 257

[Natasha ZettaCrepeauStypayhoralikson · Rating 4 out of 5]

I got this when I was a little girl, about 5, at a book festival. It sat on my shelf for six years, dubbed as boring. When I opened it up, it drew me in. I loved the entire book, and the characters just jump out on you, real and diverse. I'm a minor still, so it actually appeals to me more than a thirty year old. Anyway, it is a beautiful book.

[Brett · Rating 5 out of 5]

I teach school and this is a great period piece. It is a great mystery and every student I have suggested it for loves it.

[LouiseB · Rating 3 out of 5]

Voigty

[Jessica · Rating 3 out of 5]

Enjoyed this as a kid, though it was never my favorite Cynthia Voigt novel. Still good, especially in portraying Enoch Callender’s character. Very gothic mystery feel to it.

[T.J. Wallace · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cynthia Voigt's "Tillerman Cycle" series includes some of my top favorite and most formative books ("Dicey's Song," "A Solitary Blue," "Come a Stranger"). They still wow me with their excellent writing and strong, believable characters. I have slowly been making my way through Voigt's backlist, trying to find that same magic, and I have had middling success. "The Kingdom" series and "Tree by Leaf" have come closest. They're lovely. But others have been underwhelming.

This was my first time reading "The Callender Papers," published in 1983, and it fell somewhere in between. It is an adequate middle grade historical mystery with a slightly Gothic feel. I think contemporary middle grade readers would find it kind of slow and boring, but the pace didn't bother me. Voigt's writing is as crisp and clean as always; it doesn't pander, so her books work well for adult audiences too. I enjoyed "The Callender Papers" in a quiet way, but I thought it was very predictable and the entire premise was bizarre. 

Premise (from Goodreads):

Think carefully...That's the advice Jean Wainwright always gets from her beloved Aunt Constance, Jean's guardian and headmistress at the boarding school where she lives. It's advice that proves valuable when Jean finds herself spending the summer far from home, sorting out family papers for the reclusive Mr. Thiel, a trustee of Aunt Constance's school and the widower of her childhood friend Irene Callender.

At Mr. Thiel's isolated country estate, Jean is surrounded by bewildering questions from the past. Why is there such hatred between Mr. Thiel and his late wife's brother? Was her death an accident? And what happened to their child, who disappeared after Irene Thiel's death? Do the answers lie in the Callender papers? And will searching for the answers put Jean's own life in jeopardy?

I knew from pretty much the middle of the book what was going to happen at the end, but I was curious about the why. And the why didn't really make any sense to me. After sending his daughter Jean away as a baby for her safety, why would Mr. Thiel bring her back anonymously to a dangerous situation and give her absolutely no warnings or guidance? The explanation that he wanted to see if she could like him for himself was pretty weak. It wouldn't matter if she liked him, if she was dead. Also Enoch was so obviously sneaky and villainous that it frustrated me that Jean ignored it. Meanwhile, why would she have suspected Mr. Thiel of poisoning her, when he was the one who rushed in the middle of the night to get the doctor for her? I don't think Jean was "thinking carefully" enough. And then I guess the whole situation with sorting through the Callender papers was just a ruse to get Jean to the house? Because ultimately, they don't really play a role in the solving of the mystery. So that was kind of disappointing. The ending also felt kind of rushed.

My issues with the plot aside, I did really like the characters. Jean is a very solemn, unflappable, and mature 12, but her youth is persuasively shown through the mistakes she makes and her occasional outbursts of temper. Mr. Thiel's character was also very interesting; he doesn't reveal much, but his solid moral character is subtly and poignantly shown. And I loved the housekeeper, Mrs. Bywall (sp? Not sure since I listened to the audiobook) and her painful backstory. Voigt is so good at populating her books with complicated, realistic, fallible, lovable people.

I wouldn't highly commend this book to anyone's attention, unless you are also fascinated by Voigt's writing and are in the mood for a slow-moving juvenile mystery that is really not mysterious at all. The audiobook is excellently narrated by Barbara Caruso, whose voice I love almost as much as I love the Tillermans (whose books she also narrates).

[Amy · Rating 2 out of 5]

I’d say only read this if you are a child, and even then, you can find better things to read (like the Tillerman series by this same author, Cynthia Voigt!). I first read this as an adult and it was incredibly obvious what the supposed mystery was, and therefore I couldn’t fathom how any of the book was believable.

