A measured, engrossing story that turns philately into a quiet mystery.
In Creurer’s debut novel, a young boy hopes to retrieve the missing stamp—and valuable inheritance—he believes someone has pilfered.
Eleven-year-old Canadian Ivan Morrow is worried about a school project. His teacher, Mrs. Phillips, tells students they will be spending three half-hour periods each week on their hobbies. Ivan has no hobbies, and when Mrs. Phillips asks what his is, he quickly chooses stamps. But after a stamp shop owner, Mr. Carruthers, helps the boy get a collection started, Ivan develops a fondness for the activity, particularly the research involved. He’s surprised to learn that his great-grandfather had been a philatelist and had a bag of stamps he wanted to stay in the family for any interested descendants. In his great-grandfather’s collection, Ivan finds an unusual, hidden stamp that he takes to Mr. Carruthers. It’s an antique Penny Black that the shop owner appraises as having six-digit value. Ivan takes his stamps to school for show and tell only for his prized Penny Black to vanish. Though it turns up soon thereafter, Ivan is convinced it’s a forgery and someone has stolen the genuine stamp. With a suspect or two in mind, Ivan and classmate pals Tom and Leese plan to catch a thief. Creurer bolsters his leisurely tale with an appealing protagonist whose recent growth spurt earned him the titular nickname. It’s clear Ivan is not driven by the stamp’s hefty value but, rather, wants to recover what he feels his ancestor “entrusted” to him. The smart, confident prose comes from an older Ivan, who narrates. This unfortunately doesn’t allow him to fully capture an 11-year-old’s perspective in all its innocence or youthful exuberance, as the adult narrator has the benefit of experience and hindsight: “My personality existed in a state too unformed as yet to lend strength.” Nevertheless, the sophisticated writing is generally charming. Ivan and friends, for example, are fully committed to surveilling a suspect and diligently study the person’s routine like private investigators.
A measured, engrossing story that turns philately into a quiet mystery.Pub Date: Nov. 7, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-228-81398-9
Page Count: 178
Publisher: Tellwell Talent
Review Posted Online: June 1, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.
Coelho is a Brazilian writer with four books to his credit. Following Diary of a Magus (1992—not reviewed) came this book, published in Brazil in 1988: it's an interdenominational, transcendental, inspirational fable—in other words, a bag of wind.
The story is about a youth empowered to follow his dream. Santiago is an Andalusian shepherd boy who learns through a dream of a treasure in the Egyptian pyramids. An old man, the king of Salem, the first of various spiritual guides, tells the boy that he has discovered his destiny: "to realize one's destiny is a person's only real obligation." So Santiago sells his sheep, sails to Tangier, is tricked out of his money, regains it through hard work, crosses the desert with a caravan, stops at an oasis long enough to fall in love, escapes from warring tribesmen by performing a miracle, reaches the pyramids, and eventually gets both the gold and the girl. Along the way he meets an Englishman who describes the Soul of the World; the desert woman Fatima, who teaches him the Language of the World; and an alchemist who says, "Listen to your heart" A message clings like ivy to every encounter; everyone, but everyone, has to put in their two cents' worth, from the crystal merchant to the camel driver ("concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man"). The absence of characterization and overall blandness suggest authorship by a committee of self-improvement pundits—a far cry from Saint- Exupery's The Little Prince: that flagship of the genre was a genuine charmer because it clearly derived from a quirky, individual sensibility.
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.Pub Date: July 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-06-250217-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1993
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
