Book Scavenger, by Jennifer Chambliss Bertram, is a fantastic mystery!. It takes place in San Francisco. Below are some links to people, places, events, and stories mentioned in the book to help readers visualize the story!
Embedded Files
Before the story begins, you are introduced to the game called Book Scavenger by none other than Garrison Griswold himself! Griswold is the owner of Bayside Press and inventor of Book Scavenger. To learn more about it, click the link below:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1KbLrPKsA0qP0cxAJej73FhAN3noLkybE/view?usp=sharing
Chapter 1
BART Station - Mr. Griswold is at the BART Station when he is approached by Barry and Clyde. BART Stands for Bay Area Rapid transit.
Chapter 2
Jack Kerouac - Emily's dad is a big fan of Jack Kerouac, a writer who wrote during the 1950's and 1960's. HIs most famous book was called On the Road the maim character's name is Sal and Emily's dad has named their car "Sal". He lived in San Francisco with many other writers from what was nicknamed "The Beat Generation". One poet from this group of writer's owed a book store called City Lights that sold paperback books. The book store is still there and it's owner Lawrence Ferlinghetti is 100 years old and still living (as of 2019).
Golden Gate Bridge - Emily mentions the Golden Gate bridge. This bridge has become a symbol of San Francisco. (insert video) Here is an interesting website with more information on this amazing bridge built in 1937. https://www.history.com/topics/landmarks/golden-gate-bridge
Pier 39 Sea Lions (page 18) - San Francisco is surrounded by the San Francisco Bay. On the famous Pier 39, Sea Lions love to take in the sun and warm themselves much to the delight of tourists and residents of San Francisco.
Chapter 3
Emily moves into her new apartment (pictured above) and meets James. He seems to like puzzles a lot too.
Magic Square - James gives Emily a puzzle to solve. It's called a magic square. In each row, all the numbers need to add up to the same number. Try it!
Chapter 4
Detectives - On the Book Scavenger website you earn points for books you've hidden and found, or if someone finds one of your hidden books. When you earn points you go up levels.
Level 1 is Encyclopedia Brown. He is a detective in a series of books by Donald Sobol.
Level 2 is Nancy Drew. She is the detective in the classic series created by publisher Edward Stratemeyer as the female counterpart to his Hardy Boys series. The character first appeared in 1930.
Level 3 is Sam Spade. Sam Spade is a fictional character and the protagonist of Dashiell Hammett's 1930 novel, The Maltese Falcon.
Level 4 is Miss Marple. She is a fictional character in Agatha Christie's crime novels and short stories.
Level 5 is Auguste Dupin is a fictional character created by Edgar Allan Poe. Dupin made his first appearance in Poe's "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" (1841), widely considered the first detective fiction story.
Level 6 is Sherlock Holmes. The most famous detective of all created by British author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
Chapter 5
Barry and Clyde wiped the gun clean and threw it in The Bay. Here's a map of San Francisco Bay.
Chapter 6
Emily, Matthew and James take a cable car to go to the Ferry Building to find a copy of Tom Sawyer so Emily can advance up the levels on Book Scavenger. To the right is a video of a San Francisco cable car! Do you remember to which level she was trying to advance?
The Ferry building has small store fronts with foods and homemade goods. Out the back of the Ferry building you can catch a ferry to different locations around San Francisco. See the picture on the right!
Also we find out that Emily's user name on Book Scavenger is "Surly Wombat". A wombat is a rodent native to Australia.
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Chapter 8
Emily and James investigate Babbage and find out that they attend the same middle school!! I looked up Babbage and found out that Charles Babbage was a mathematician and inventor and is believed to be the inventor of the programmable computer! Why do you think Someone might choose Babbage as their username on Book Scavenger?
Emily and James also try to find out information about The Gold Bug by Edgar Allan Poe. It is a short story by Edgar Allan Poe published in 1843. The plot follows William Legrand, who was bitten by a gold-colored bug. His servant Jupiter fears that Legrand is going insane and goes to Legrand's friend, an unnamed narrator, who agrees to visit his old friend. You can read it here:
Chapter 9
Emily and James decide to create a a substitution cipher as their secret language.
City Lights Booksellers and Publishers - On page 77 Emily reads an article about Garrison's Griswold. In it it says Griswold was inspired by Lawrence Ferlinghetti (see above) who opened the City Lights Bookstore and Publishing company. (insert picture of City Lights).
It also mentions that Griswold has been nicknamed the Willy Wonka of Book Publishing. This is because he invents fun games for his fans, just like in the classic book Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl. In this book, the inventor and candy maker, Willy Wonka, creates a game to find golden tickets that will give the 5 winners a tour of his secretive factory.
Chapter 10
In this chapter, Emily and James research Edgar Allan Poe and Griswold only to find that there were 50,000 "hits" for that search. It turns out that Poe and a man names Rufus Griswold were enemies! Rufus was the executor of Poe's work after he died. Rufus was a REAL person! Check out the site below for more information on Rufus!
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Rufus-Wilmot-Griswold
Also in this chapter Emily and her family adventure around San Francisco stopping at North Beach, Saints Peter and Paul church, and of course, City Lights Bookstore.
North Beach includes Pier 39 where the Sea Lions sun bathe.
On their way to City Lights, they pass by Saints Peter and Paul Church is a tourist attraction in San Francisco. It talks about how it is Fleet Week in San Francisco and the Blue Angels were flying over the church. Check out this video of the Blue Angels in San Francisco in 2019.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4KSx1sy2kFA
City Lights Bookstore is a place where Emily's dad's favorite author hung out! On page 88 it mentions that they walk "under sculptures of open books dangling from wires like birds in flight". The books even light up at night!
Chapter 11
On page 92 Emily and James are out walking and they can see Alcatraz Island out in the bay. Alcatraz is a National Park! See the link below.
On page 93 Emily and James visit Hollister's book store. He made a display out of books that looks like the Bayside Press logo. Making unique displays with books is an art form.
Chapter 12
Barry and Clyde, our dim-witted villains are hanging out near the Ferry Building hoping the kids will come back. On page 105, it says, "Barry sat on the steps next to what had to be the ugliest fountain in all of San Francisco. It looked like a gigantic knocked over game of Jenga sitting in a pool of water. The fountain is called the Vaillancourt fountain What do you think? Is it the ugliest fountain you've ever seen?
Chapter 19
The Black Cat is the nam of an Edgar Allen Poe short story and it is also the name of a jazz club. If you're interested in reading it, the full story can be found here: https://poestories.com/read/blackcat
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