1960 book cover & bookmark: "The Pink Motel"

• Title: The Pink Motel
• Author: Carol Ryrie Brink (1895-1981)
• Illustrator: Sheila Greenwald
• Dust jacket blurb: "When the Mellens took down the Closed sign on their very own Pink Motel in Florida, left to them by Uncle Hiram, and the regular winter guests arrived, there began for Kirby and Bitsy the most exciting summer of their lives so far. There was Miss Ferry, the artist, who started Kirby on a search for Uncle Hiram's special secret; Miss P. DeGree with her three valuable poodles; Marvello, the magician; and two tall, dark and mysterious gentlemen who Kirby felt pretty sure were gangsters."
• Publisher: The Macmillan Company (first published 1959)
• Edition: Weekly Reader Children's Book Club edition published in 1960
• Price: $2.75
• Pages: 183
• Format: Hardcover
• First sentence: Until Kirby Mellen was ten nothing very exciting had ever happened to him or his father or his mother or his little sister Bitsy.
• Last sentence: And Kirby shouted back, "You bet!"
• Random sentence from middle: Kirby even forgot to polish up his J. Edgar Hoover G-Man badge or keep an eye on the gangsters or worry about the pencil which was missing from Uncle Hiram's desk.
• Amazon rating: 4.6 stars out of 5.0. (62 reviews)
• Goodreads rating: 4.19 stars out of 5.0 (511 ratings)
• Goodreads review excerpt #1: In 2009, Helen wrote: "I have the original hardcover copy of the 1960 edition. I loved this book as a child in elementary school. I wanted to inherit a pink motel and go to Florida so I could meet all these interesting people. What a great introduction to the world of mystery solving. I have read it over and over."
• Goodreads review excerpt #2: In 2012, Bob wrote: "I vividly remember Mrs. Hannah, my 4th grade teacher and one of my all-time favs, (1969), reading this book to us. I can still hear her voice and the 'crinkle' that the pages made as she turned them."
• Notes: I don't think my scanner did a great job with the shade of pink on this dust-jacket cover. If you use this color guide ...
  
  
  
  
  ... then the actual shade on the dust jacket would be closest to peach. But when I scanned the cover, it resulted to something closer to pink or taffy. Oh well. ... Carol Ryrie Brink wrote many books for children, including Caddie Woodlawn, which won a Newbery Medal. In her biography at the back of The Pink Motel, she is quoted as saying, "Children need the lift and thrill of imaginative writing as well as the tangible foundation of facts. It is this combination of realism and imagination which I wish very much to achieve in own writing." ... Illustrator Greenwald has her own website, which you can check out here. ... The Weekly Reader bookmark that's pictured above is back of the inside-back flap of the dust jacket. ... Among the blogs that feature memories and discussions of this book are Belle, Book, and Candle (great name!) and Book Discussion with Myself.