Peter Nimble and the Fantastic Eyes
Publisher: Scholastic
An amalgam of A Series of Unfortunate Events, The Water Babies, and touches of Barrie and Carroll will attract readers who seek large volumes of fantastic travels dogged by slightly unpleasant happenings and curious beings.
Peter is a blind orphan who has been trained as the ultimate thief. He steals a box of false eyes, and is transported to a mysterious island where he embarks on a quest to discover his true destiny, while helping others.
Throughout Auxier addresses his readers directly, and this, together with the slightly Dickensian moralistic tone of some of these messages will attract some and annoy others. Although the ending appears to conclude the story, we might suspect a sequel to detail Peter’s further adventures.
