Customer Reviews

Handles (Lythway Large Print Children's Series)

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This one does not disappoint and is even better than Mark's prize-winning THUNDER AND LIGHTNINGS. Pre-teen Erica has a secret love, motorcycles. When she is sent for "vacation" to a remote, rural area of England, in an isolated household occupied by three scarcely-human creeps, she finds her life revolving around picking and selling vegetables from the household's garden. Not much chance to see motorcycles here, presumably. But a visit to the nearest village introduces her to an "industrial park" consisting only of a seedy, muddy alley, and... a MOTORCYCLE REPAIR SHOP!

Every detail of this fine novel aimed at "young adults" rings true, the characters intended to be likeable are extremely so, and there is actually a plot of sorts, ultimately involving the creative "tatooing" of what the Brits call "vegetable marrows," which I take to be a kind of cucumber. Several of the characters, for example the owner of the motorcycle repair shop, silently bear crosses of a sort which would be crushing to the weak. Whatever your age, in reading this book you will spend a couple of hours with people you like, in realistic and interesting situations, and you will learn some important lessons about real life in the bargain.