The father and the “aunt” both know it was likely that the brother murdered his sister, the mother. They suspect he repeatedly tried to murder the child, such as when a snake appeared in the baby’s crib. Yet the “aunt” sends the girl off for the summer without a single warning, and her own father not only doesn’t tell her a single thing about what’s going on—including not telling her at any point that he’s her father, even after he thinks it has become obvious— he lets her hang out repeatedly with the murderer, and even lets her repeatedly visit the dangerous murder location without one word of warning. Our main character is only 12 years old, but she also behaves in an unbelievable fashion: after an attempt is made on her life, she continues to spend time with and believe the prime suspect, and put herself into situations where she is alone with him. Particularly after an attempt has been made on her life as a 12 year old, the adult guardians would have sent her away immediately to safety. No one’s behavior makes sense, and at least to an adult everything was so obvious it could have been a ten page story. Seriously, the identity of the murderer and the identity of the child are spelled out again and again, making me wonder if even children truly can’t spot it.

This was published in 1983, is set in 1894 in the Northeast U.S., and the author repeatedly and only uses the phrase “The War Between the States” instead of the Civil War. That’s a Confederate apologist phrase that plays make-believe that the U.S. states were fighting each other on an equal footing and with equal grievances, when in reality it was a treasonous rebellion by some white southerners against the Federal government to uphold slavery after they didn’t like losing the Presidential election to Abraham Lincoln. “War of Rebellion” was the most commonly used phrase at the time of the conflict; also used at the time: Great Slaveholders' Rebellion. From 1861 to 1920 "Civil War" was a term used by both sides to describe the conflict, just like it is today; not until the 1920's did southerners start using the phrase "War Between the States" to try to legitimize their position. It was also bizarre that in one of the discussions of morality in the book that northerner Mr. Teal used the murder of Abraham Lincoln as an example of John Wilkes Booth killing a person to provide freedom to everyone—I can only assume he was speaking sarcastically.

I guess I’m only giving this two stars because I love some of Voigt’s other books, and I did like the portrayal of the earnest, well-meaning, honest and wholesome main character. Children often really are that trusting and good-intentioned when they are young, though the author is also correct that some kids become rotten, mean, spoiled, and selfish like the Callendar children whom Jean visits. Mr. Callendar was also believable as a manipulative, selfish, narcissistic, greedy, mean-spirited person who presents a charming facade when it suits him.

[寿理 宮本 · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm declaring that I finished reading this, despite skimming most of it, because I technically LOOKED at each page. If I'm being honest, though, I fell asleep with my eyes open for at least half the book.

Especially since I JUST finished reading The Best Story Wins, I found THIS story SO BORING, because it breaks one of the biggest rules from both Luhn's book and from my own experience in writing/editing: AVOID PASSIVE VOICE. The first few chapters feel like LITERALLY EVERY SENTENCE uses passive voice, and not just continuous tenses ("was doing").

It's otherwise a rather humdrum slice-of-life period piece, and most of the "nightmare" she stumbled into is so obvious that I half-guessed it when Mr. Thiel asks for Jean specifically, then fully guessed it when they made a point about a disappeared baby that, HEY, is about Jean's age! By then I just ended up skimming to see whether I got it correct (I did!). I started more actively reading again toward the end, since I wanted to see why all the subterfuge.

Eh, not a story I would recommend, certainly not to contemporary readers. I remember Voigt having written some more interesting books (Jackaroo, On Fortune's Wheel), but why this one felt like such a foot-dragger by comparison, who knows.

[Laina SpareTime]

Cross-posted from my blog where there's more information on where I got my copy and links and everything.

Once in school my English class had to read Homecoming and my English teacher got kind of annoyed because I couldn't do any of the "predict what's going to happen" work as I had already read the book several times before that class. That has nothing really to do with this book, but it's a fun story to tell. Anyways, suffix to say, I'm quite fond of this author's writing, and I think it's really awesome that she's still writing today. That's a long freaking career and something to really be admired.

And in general I enjoyed this one, too. It has some good atmosphere and while I guessed the twist pretty late, it's not a bad mystery at all. I wish there had been more focus on the titular papers, since those kind of get swept to the wayside only to be brought back at the last minute.

As well, there's some racism towards Native people that I don't think is... inaccurate, let's say, for the 1894 time period, but was rather inappropriate for the author to write in the 1980s, and it's not challenged or anything. There's also some ableism regarding language around wheelchairs.

I have nostalgia for this author, and I did enjoy a lot of the prose and such in this, and the more Gothic atmosphere, so I will probably personally keep this, at least for now, but I wouldn't wholeheartedly recommend you seek it out due to those factors. If you do, be aware of them. If there was slight editing to remove those, I'd totally change my mind, though, as it's an interesting book.

[aspen · Rating 3 out of 5]

The story is told well even if it is predictable. Jean is an engaging protagonist; her penetrative insights and curiosity make her an endearing character and give much needed momentum to the story. I love how her first person POV delivers a rich yet accessible narration that captures the late 1800s in HD (a setting I found to be surprisingly cozy). The mystery, though easy to solve, is exciting to unravel.

