Hunting Gumnor

In this adventure story set on the coast, Rarty and her friend Lionel must find Gumnor, the whale-type creature whose cry acts as a warning to ships on foggy nights. She has escaped from her chains and her disappearance threatens the livelihood of Rarty's father, her keeper. This rather overloaded novel touches on many themes --- animal rights, the disappearing way of life of the islands, depression and the newly disabled, neglected children etc but pulls most of it off by being cheerily pacy with many cliff-hanger endings and convenient coincidences. Rarty and Lionel are agreeable central characters whose imaginative play draws on Lionel's love of reading. The adult characters are folksily sketched in. While this first novel is overly ambitious, Potts writes with warmth and is certainly not short of ideas.