The Mysterious Edge Of The Heroic World

The Sunday Age

Sunday August 31, 2008

Frances Atkinson

THE MYSTERIOUS EDGE OF THE HEROIC WORLD

E.L. Konigsburg

Walker Books, $16.95

Two plots cross in spectacular fashion in this peculiar young adult novel. William Wilcox and Amedeo Kaplin are precocious, charming misfits. Something of a loner and new to the town of St Malo, Amedeo is obsessed with the idea of discovering - something. It doesn't have to be a country or life on Mars, just "something that people didn't even know was lost until it was found - by him". Meanwhile, Amedeo's god-father, Peter Vanderwaal, is in the middle of curating a large exhibition of works by painters - including Matisse, Picasso and Renoir - who were deemed degenerate by the Nazis. When Vanderwaal's father dies, his mother gives him a metal box containing his father's handwritten memoir about his life during the war. A good read for older readers looking for a challenge and an unexpected twist.

© 2008 The Sunday Age

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