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The Mind Reader
 
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The Mind Reader [Hardcover]

Jan Slepian (Author)


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Book Description

9 and up
The show must go on! Growing up on the vaudeville circuit, twelve-year-old Connie Leondar knows that. So when his father, The Amazing Mind Reader Leondar, can't go on-stage one night, Connie dons his father's turban and goes on for him.

Why not? He knows all of his father's mindreading tricks. And Connie sticks to those tricks, until he locks eyes with an old man in the audience who has a surprising secret. Then the truth comes out--Connie really can read minds!

Now it is Connie who is the talk of the town. But the glitter and glitz wear thin for the young mind reader when he begins to see too much of the dark side of people. A decision to flee the vaudeville life--and a promise to himself never to use his strange talent again--take him and his friend Annie on a wild search for an eccentric cousin. On this search, a kidnapped boy and a puzzling garden test both the decision and the promise.

Using the power and peril of the sixth sense, Jan Slepian crafts an amazing story that probes the darkness and the light in all of us.

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

Grade 4-6. In the form of a long flashback, Annie Ellinger narrates the melodramatic tale of her companion Conrad (Connie) Leondar, whose life waxed adventuresome when he discovered?back in the summer of 1930?his uncanny ability to read people's minds. Obliged to substitute for his father in the family's vaudeville act, Connie dons the costume and mysterious attitude of a mind reader, only to learn, when confronted by a villainous face in the audience, that his telepathic aptitude is alarmingly real. Soon famous for this newfound skill, Connie is nonetheless troubled by the dark side of human nature he reads in others. He flees from the San Francisco theater where his family performs and ferries across the bay to Berkeley in search of a possible relative rumored to live there. With Annie along for support, the friends encounter a succession of eccentric, and potentially menacing characters, until they finally find a genuinely good man in the person of cousin Crazy Joe Leondar. The Bay area is aptly rendered, with well-integrated mention of fog, cable cars, hills, eucalyptus, and walnut orchards. Plot twists involve the recurrent figure of antagonist Rusty Shanks, whose wicked deeds eventually land him in jail just about the time Connie and Annie are happily reunited with their parents. Connie remains a somewhat enigmatic character, most likely due to the long-ago quality of the tale, yet the voice of Annie is direct and engaging, and the result is fine storytelling.?Susan W. Hunter, Riverside Middle School, Springfield, VT
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Kirkus Reviews

Slepian (Pinocchio's Sister, 1995, etc.) turns again to the days of vaudeville for this surprising, meaty tale of an authentic mind-reading act. A last-minute substitute when his drunken father passes out at show time, Connie Leondar, 12, wows the crowd, bypassing the coded messages his costumed mother sends from the audience to make stunningly precise, accurate observations. Only Annie knows his secret; Connie really can read the thoughts and comprehend the feelings of others. She watches as he grows more haggard and desperate-looking, until at last, after visiting the particularly vile mind of a man named Rusty Shanks, Connie confesses that all the sorrow, need, pettiness, and malice is more than he can bear. Persuading him to make a break, Annie steals away with him, in search of a never-met uncle known as Crazy Joe. The plot has the pace and ambience of old-time melodrama, but Slepian goes beyond types in her casting--even Shanks has a spot of tenderness in his villainous heart, and Joe is far from crazy. Connie finds in Joe's strange and wonderful junk garden a rejoinder for his desperate pursuit of a better view of human nature, and the settled home he needs. Absorbing. (Fiction. 11-13) -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Product Details

  • Reading level: Ages 9 and up
  • Hardcover: 132 pages
  • Publisher: Philomel (September 22, 1997)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0399231501
  • ISBN-13: 978-0399231506
  • Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.6 x 0.8 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #8,718,843 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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