When Horace turns 11, he celebrates in grand style by inviting his friends to a splendid party. When the time comes for the birthday banquet, a most curious mystery will be revealed. Base has hidden messages that will keep sleuths searching happily for hours for the answer to the mystery. Full color.
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Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com Review
Reading The Eleventh Hour is like running a marathon: one finishes exhausted but satisfied. Graeme Base, creator of the popular Animalia, has crafted another intricately wrought, gorgeously illustrated picture book, this time a mystery in verse. When Horace the Elephant decides to throw himself a party for his 11th birthday, he never suspects a crime will be committed by lunchtime. Who has stolen the birthday feast? As with any good mystery, everyone is guilty until proven innocent. The proof lies in the myriad clues embedded in each glorious illustration. Young sleuths will delight in decoding the complex messages that pop up in unexpected places.
Graeme Base used the buildings he saw during his travels through Africa, Asia, and Europe to design and decorate Horace's fantastic house. Astute readers may recognize Roman cathedrals, Scottish palaces, and stone carvings from India. Best of all, secreted in these walls are cryptic messages in Egyptian hieroglyphics, anagrams, and even Morse code to challenge the perceptive and deductive abilities of any reader "of tender years or long in tooth." The Eleventh Hour is a brilliant, rigorous, creative romp that no child (or adult) should miss. (All Ages)
From Publishers Weekly
As in Base's Animalia , his lush, intricately detailed illustrations in The Eleventh Hour comprise a sort of visual hide-and-seek. Here, the stakes are clues to the solution of a mystery: Who has surreptitiously eaten the feast prepared for Horace the Elephant's 11th birthday party? The culprit could be any of a number of exotically costumed animal guests, from a pig dressed as an admiral to a pair of giraffes in tutus to a zebra gone punk. The fun of poring over the pictures for hidden messages and significant particulars is, happily, matched by the enjoyment derived from the text--witty, ingenious verses that ably skirt the singsong or mundane. It will take an exceptionally persistent sleuth to deduce the thief's identity; many readers may resort to breaking the seal to the "top secret" solution. Thus enlightened, those returning to the scenes of the crime may still find some clues difficult to discern; in particular, the large number of concealed "mice" are almost impossible to make out. But it is, as Base points out, the thrill of the chase that matters most; and on this count the work scores high marks. All ages.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.
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More About the Author
Graeme Base is one of the world's leading creators of picture books. His alphabet book, Animalia, received international acclaim when it was first published in 1986 and has sold more than two million copies. Graeme lives in Melbourne, Australia.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
25 of 27 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
An engrossing mystery for fun book lovers,
By A Customer
This review is from: The Eleventh Hour: A Curious Mystery (Hardcover)
I first encountered this book while babysitting, many years ago. It was the kids' new favorite book (they were aged 6-10 perhaps). I read it to them & was enchanted with it (they just liked the story). I put the kids to bed & proceeded to spend 3+ hours (and I was a TV-loving young adult) trying to solve all the riddles & the find the answer to the mystery. I finally figured it out, but later, when I read the previously sealed "who-dunnit" section, I realized how much I'd missed in fantastically re-created architecture & secreted clues & jokes. The author/illustrator is incredibly imaginative & incorporates amazing artistry. I was totally engrossed & completely hooked. The family who introduced me to this book felt strongly about providing intelligent, stimulating & highly creative resources to their children. Since then I have bought this as a gift more than once... The story is simple & rhymes pleasantly so that it is appealing to children. The pictures are complex & fantastic to look at. However, I'm sure the wonder & adventure I found is lost on many children & adults. They may not have the patience or love of mystery that I do, but perhaps they could grow into it, certainly, over time, new discoveries would appear to even the most uninterested reader.
12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A fantastic book!,
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Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: The Eleventh Hour: A Curious Mystery (Hardcover)
My mother first bought this book in 1989. She didn't know about anything about Graeme Base, but was greatly impressed by the illustrations and got it for my siblings and I to pore over. Not only were the illustrations lively and BREATHTAKINGLY BEAUTIFUL, but the mystery itself was so cleverly set up! I never would have guessed...actually we did correctly guess who it was, but we had no idea how until after we opened the seal in the back. Once we did, we realized we didn't know the half of it. By the way, did anybody ever find out the name of the Swan? Because my older sister did, and that was even harder to figure out than "Who Stole The Feast?" (Here's a hint, and I hope it doesn't give the answer away: The Card Game) I guarantee if you buy this book, you will NOT be disappointed!P.S. "Animalia" was pretty good, too!
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Watch out!,
By
This review is from: The Eleventh Hour: A Curious Mystery (Hardcover)
I think one of my great regrets in life so far is that I opened the answers to The Eleventh Hour before solving it for myself.Don't let it happen to you!
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Inside This Book
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28
books
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- The Power of Poems: Teaching the Joy of Writing Poetry by Margriet Ruurs on 5 pages
- Lessons in Comprehension: Explicit Instruction in the Reading Workshop by Frank Serafini on 4 pages
- Some of My Best Friends Are Books: Guiding Gifted Readers from Pre-School to High School (2nd Edition) by Judith Wynn Halsted on page 292, Back Matter (1), and Back Matter (2)
- How to Write a Children's Book and Get It Published by Barbara Seuling on page 16, and Back Matter
- The Water Hole by Graeme Base in Back Matter
See all 28 books citing this book
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