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THE MAGIC PERAMBULATOR by Jeremy Brooks

THE MAGIC PERAMBULATOR

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Pub Date: April 25th, 1966
Publisher: John Day

This is a tacky story put together from old scraps of magic yarns, stamped with a distorting stereotype of Arabia and imported from England. The over-long and under-imaginative story concerns a sultan's spoiled daughter. Her father wished to give her a baby carriage lined with a magic carpet. It was to be made in England at a perambulator factory. Instead of using the old carpet, the factory wove a new one and the foreman's son Tom kept the original rug. The sultan's daughter went bouncing around in the desert in the grandiose but grounded carriage and one day Tom, while lying on the rug made a wish. Faster than you can say ""Good Grief!"" Tom is whisked to the desert where he meets and exchanges boring civilities with the little princess. The desert and the living arrangements seem to be a Hollywoodian idea of Saudi Arabia at its palmiest, balmiest and most backward. The illustrations are garishly colored cartoons featuring lavender and orange shades that would never be found in any respectable Oriental carpeting.