The House on the Point: A Tribute to Franklin W. Dixon and The Hardy Boys - Hardcover

Hoff, Benjamin

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0312301081 ISBN 13: 9780312301088

Publisher: Minotaur Books, 2002

Synopsis

In 1982, Benjamin Hoff published The Tao of Pooh, a plainspoken yet startling and complex take on A.A. Milne's Winnie The Pooh stories. Hoff's keen insights propelled the book, and its sequel, The Te of Piglet to total sales of over 2.5 million copies. Now Hoff has turned to another childhood classic, Franklin W. Dixon's beloved Hardy Boys mysteries, and created The House on the Point.

As a child, Hoff loved the Hardy Boys; they were the books that hooked him on his lifelong love of reading. Recently, he revisited The House on the Cliff, one of the classic early Hardy Boys mysteries, and decided to reshape it for readers of all ages. Hoff sets this recast story, now entitled The House on the Point, in 1947, when the Swing Era was giving way to the Baby Boom, and gives it a plot involving a post-war smuggling racket, a young newcomer to town who may have something to hide, and a police chief who's in no hurry to investigate. And he does so with a greater attention to detail, more fully developed characters, and a modern ear for dialogue.

Publishing in conjunction with the 75th anniversary of the first Hardy Boys mystery, The House on the Point is a book for those who haven't yet made the acquaintance of the Hardy Boys and those who haven't "grown up" and left their adventures behind.

About this title

Review

In The House on the Point, Benjamin Hoff, author of The Tao of Pooh, again takes a second look at a childhood artifact, this time revisiting the Hardy Boys novel The House on the Cliff.

The original Hardy Boys titles were not the creations of the nonexistent Franklin W. Dixon credited on their covers but actually the products of numerous factory writers between 1927 and 1946. They've been reconfigured over the years for different generations, but never so lovingly as in this attempt by Hoff to reintroduce the Hardys to a new pack of young readers. Hoff has stripped the book down to its bare essentials and redrafted it with fresh dialogue and three-dimensional characters. In an appendix, his attention to detail is apparent--he lists every plot device he kept from the original and defends the subtractions and additions.

But is it any good? Heck, it's a Hardy Boys adventure. There are spooky old houses, smugglers' caves, and last-minute rescues. It's a slice of wholesome fun for young readers or older readers who want to once again spend some time with the irrepressible Hardys. --Jeremy Pugh

About the Author

A former investigative reporter and lifelong reader of mystery fact and fiction, Benjamin Hoff is the author of the international best sellers The Tao of Pooh and The Te of Piglet, and the American Book Award-winning biography The Singing Creek Where the Willows Grow.

About this edition

• Publisher: Minotaur Books
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 0312301081
• ISBN 13: 9780312301088
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 224