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THE LAMBKINS by Eve Bunting

THE LAMBKINS

by Eve Bunting & illustrated by Jonathan Keegan

Pub Date: Aug. 1st, 2005
ISBN: 0-06-059906-5
Publisher: HarperCollins

Bunting offers an odd story of four plucky young people who are shrunk and forced to live in a dollhouse to satisfy a crazed woman’s fantasy. The unhinged widow of a great scientist, Mrs. Shepherd “rescues” talented individuals to allow them freedom to devote to their avocations and to populate her incredible dollhouse with the children she never had. Shrinking serum and kidnapping are the means to nabbing her victims in the first place; weekly “vitamin shots” guarantee their perpetually tiny stature. She thinks she’s doing her “lambkins” a favor; they know she’s nuts and desperately plot escape. The hapless victims’ personalities emerge as they bond over time, and there’s a weird plausibility about all this as they try to make the best of their situation. The story won’t suit everyone, especially since Bunting doesn’t tie up all the loose ends, but there’s enough menace to keep kids turning pages and rooting for the unwilling playthings. (Fiction. 10-12)