THE RUNAWAY APPRENTICE

An utterly delightful story for this tween age group, with type face and vocabulary that the third and fourth year readers can manage for themselves, but a story that younger children will also enjoy. The irresponsible and fun-loving fourth son of a wealthy merchant in the Imperial City of long ago Peiking feels that his pranks and imagination are not appreciated at home, so he runs away. He joins the troup of a ""shadow master"" who enacts with his company plays with shadow figures in silhouette. The whimsical and lucky accident fashion in which he manages ultimately to save his father and brothers and retrieve the family fortunes is told with a delicious folk humor. He has a touch of the carefree, light-hearted bravado without the malice of Till Eulenspiegel, though he does not have the characteristics common to legendary heroes, his story definitely has that quality. The characterization, the humor, the imagination of the plot, the Chinese flavor of the language and incidents, will give young readers more feel of that country than all the stories about little folks of other lands ever published. We loved it!