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    The Four-Story Mistake
    The Four-Story Mistake
    The Four-Story Mistake
    Audiobook4 hours

    The Four-Story Mistake

    Written by Elizabeth Enright

    Narrated by Pamela Dillman

    4.5/5

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    About this audiobook

    Following up on the classic children’s novel The Saturdays, Elizabeth Enright continues the engaging tale of the Melendys family-Mona, Rush, Randy, Oliver, Father, and Cuffy, the housekeeper-and their move from an old brownstone in New York City to a charming house in the country.

    Called the Four-Story Mistake for its odd look and confused architectural history, the house offers the Melendys wonderful quirks and surprises. And though they are disappointed about leaving the city, the four children soon become absorbed in the adventures of the country, discovering the many hidden attractions that the Four-Story Mistake has to offer!
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherListen & Live Audio
    Release dateJan 1, 1970
    ISBN9781593163006
    Author

    Elizabeth Enright

    Elizabeth Enright (1907-1968) was born in Oak Park, Illinois, but spent most of her life in or near New York City. Her mother was a magazine illustrator, while her father was a political cartoonist. Illustration was Enright's original career choice and she studied art in Greenwich, Connecticut; Paris, France; and New York City. After creating her first book in 1935, she developed a taste, and quickly demonstrated a talent, for writing.  Throughout her life, she won many awards, including the 1939 John Newbery Medal for Thimble Summer and a 1958 Newbery Honor for Gone-Away Lake. Among her other beloved titles are her books about the Melendy family, including The Saturdays, published in 1941. Enright also wrote short stories for adults, and her work was published in The New Yorker, The Ladies Home Journal, Cosmopolitan, The Yale Review, Harper’s, and The Saturday Evening Post. She taught creative writing at Barnard College. Translated into many languages throughout the world, Elizabeth Enright's stories are for both the young and the young at heart.

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    Reviews for The Four-Story Mistake

    4.5/5

    124 ratings18 reviews

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    • 5/5
      The Melendy family moves from the city to a rambling old house in the country, where they have many more adventures.This series continues in the same charming vein. I may have enjoyed this book even more than the first. Recommended!

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      The Four-Story Mistake is part of a trilogy set The Melendy Family, that I borrowed from the library over and over as a kid. Somehow, I was recently spurred to re-read these stories (which actually has a fourth one published later on) but an used copy of the red-covered trilogy is way out of my budget. So, I'm settling for these paperbacks with awful cover illustrations -- but at least they include the 1940s-era interior illustrations.In this second book of the trilogy, the Melendys move into a house outside of New York City that has an amazing cupola -- and they discover a hidden room! They build a tree house, they even find a diamond and after they sell it, they use the money to buy World War II bonds. There's more amazing adventures. Living the dream!A fun re-read, already looking forward to re-visiting book three :-).

      1 person found this helpful

    • 4/5
      The four Melendy siblings move out to the countryside, explore hidden corners of their new house, raise money for war bonds, and meet odd neighbors with reptiles in bathtubs.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 4/5
      My kids put this audiobook on during lunchtimes and car trips around town, and while I listened carefully to some parts, others got lost in the background of other things that caught my attention, like hemming my son's pants (which takes all of my brain power). Usually I don't bother hemming my son's pants. I just cuff them or let him walk on them until his legs grow into them, but these are the pants for the little suit he's wearing to my brother's wedding. If I had been willing to cut them off, it would have been easier, but I wanted to retain the length so he could wear them again if either of the two remaining unmarried siblings decided to enter into matrimony before he outgrows his size 7 trousers.So you see, I was a bit distracted from the adventures of the Melendy children, especially during the last chapter of the book. But what I heard and actually listened to, I quite liked. I loved the ice skating excursion and the menagerie in the police officer's house and Rush's unexpected breakfast in the woods. The descriptions of the landscape and the seasons drew me in, especially the description of the unfolding spring, although that might just be because Enright mentions spring peepers; I love spring peepers.Even though we're heading to the library this afternoon and could take it back, this audiobook isn't due for a couple of weeks, so we're going to hold onto it and listen through it again, I think. Maybe I can pay attention better this time, or at least pay attention at different parts than I did this time so that I get the whole story.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 3/5
      What a delightful, easy, breezy book. There is nothing spectacular about it, no complicated plot, no difficult story line, and there is no page turning, cannot wait to get to the end feeling.But, there is a calm sense of wonderment regarding the way in which the author painted an idyllic childhood of four lovely children who were uprooted from a house in the city to a large mansion-like structure in the country.There is a loving widowed father, a nanny who is kind and gentle, a dog, and warm food and cool drink.There are streams, tree houses, wintry ponds for ice skating, bikes for riding, fields with gentle breezes that rustle the flowers, summer storms that necessitate the lighting of candles, crisp leaves of merry color and a hidden, mysterious room to be explored.Reading this book is like a slow walk down a lovely fall lane, like a gentle summer rain, like a lovely, gentle winter snow fall and like a field of spring daffodils.Recommended for anyone who needs a break from stress that requires balm for a weary soul.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      One of my favorite books that I read as a child, by one of my favorite children's authors. This is an "I wish I was part of this family" kind of book, with an "I wish I lived in this house" kind of house.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      Excellent portrayal of children! Reader has good expression which I enjoyed.
    • 5/5
      I really like this book and how there’s secrecy’s that u find out with the children. ?
    • 5/5
      I really liked this book I greatly enjoyed this book
    • 5/5
      Awsome
      I just loved it. Thanks Elizabeth Enright.

