Customer Reviews

Treasure of Alpheus Winterborn, The

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The Treasure of Alpheus Winterborn is a terrific book. It is a fast paced mystery w/a dramatic and exciting climax. Readers of John Bellairs won't be disapointed.

This is a GREAT book. I highly reccomend it. Action packed, great storyline, and a spooky mystery, this book has it all!!!

Fans of Bellairs beware: This book is slightly different from most of them. While it has a lot of the Bellairs staples (meek young boy, eccentric buddy, evil adversary), it doesn't have any horror or supernatural elements. Despite that, it's an enjoyable little mystery with a twist at the end.

To get away from his money-obsessed mother, Anthony Monday accepts a job working with his friend Miss Eells at the library. But when he's dusting, he accidently uncovers clues to the seemingly hidden treasure of late millionaire Alpheus Winterborn. Though Miss Eells doesn't think the clues are anything but a joke, she helps Anthony hunt for the treasure. But Hugo Philpotts, the sinister nephew of old Winterborn, is also searching for the treasure.

At about this time, Anthony's father suffers a heart attack that temporarily makes him unable to wor. Terrified that his family is going to run out of money, Anthony becomes obsessed with finding Winterborn's treasure. And when Philpotts threatens his father's business, Anthony finds that he has only a few days to find the treasure...

Even if this isn't a horror book, it's a pretty good mystery. Bellairs did a good job with staples like hidden treasure, clues in a poem, the sinister relative and so on. There's that distinct, slightly unreal flavor of a child's daydream in his books, like this is the imagined adventure of a boy on a summer day. And even though there are no monstrous spiders or cackling sorcerers, the discoveries near the end make up for that. Action fans will especially enjoy a tense scene on a rainy rooftop near the finale.

Anthony Monday is a little darker in some ways than Bellairs' more popular heroes (Johnny Dixon and Lewis Barnavelt), but he's very much in the same mold. Nice, quiet, unassuming, extremely loyal and normally very honest. Miss Eells, a ladylike librarion who can curse like a sailor (don't worry, parents, Bellairs never makes it clear just what she says), makes a good foil as the voice of experience and reason. And Philpotts becomes a little more ridiculous as the book goes on, but is an expert manipulator and very realistic.

I read this book expecting some thrills and chills, but didn't get many "chills." Despite that, one of Bellairs' few straight mysteries is good Gothic fun.

I adore John Bellairs, and this one is my favorite. Take one poor, lonely boy, one giant gothic library, one greedy relative, and one mysterious hidden treasure and mix well for an action packed, fun book. Spooky, but not too scary. Lots of kids will identify with the hero, a lonely boy from the wrong side of the tracks who befriends the librarian at the castle-like library. He discovers a clue to the treasure that was rumored to have been hidden by the library's builder, the mysterious and strange Alpheus Winterborn. Winterborn's greedy nephew is on the trail too, and it makes for a great story.

This book captured my thoughts and brain with all the puzzles and mystery in it. I LOVE books that do that!!!!
It is about a boy who is searching for a treasure and has a lot of strange poems to figure out first. I can't remember to much of it, since I read it about one and a half years ago, but he comes across this other guy who is searching for it too. This 'other guy' is the son of Alpheus Winterborn and therefore thinks the treasure should be his. Well I won't give the whole book away, but if you are looking for a suspence, adventure, mystery book that is VERY CLEVERLY put together, read this one.

I recomend it 100%!

I have read this book many times. I never get tired of it. My mom loves it too. I recommend this book to people of all ages, not just kids! It really is great!

This is, of course, another one of Bellairs' wonderful books. That goes without question. But why did they remove Gorey's illustrations? They were perfect. They have been replaced with illustrations of a different style, which removes some of the fun when reading Bellairs' wonderful books. I have been reading John Bellairs since I was about 7 years old. Now I am the graduated college student who still enjoys the nostalgia of reading these wonderfully clever books. They are timeless masterpieces. But keep Gorey's illustrations: they added to the aura of these perfect books.

I loved this book as a chid, so when I ran across it recently I decided to see how well it would hold up today. I'm happy to say that it was just as fun to read now as it was all those years ago.

As an adult it is not too difficult to figure out the mystery, but it's still a fun story. As a child it was quite exciting and I'm sure that children today will love it as well. Unlike most Bellairs novels, which are usually scary stories of wizards, monsters, and curses, this is a more straightforward mystery centered around the hunt for a hidden treasure, and as such it would be appropriate for children who might be scared by some of Bellairs' other books.

I loved this book, it's fun to read and the characters are welldeveloped and very interesting! The Anthony Monday character featuredin this story is not quite as good as the Johny Dixon character in some of John Bellair's other books (like the Curse of the Blue Figurine) but he is still enjoyable. This book has great action (floods, struggles on rooftops), and is appropriate and entertaining for ALL ages! This book might look like a childeren's book (what with it's large type and all) but I'm 15 and i still love it!

This is a good story and it's written very well. A thirteen year old boy, who is desperate to help his family out of their money troubles, searches for a treasure that may be just a practical joke. I didn't like the beginning of the story where Anthony is having trouble with his parents fighting all the time about money, but that's because John Bellairs wrote it so well. Anthony struggles with a lot of things, but everything works out and he's a big hero by the end of the story.