I SHOULD NOT HAVE WORRIED.
It's not one of those exquisite, highbrow pieces of writing, but Wait Till Helen Comes is about as solid and reliable an example of storytelling as you'll ever want to see. Out of 160 ratings on the Evil Online Chain Store, a full 140 are five-stars. After 23 years, this book's still selling strong enough to produce a sales ranking that's a good 6,000 places over my momentary personal best. And here I thought WTHC was an under-the-radar gem appreciated by myself and an enlightened few. Heh.
As a kid, I loved that there was no Scooby-Doo style unmasking at the end - Helen was real, and not somebody to be trifled with. I also loved that Heather was a first-class brat, and the vicarious indignation over the stunts she pulled is as much a part of my memory of reading this book as the plot itself. Plus, narrator Molly was into unicorns and rainbows AND Edgar Allan Poe - an unbeatable combo in the eyes of 10-year-old Sarah Miller.
As for the audio recording? Well...I liked it better than Read Roger, but he's not entirely off base, either.
Amusing aside: A couple years back, my kidlit professors imported Mary Downing Hahn to Oakland University as a speaker in their summer Authors and Illustrators Art and Craft seminar. And I got to sneak in to hear her speak. Couldn't find my beloved old paperback to save my soul, but I did get a fresh new hardcover of Wait Till Helen Comes signed. AND I got recruited to drive Mary Downing Hahn to lunch afterward. Which made me grin and giggle enough that I had to explain how perfectly surreal it was to go from worshipping the book in elementary school to chauffeuring the author across campus in my grand old Town Car a dozen years later.