      Sav Torkelson
    • 5/5
      It’s amazing I love the whole series it’s so awesome
    • 4/5
      The four Melendy siblings move out to the countryside, explore hidden corners of their new house, raise money for war bonds, and meet odd neighbors with reptiles in bathtubs.
    • 5/5
      It's hard not to say that this is a little bit of what every childhood ought to be. Enright writes marvelously. I'll want a set of these for our library eventually, kids or no.
    • 5/5
      The Four-Story Mistake is probably my favorite book in the Melendy Family quartet. I've loved and reread the books for decades, but this is my first listening to an audio version. Ms. Dillman is great at getting in all the nuances of Ms. Enright's humor, as I noticed when I anticipated favorite lines. I didn't miss the author's own illustrations because my memory supplied them.The Melendy family is a nice one. I don't mean they're angelic -- the children have their faults and get into trouble, but they're a loving family. Their mother may be dead, but their father genuinely cares about them. Cuffy the housekeeper is a grandmotherly sort who knows when to scold and when to spoil. The house is the sort I'd have loved to have lived in when I was a child and wouldn't mind living in now (with a stair lift). Join Rush, Randy, Oliver, and even Mona as they explore the wonderful old place! You'll be glad you did.My thanks to this audio version for correcting my error. I thought the family's last name was pronounced the same as 'melody' with an 'n' stuck in. Now I know it's pronounced 'Mell-lend-dee'. Good to know.
    • 5/5
      I ran into a comment about this book and remembered reading the Melendy Family Quartet many, many years ago. I was addicted to Nancy Drew mysteries and my Mother took me to the bookstore and told me I could pick out any book as long as it wasn't Nancy Drew. I remembered loving this book and, over the years, have remembered many scenes from the books. So I bought them again to see if they were as good as I remembered. They were -- admittedly they're very much of their time (1940's) but the warmth and fun is there and ageless. I'd recommend these books to any child (and, frankly, any adult looking for a little innocent fun. All of the first three books are about the same in quality -- the only one that can be skipped is Spiderweb for Two -- which suffered a little from the lack of two of the four children.
    • 4/5
      I read this series when young and lately reread this second book and still enjoyed it. In this volume the family moves from New York City to a large house in the country. I find the suggestion that a girl who used to live there ran away to be a famous ballerina incredible, but otherwise it gives a good feel for life on the home front during WW2.
    • 4/5
      The Melendy family has moved to the country. In the previous story, The Saturdays their brownstone in New York was damaged by fire. Father Melendy has moved his four kids (Rush, Miranda, Oliver and Mona), dog (Isaac), handyman (Willy), and housekeeper (Cuffy) to "the Four-Story mistake", a house that was supposed to have four stories, but was somehow left off during construction. It's an odd looking house since the fourth story was added after the fact. Father is often away (hence the live-in housekeeper) so the four children are left to explore their new surroundings, the countryside and the house.
    • 5/5
      A classic beautifully performed. The narrator for some reason uses a southern twang for working class characters, which is an odd choice for a story set in rural New York State, but it’s beautifully done otherwise. I certainly noticed some things about the story that I didn’t as a child— if I were reading it with a child today, I would talk with them about the depictions of Native Americans in the book (not a major plot line, but some problematic points reflective of attitudes of the time).