Mrs. Pollifax on Safari/on the China Station

Author: Dorothy Gilman
Year: 1977; 1980
Genre: Mystery

OK, it was the end of the school year and I needed some brain candy ... and you don't get much better than old Mrs. P. I once knew a fifth grade teacher who used these books to teach geography, and it's not hard to see why (although a lot of the political stuff is really dated now). But of course, I read them for good old-fashioned escapism.

Gilman's languages got better as the series progressed; the Chinese in China Station was correct as far as I could tell, and she made some attempt at reproducing African languages on Safari (I have no idea how faithfully). This is a long way from her Yugoslav characters calling Mrs. Pollifax Amerikanski in The Unexpected Mrs. Pollifax. (It should be Amerikanka.)