Price: £9.99
Publisher: Scholastic Press
Genre: Fiction
Age Range: 8-10 Junior/Middle
Length: 168pp
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The Meanwhile Adventures
Illustrator: Brian AjharRomping along at a riotous pace with plenty of dollops of humour thrown in at regular intervals, Doyle has produced yet another book which will keep his readers amused and then asking for more. Ajhar’s sense of irony means that his illustrations are always spot on with just the right expression on people’s/animals’ faces.
So Mr Mack gets arrested for entering a bank with a wooden machine gun – never mind that it is actually a saw; and as for his wife, well, that’s another story altogether, which Doyle interweaves with the main story. So it is left to the children and Rover to manage things, which they do in style. But what of the orphan catcher? – not to mention many other characters all demanding attention. Doyle’s sideline comments literally beg the teacher or adult reading the story aloud to inject expression into the text, and any child trying the story on their own will be in for a real treat. Well worth reading.