Gift of the Gab

Here is a third book about Rowena, the girl without a voice who does not stop talking - previously the heroine of the marvellous Blabber Mouth and Sticky Beak. As reporters investigate her father's over-use of crop spray on his apples and Rowena begins to wonder if 'he didn't make my throat turn out crook', her father reveals that her mother died, not in childbirth but - in France in a hit-and-run accident. Cue the trip to France, even more delights of communication, and the hunt for the 'killer' which involves First World War trenches. Gleitzman carries it off in his special, highpaced, narrative style and it is good to follow Rowena again - for the last time apparently.