Shirley Parker Stats, Beverly Gray books 1 to 4

Shirley Parker is Beverly's first roommate at Vernon and doesn't like her at first.
Shirley is a wiz at geometry, knows her literature well but struggles with history in Sophomore.
Hair: red
Described as tall in Sophomre.
Eyes: grey
Background: rich parents whom Shirley said didn't have time for her. Her parents live in New York.
In Senior Shirley becomes caught up in herself and stardom as she is the lead in a movie then is embarrassed and doesn't know how to gain her friendships back.
In Senior we learn that Shirley was the star of the basketball team for the past two years.

Lois Mason Stats, Beverly Gray books 1 to 4

At Vernon college Lois is first introduced as Anne White's roommate in book 1 Freshman.
For the first few weeks Lois is mean to Anne but this is then explained away as her being homesick.
Lois becomes secretary of the Alfa Deltas in Sophomore.
During the last two chapters of Sophomore Lois starts to counter comments by Lenora and this banter continues at the start of Junior. This is what I remember between Lois and Lenora and it is really the first thing in the series that starts to define the chacter of Lois, until this point I would of labelled her with the non descript personality we are given for Rosalie Arnold.
In Senior we learn she is a good basketball player. she plays a forward.
She is an actress but not serious in pursuing it as a career like Shirley is.
She dresses. As Peter Psn at the favorite fictional character dance.
It is not until the last few pages of Senior that we learn that Lois is a talented artist that wants to sketch.
Lois has a kid sister and she is going to babysit over the holidays after college finishes.

Lenora Whitehill Stats, Beverly Gray Books 1 to 4

Lenora is not introduced until chapter 5 of Book 1 Freshman, as a freshman that suffered from the same Freshman prank that Beverly, Anne, Lois and Shirley did.
Lenora has cute little sayings, in Sophomore it's " the nuts" for when something is good.
Lenora plays the piano.
Towards the end of book 2 Sophomore at the movies Lenora starts her rapid fire witted, chatter with Lois which would often become described in stories. This is played up the most in the last chapter of Sophomore as Lois counters everything that Lenora says.
In Senior you start to see the full potential of Lenora's character as Beverly spends most her time with Lenora or Connie.
At the fictional ball Lenora goes as Sherlock Holmes. In fact for what is to become a mystery series Lenora in Senior is more the detective than Beverly (she would of made a great detective or police officer) she has to talk Beverly into following a suspect. Lenora in this book refers to herself a few times as Sherlock Holmes. She even questions Beverly as to " where is your sense of adventure?"

Beverly Gray Stats from Book One Freshman

I thought I would take the time while rereading the series to collect stats on Beverly Gray for my website down the track. So here are stats from book 1.
Beverly Gray Stats.
Age: 19 years old at the start of the story and entering college.
Her best friend at the start of the story is Anne White, who's mother had been good friends with Beverly's mum when she was young also.
Mother: Helen Chadwick, went to Vernon College and wanted Beverly to follow in her footsteps. Beverly doesn't tell other students she is Helen's daughter but Helen is referred to as a patron saint by some students.
Father: John Gray
Lives: grew up at Rest Haven, Renville. At college she lives in Chadwick Hall.
Pets: a wire- haired fox terrier there called Terry.
Beverly's first roommate at Vernon college is Shirley Parker.
Quirks: signs a letter to her parents " love and lollipops"
Sports: Beverly I'd a good tennis player and asked to try for the college team as a Freshman. Beverly plays Basketball and was the best player in High School.
Eyes: blue
Hair: brown
Build: slim
High School: Beverly was a member of a social group of friends called " The Lucky Circle" the group consisted of Beverly, Anne, Jim Stanton, Tommy Chandler (a neighbor) Barbara West, Gordon Brewster, Joan Roberts, and Boyd Marshall.
Aspirations; in High School Beverly had said she woukd never marry instead she would travel the world and have a career.
Moto: from Tennyson, " For man is man and master of his fate."

Beverly Gray Books.. Time to read the series again from book one.

