A review by postitsandpens
The Message in the Hollow Oak by Carolyn Keene, Mildred Benson

2.0

This was perhaps the silliest plot line so far in this series. Nancy is tasked with finding a hollow oak tree with supposed treasure buried in it, and she's forced to fly to NYC to hear about it from a friend of her aunt's, who then sends her back to Illinois for the mystery. Along the way, she joins an archaeological dig hosted by a local university, which seems to not have trained their students terribly well, because anyone and everyone joins the digging throughout the book. There's also some distasteful things done with the items they discover, lots of use of the word "Indian", and a total lack of care when it comes to potentially destroying Indigenous burial grounds. (I know, I know, this is unsurprising given when the book was written, but it still leaves a bad taste in my mouth.) Also, two random people are kidnapped in this book for no apparent reason, there's more shaming of Bess regarding her size and her love of food, and a truly eye-roll worthy ending. Not my favorite of the series by any means.