SHE, THE ADVENTURESS

by Dorothy Crayder ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 21, 1973

She, the Adventuress, is the sobriquet Maggie applies to herself (though the crew and adult passengers call her an ""unattended minor"") in order to avoid being scared silly when she travels alone to Italy. Though her roommate turns out to be a bracing old lady (who is ""not a senior citizen"") Maggie is at first beset by three anxieties: that the ship will sink; that Jasper, a stowaway of her own age, will be discovered; and that her aunt Yvonne will be unable to meet her at Genoa. The first worry is forgotten when hurricane Amy barely grazes them and then moves on, and the second when Jasper (a misfit from a rich family) is found but his father promises by phone to pay his way. Although the third fear is confirmed Maggie has by then acquired enough confidence in her phrasebook Italian to face a few train changes alone. For she has coped, in Naples, with art smugglers and Interpol agents when Mr. Dumond, an obnoxiously cutesy fellow passenger, persuaded her and Jasper to deliver an envelope that turned out to contain a da Vinci drawing. Though other fictional unattended minors have had similar adventures, Maggie's Iowa freshness is ingratiating and Crayder is similarly un pretentious.

Pub Date: March 21, 1973

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Atheneum

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1973

Categories: FICTION