The Gypsy Game [Hardcover]

Zilpha Keatley Snyder (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 10, 1997 | Age Level: 8 and up

The kids from The Egypt Game are back, taking up right where they left off in the first novel. What game will they play next? The answer is Gypsies. While April plunges in with her usual enthusiasm, Melanie seems to be holding back. But it's Toby who adds a really new wrinkle when he announces that he himself is a bona fide Gypsy. Plus he can get them some of his grandmother's things to use as real Gypsy props for the new game. What could be more thrilling? Then Toby suddenly and mysteriously disappears, and the kids discover that living as real-life Gypsies may not be as much fun as they thought. How will they find Toby and rescue him from the very real problems that are haunting his life?

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

This sequel to The Egypt Game "continues to offer Snyder's well-nigh irresistible combination of suspense, wit and avowal of the imagination," said PW in a starred review. Ages 8-12.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

From School Library Journal

Grade 5-7. Limited character development, a vague setting, and frequent references to events in Snyder's The Egypt Game (Atheneum, 1972) make this title most accessible to fans of the earlier book. Here, the friends are researching Gypsies for a new game when one of them, Toby Alvillar, finds his life complicated by family problems. Caught in a custody dispute between his father and his grandparents, the boy leaves home. Although Snyder has skillfully updated some aspects of her original story (e.g., making racial differences known through description rather than labeling), her characters seem oddly sheltered. Toby's decision to run away, for example, seems a naive overreaction, given the current realities of urban life and the capture of a child murderer in the previous book. Equally disconcerting is the willingness of the other children to conceal Toby's whereabouts. Despite these occasionally unbelievable plot twists, Snyder succeeds in making readers care about Toby's situation. The game itself, however, does not go well, for the children's discovery of the age-old persecution of Gypsies sours their enthusiasm. Snyder injects a contemporary (and hopeful) note by having her characters translate their discomfort into a resolve to help some present-day "gypsies": the homeless people whom Toby encountered as a runaway. With all the action, information, and emotion packed into the novel, it is little wonder that Snyder relies upon her readers to be already familiar with characters and setting, and it is for them that this companion book will have the most appeal.?Lisa Dennis, The Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 8 and up
  
• Hardcover: 224 pages
• Publisher: Delacorte Books for Young Readers; First Edition edition (February 10, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0385322666
• ISBN-13: 978-0385322669
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.8 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 2.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (29 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,878,670 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars The rating I gave says it all., June 6, 2002

A Kid's Review

This review is from: The Gypsy Game (Hardcover)

I read The Egypt Game and I really loved that book, so I read this book right away since it is the sequal. That was a bad decision. This is one of the most terrible books I have ever, ever read! I really liked the characters in The Egypt Game because they were so realistic and likable. The characters in The Gypsy Game are supposedly the same, but it seems that very unrealistic and unlikable characters jumped into the book and called themselves April, Toby, and the rest of them.

Also, because of the title, I thought this book was actually going to be about a gypsy game. If that's what you're hoping, you might as well read The Egypt Game again. This book is all about Toby and his miserable life and it's not at all about a game. I enjoyed reading about the game in The Egypt Game, and was very disappointed that The Gypsy Game didn't have one. That's why the title doesn't make sense. It should be retitled "Toby and his Problems." It would be much more accurate.

I really didn't like the ending. It seemed as if the author didn't care what she wrote as long as she got the book done.

If you haven't read either of these books, read The Egypt Game. It's not worth it reading The Gypsy Game.

17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Oh well., April 3, 2005

By 

Kat (United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Gypsy Game (Paperback)

Wow. It's downright depressing when an author rejects her own instincts, and I really get a sense that Snyder rejected a part of herself to write this book. She wrote something the felt she OUGHT to write, not something that she genuinely wanted to write, and as a consequence, this book is about what kids ought to do, rather then what they actually do, or what is truely important to them. I can really tell that the Egypt Game was inspired. But Snyder has since decided that her first book was too frivolous. Or at least it seems like she has. In The Gypsy Game, Snyder tries to capture the essence of growing up. The kids move away from imaginative play and assume responsibility in the real world. But this is a ham-handed, teen-lit sort of way to finish things, and it truly devalues the original Egypt Game. It's as if the author believes that the children's game, and by extension the children's lives, were mere precursors to real life, and adult life. She says that imagination should give way to obligation. This is a great way to describe the story, but it is also applies to the series itself. The imaginative Egypt Game gives way to the Gypsy Game, which is a book Snyder thought she ought to write, just to educate the nippers. Edifying fiction is rarely good fiction.
I think imaginative play does lead to adult responsibility, but it's effects are subtle. In fact, extended, consistent imaginative play usually produces a lot of artists, and...writers. Snyder condemns herself with her own book. She forgets that things don't have to have a moral to be enriching. A children's game can slowly help kids become responsible adults. A book for the sake of itself can help kids grow. In most cases, it's imagination that makes kids responsible and compassionate. They can't reject one to find the other. Imagination and responsibility must both occur simultaneously. GRRR.

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Yeah, what was THIS supposed to be?, September 5, 2003

A Kid's Review

This review is from: The Gypsy Game (Paperback)

'The Egypt Game' is one of the best books I've ever read. So naturally, I was anxious to see what was next for the kids. If anyone knows their pop music history, this is like 'Bad' following 'Thriller'. It just isn't in the same class as its predecessor. It took the author about 30 years to release this "book", and the time span is painfully obvious. It's like looking at different people. And this whole deal with Toby running away? And when do they ever play the game? My edition of 'The Egypt Game' gives two sample chapters from the Gypsy game, and it looked good to me. I was sorely disappointed. This book places with 'Gigli', 'Star Wars Attack of the Clones', and 'Bad' as one of the most pointless pieces of garbage on the face of this Earth!!! But judge for yourself. Don't say I didn't warn you.