Bonny Starr and the Riddles of Time

A book for more able juniors, this, with its magic and mystery, riddles and rhymes, ghosts and witches. It deals with good and evil and time and space, which perhaps only the very young can face undaunted and accept. On her way to the circus, Bonny Starr finds a key which she discovers - after visitations from the banished but kindly Black Monk and the evil Dazzling Clown - is the key to Eternity. Bonny, her brother, the monk and Mrs Medley, a witch, undergo tests and adventures in order to keep the key from the destructive Clown. After a process of suffering and personal sacrifice the door to Eternity presents the group with two riddles and when they are answered it is the Black Monk who eventually obtains his rightful place in Time. The story is exciting and intriguing but not always fully explained - for example, the answers to the riddles are never given. Incidentally, the cover suggests that the illustrator has never read the book - the Clown is misrepresented and Bonny unconvincing as a child of 1949.