Certain characteristics of this story are typical of 20th century children's literature and that gives this book a nostalgic quality, despite it being a first time read. For example, the thematic elements regarding right and wrong are both unexpected and sophisticated. Likewise, the character development given to Mr. Thiel and Mr. Callender feels like it's competing with adult literary classics such as Jane Eyre. Even the ending is quintessential: dramatic reveals tie all the plot lines together before everything is resolved neat and tidy. For some, the ending will be too convenient but I found it satisfying. Would def recommend.

[Sophia Barsuhn · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a very generous four, and it feels weird to say that about a Cynthia Voigt book. She is one of my favorite authors ever and has been for almost two decades. That being said, this book genuinely felt like she was sleepwalking her way through it. There were moments where it felt like she woke up and actually enjoyed herself (for example, the moment where Jean realizes how she and Mr. Thiel are very alike in their stubborn, angry, intelligent way), but for the most part it just did not feel like she cared much at all. The many proofreading mistakes were jarring.

Who knows, maybe this will be better on a reread. When I first read Voigt's Glass Mountain, I very much did not enjoy it, but then found it to be genuinely fantastic when I read it again a few years later. Maybe The Callendar Papers will be the same.

[Don Heiman · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Newberry Medal and Edgar Award winner novel by Cynthia Voigt “The Callender Papers” 6th printing was published by Fawcett Juniper in 1987. This wonderful book is about a 13 year old who discovers her true identity through a nightmare of events that ends with her surprising and joyous discovery of her parentage. The book is a mystery and an adventure novel. It is captivating, laced with surprises, and very uplifting. I was especially captivated by the storylines of how she survived a chain of events “…that long ago shook a peaceful (east coast) village” in 1894. It is a book I truly enjoyed reading. (P)

[Angel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Definitely worth reading and the way the characters act with each other is extremely interesting, one of my favourite book I would say and the character Jean really demonstrates her courage and this does not only reflects on the book itself but actually with the girls of Jean’s age will definitely gain so much from it, and I love this story so much although I had a copy of the Chinese version I felt the way of mysterious events leading to a happy ending and is something that is special from the rest of the novels and also very proud as it is one of the award winning novels.

[lucy black · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Callender Papers is an odd mystery set in colonial USA. Jean is coming of age one summer and working as an assistant for a shady family friend who needs to sort through a mess of family papers. The themes are morals and intuition, Jean is constantly trying to work out who she can trust and which adults around her have made unforgivable decisions. The setting is brilliantly mapped out and the reader gets a strong sense of vibe and place, the characters are mostly quite two dimensional and obvious and the mystery is transparent as well as over the top.

[Carol · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a pleasure to read! This was my first Cynthia Voight novel; it won't be my last. It's a treat to know when I start a book that I'm in the hands of a capable storyteller and writer. I had the same feeling when I started Madeline L'Engle's "A Wrinkle in Time." Sit back, relax, and enjoy. I'm happy I picked up this old, yellowed paperback by Voight. It has aged well. Thank you, Cynthia Voight!

[Abigail · Rating 4 out of 5]

Jean is a wonderful narrator and all of the characters feel real and fleshed out. Even though the resolution should have been obvious from the beginning, Voigt did an excellent job of misleading the reader. She played with the disparity between what people tell you about a person and the opinions you form while interacting with them, which ultimately led me to consider other suspects.

[Luann · Rating 4 out of 5]

Although I'm over 60, I still enjoy reading YA (young adult) novels. For good reason, Cynthia Voight is one of the best known, and I liked this story, even if it was set in the past. It was a 1983 Edgar Award winner and is written in the gothic novel style.

The story explores human relationships. The ending is satisfying and the book is an easy read.

[Jane Irish Nelson · Rating 4 out of 5]

When twelve-year-old Jean is asked to spend the summer helping her Aunt Constance's friend Mr. Thiel sort some family papers, she never expects to uncover a mystery. But when she does, it puts her in danger. Who can she trust? Interesting characters and an unusual plot combine to make this book hard to put down. Recommended.

[Kirsten Hill · Rating 4 out of 5]

I chose this book to fit a reading category challenge, "A book you loved as a child or teen." This was one of my favorite books in 5th grade. I liked it better as an adult than I thought I would. Though the ending was very predictable to me as an adult, I still enjoyed the mystery the book presents.

[Ann · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another old book from the dusty shelf...

I think I actually did read this as a kid because once I was midway through I had solved the mystery. Despite that, I was still engrossed. This had just the right amount of thrill and danger for me to be exciting without being scary. Beach read for young adults!

[Dennyg · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved this book from the start. There was a lot to think about in the yin/yang of life. I thought it was well written. BUT, the end was very rushed. I felt there was a lot missing. I still enjoyed it.