Finally it's time!!!!!
It's great, absolutely exciting because I have finally tracked down the elusive Beverly Gray at World's Fair. I will finally get to read the last Beverly Gray book I have to read.
I am going to read the entire series from start to finish. I read books all out of order as I was buying them from the USA as I saw books with DJ's on sale and grabbed them. Now I have the final book I need on it's way I am going to start reading the series again from book 1 and will blog as I go along.

Beverly Gray's Island Mystery

This is the book that started it all for me. I was up in the Blue Mountains looking at the second hand book stores. My favourite book store there has a vintage children's book room. One of those great library rooms where the book shelves run from floor to ceiling and there is a wooden ladder to get to the higher shelved books. This was the first time I had visited this store (though I have been a number of times since)

I don't know what attracted me to pick up this book. Other than it ticked all the boxes, it was a girl's mystery series, it had interesting artwork cover (hey Beverly is even wearing the classic 1950's pearls) and it was a bargain at $6.50, so I thought even if it was really bad it didn't break the bank. Though I must admit I did think it was going to be the kind of book that I liked.

Beverly Gray books are really a soap opera, (kind of brings back memories of watching Days Of Our Lives during my Uni years)
if you are going to read the books out of order though I must say this is probably an ideal candidate as it is a rare occasion and I mean RARE that Beverly isn't surrounded by her huge array of friends. Yes Beverly is mainly alone for a solid proportion of this story, which for me made a great introduction to her without the confusion of who is who. The reason for this is that this is the book after Beverly Gray's Secret and at the start of this book ( being a follow on from the last book) the Susabella has gone missing. This single event removed Roger, Jim, Terry, Lois, Shirley and Lenora from the story forefront and allowed for the reader to be introduced to Beverly's job as a reporter, her love interest Larry and her fellow reporter and rival Kay, all without the usual large character numbers of other stories in the series.

The Story also has Beverly going back to Vernon College so it gave great insight into Beverly's past for someone who hadn't read the stories of her college years. For her undercover work at the college Beverly takes on the guise of Annabelle Green, niece of Professor Green so that she can snoop around more easily then she would be able to do as herself Beverly Gray, Reporter.

I don't think I could of had a better introduction to Beverly Gray by starting any other book first. I got a glimpse of all her friends without them being all in my face all at once so to speak (I think I would of dreaded starting the series with one of the stories on The Susabella as I'm sure all the passengers would of been hard to keep up with. I also got an introduction to Vernon and what Beverly loved about it as she reminisces about the place she went to college whilst solving her latest mystery, and a good solid mystery it is, the book really kept my interest, and definitely left me wanting more Beverly Gray books. In fact she very quickly became my absolute favourite character after that first read.

It isn't until Chapter 15 of a 17 chapter book that our Susabella passengers show up in the story. The main plot continues right to the end of the book also, which isn't always the case with a Beverly Gray book, I am often half way through a Beverly Gray book going "okay they finished the main plot, so what now?"

This book also doesn't run into the start of the next book in the series as some do, its end with Beverly and Lenora yearning to get home, a place I still didn't know much about, still I didn't really know at this stage just how much travel Beverly Gray did and that she wasn't home a lot of the time.
Loved this book that started the journey for me.

Beverly Gray's Return

I put down a Judy Bolton book I was currently enjoying as soon as this arrived. Undoubtedly Beverly Gray books would have to be my favourite and this was the second last book I have to read. (I still need to get a copy of the hard to find at World Fair)

Originally I was only going to read the start of the first chapter to jog my memory as to where this story fit into the series. Five chapters later despite being tired I put the book down.

I marvelled at the way in which Clair Blank could sum up the series for new readers to the series in a few lines, after successfully first hooking you into what the current story was within the first few pages of the story.

If you are a Lenora fan you will love this book. Lenora would have to be one of the best side kicks because she goes against the general mould set aside for the side kick, she doesn't need to be saved she can save herself.

I was thinking why Beverly Gray is my favourite series and it would definitely have to be because of character development. I loved the early Trixie Belden books but after a while I was disgruntled that Trixie never grew any older no matter how many years went by and therefore if anything her relationships with those around her never developed. By contrast in this story

Terry proposes marriage to Lenora, and Beverly is surprised by her own jealousy when she finds Larry with Nikki. There are also several instances where she is with Jim or Jim's name comes up and she goes to say something about the way she feels about him when something comes up to interrupt the situation.