Edith Van Dyne

Aunt Jane's Nieces out West Edith Van Dyne

Frank Baum was a famous author of children?s books. He is best noted for his book The Wizard of Oz. Baum used several pen names when writing different series. He used the pen name Edith van Dyke when writing books for adolescent girls. Aunt Jane?s Nieces is a series of ten books written for teen-age girls. Jane Merrick is a childless woman with three nieces. She asks the girls to visit her so she can decide how to distribute her inheritance when she dies. Louise, seventeen years old, is a would-be society girl, on the look-out for a rich husband; she and her mother have decided to spend their limited funds on a three-year quest for an acceptable candidate. Beth, fifteen, is a brooding small-town beauty, given to dark moods; the sixteen-year-old Patsy is a temperamental redhead who resents Aunt Jane's past neglect of her family and determines to have nothing to do with the old woman's money. The rest of the novels in the series feature travel, adventures, accidents, a kidnapping and rescue, romances, and a marriage for Louise. In Aunt Jane's Nieces Out West Beth and Patsy are staying in Hollywood after parting from their cousin's California ranch in the previous novel. They accidentally find themselves on the set of a film depicting a collapsing building. Beth is horrified that they have become unwitting extras in a motion picture,