Even at a young age, my brother and I recognized the sheer number of kitschy lines invading this book. It had us in stitches, and I'm certain if either of us mentioned the title, we'd begin to recount our favorites. One that sticks in my head:

"'I guess we can't count on you for anything, Jonah, so we'll have to count you out...' Those are the last words you ever hear."

Ah, yes, the plot has something to do with your being a secret agent who has to save the whales. But who ever EXACTLY cared about the plots? It was all a matter of racing through the book to figure out every possible twist. Who can forget the hand-wringing tension of deciding which of four or five different spots would be the best to swim to? Or whether to secretly break into the bad guys rendez-vous house, or simply knock at the front door and bluff your way in? The KGB figures in somewhere, and all the villains are ridiculous Russian stereotypes (who look in the illustrations, if I remember correctly, oddly similar to Stalin, Kruchschev, etc.). This surely did derive from the collective Cold War imagination. I believe Trotsky is even mentioned by name, totally out-of-place, showing a complete disregard for not mixing up the historical facts in young children's brains.

Oh, the flood of nostalgia! Of course, the copy my brother and I had eventually became so worn out, it had to be disposed of, and I've never seen another edition. If I ever found it in a used bookstore, I'd pay the price. But does anyone else remember this classic piece of camp? E-mail me, we'll rap about the glory days of the strange series, and its wonderful seventh volume.

I highly recommend this book to anyone who is going to be the director of youth dramatics in a church!