With the help of a dead magician, a quick-witted young orphan foils a dastardly plot—in this breathless new adventure from the author of The Whipping Boy (1986, Newbery Award). When Touch pays a car on his great-uncle and sole surviving relative, Judge Henry Wigglesforth, he finds himself under pressure to sign over a previously unknown inheritance from his roving father. Wigglesforth is also leaning on pretty Miss Sally Hoskins to sell her Red Raven Inn for a pittance—rumor has it that a gold-toothed guest was murdered there, and business has fallen off. Meanwhile, Wigglesforth's sinister confederate Otis Cratt (why does he keep his face muffled?) is lurking about, intent on a certain bag of Pacific Island pearls. Touch is never one to let injustice go unchallenged; enlisting the aid of the ghost of The Great Chaffalo, a local magician, he tricks Cratt, stymies Wigglesforth, and saves the pearls as well as the Red Raven. Once again, Fleischman's storytelling is grandly melodramatic; a clear line separates good from evil, scenes are set with brisk economy, and characters speak their lines with grace and emphasis. Sis' dark, posed, slightly distorted figures add to these theatrics an undercurrent of mystery and a "Touch" of wit. Outstanding.
Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: 0-688-09441-4
Page Count: 96
Publisher: Greenwillow Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2000
A well-loved author brings together, on a Maine vacation, characters from two of her books. Peter's parents have assured him that though Sheila ("The Great") Tubman and her family will be nearby, they'll have their own house; but instead, they find a shared arrangement in which the two families become thoroughly intertwined—which suits everyone but the curmudgeonly Peter. Irrepressible little brother Fudge, now five, is planning to marry Sheila, who agrees to babysit with Peter's toddler sister; there's a romance between the grandparents in the two families; and the wholesome good fun, including a neighborhood baseball game featuring an aging celebrity player, seems more important than Sheila and Peter's halfhearted vendetta. The story's a bit tame (no controversies here), but often amusingly true to life and with enough comic episodes to satisfy fans.
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1990
ISBN: 0-525-44672-9
Page Count: -
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2000
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Bishop’s spectacular photographs of the tiny red-eyed tree frog defeat an incidental text from Cowley (Singing Down the Rain, 1997, etc.). The frog, only two inches long, is enormous in this title; it appears along with other nocturnal residents of the rain forests of Central America, including the iguana, ant, katydid, caterpillar, and moth. In a final section, Cowley explains how small the frog is and aspects of its life cycle. The main text, however, is an afterthought to dramatic events in the photos, e.g., “But the red-eyed tree frog has been asleep all day. It wakes up hungry. What will it eat? Here is an iguana. Frogs do not eat iguanas.” Accompanying an astonishing photograph of the tree frog leaping away from a boa snake are three lines (“The snake flicks its tongue. It tastes frog in the air. Look out, frog!”) that neither advance nor complement the action. The layout employs pale and deep green pages and typeface, and large jewel-like photographs in which green and red dominate. The combination of such visually sophisticated pages and simplistic captions make this a top-heavy, unsatisfying title. (Picture book. 7-9)
Pub Date: March 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-590-87175-7
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1999
© Copyright 2025 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.
