Honey Bunch: Her First Costume Party was given to me in 1965. A few years later, I gave it and my other childhood Honey Bunch books to my little sister. I'm glad she decided to give them back to me for my 30th birthday, 19 years later. Although I get a bit tired of the formula when I reread them one after the other, some of the books still stand out.

The costume party that is to be Honey Bunch's first is a Halloween Party. The first chapter opens with Mrs. Miller explaining some of the holiday's customs to the little girl. Then her neighbor, Norman Clark, comes to show off the wooden bicycle he and his father built. Honey Bunch is pretty good at guessing what they used to make the bicycle (uh, when did the Mortons acquire a canary?). Mrs. Miller recognizes the handlebar as her missing rolling pin. Wonder what Norman said to his father that it got used.

The children bike -- tricycle for Honey Bunch -- to the hardware store to buy a new rolling pin. Norman lets his friend ride his bike despite the fact that she's shorter than he is and it has no brakes. Honey Bunch isn't paying attention and runs into a woman who is carrying a cage of chickens to the butcher. She scolds the child in broken English. The kids and others recapture all but one of the escaped chickens, although they don't know the woman has lost one until she talks to the butcher. The missing chicken will be the main subplot.

Norman and Honey Bunch follow the woman, Mrs. Latta, to her home to ask her if she lost that chicken in the accident. Her children, Mike and Maria, demand the return of the chicken and refuse to believe any protests of innocence.

Unpleasant as the encounter is, it leads to two nice discoveries. One is a man called Britto who has a performing dog, Tony. The little boy and girl also meet a lovely Native American girl, Princess White Fawn.
She and her father, Chief Leni, have left their reservation out West because her father is working for the government. Chief Leni cares for carrier pigeons.

Perhaps because this 1943 book was written for younger children, World War II is mentioned only indirectly. One of the characters is an aviator whom Honey Bunch calls 'Flyer Frank'. Frank Franklin used to be a lawyer in Honey Bunch's father's firm. Soon he'll be flying to Europe. One of Chief Leni's carrier pigeons and Flyer Frank will be another subplot.

White Fawn is lonely because the children at school make fun of her and her native dress. Honey Bunch is happy to make friends with her. She even invites White Fawn to come with her and her parents to her uncle's farm (where they'll be getting pumpkins for the party). Luckily, Chief Leni and Daddy Morton have a mutual friend who vouches for both, so White Fawn gets to go.

With Norman temporarily out of the picture, it's up to Honey Bunch's klutzy cousin Stub to provide problems through thoughtlessness. Stub delivers, both at the farm and at the Morton home.

White Fawn sings a nice song about the thunder-bird in chapter five. She also bakes a corncake for the other girls.

Party preparations take up a good bit of the book. I liked the description of games the children were going to play at the party, although Lady Clare was not happy when Norman and Stub used her for Pin-the-tail-on-the-cat because Mrs. Morton wouldn't let them use the store-bought game ahead of time.
I See an Animal, a game that was played on the way back from the farm might entertain the kids during a car trip if there are enough animals around. Only the first child to see an animal gets the one point it's worth on his/her score. A cat sitting in a window is worth nine points.

I would have loved Honey Bunch's party decorations, especially what she did with her favorite doll, Eleanor, for a centerpiece. (Good thing Lady Clare wasn't in the dining room.) The children may buy masks at the store, but I suspect that their mothers made their costumes, as Mrs. Morton did for Stub and Honey Bunch. They're mostly taken from fairy tales and nursery rhymes. If your copy includes the frontispiece, you'll be able to see some of the costumes, as well as Chief Leni, White Fawn, and Cloudbird.

There are a couple of party crashers, but they're dealt with, as is a deadly peril for one of the characters.

Chief Leni and White Fawn are dignified, intelligent characters. The fact that White Fawn suffers from racial prejudice at school is treated as a bad thing, not business as usual.

My copy may be an early printing because a previous owner wrote that she had gotten it for her birthday, February 27, 1944. If so, I note that Grosset & Dunlap didn't include the lists of some of their other books at the back as they did in many of my other books. The frontispiece is not on glossy paper. There's no printed notice about wartime regulations concerning papers, but perhaps that's the reason for the differences.

I enjoyed the costume party. I hope you will, too. ( )