9780380718054
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Avi
Genre Ages 6-8
Format Paperback
Dimensions 5.12 (w) x 7.50 (h) x 0.25 (d)
Pages 128
Publisher HarperCollins Publishers
Publication Date September 1992
ISBN 9780380718054
Book ISBN 10 0380718057
About Book

Tony can hardly believe it. He's sailing with the wind, maneuvering through the narrow channels between the offshore islands with amazing skill. And he'sjust learned to sail! But suddenly Tony is confused. Which way had he come? Which way is he headed? And who are the mysterious couple with the high powered motor boat who are to busy searching beneath the water to answer his call for help?

Tony does some searching on his own. What he discovers leads him on a daring hunt for a 200-year-old shipwreck . . . and a dangerous confrontation with treasure hunters who will stop at nothing to keep Tony from learning their secret.

While learning to sail during a visit to his grandmother's at the Connecticut shore, eleven-year-old Tony becomes excited about the rumors of sunken treasure in the area and starts following a couple who seem to be making a mysterious search for something.

Reviews

Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books

Avi keeps the action moving.

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

The Newbery Honor author offers a potent brew of mystery and adventure in this tale of an 11-year-old boy involved in a search for a centuries-old shipwreck. Ages 8-12. (Sept.)

School Library Journal

Gr 4-6-- Tony Souza, 11, uses his paper route earnings to buy a 12-foot sailboat that he takes with him when he spends part of the summer with his grandmother on the Connecticut shore. During his stay, he learns to sail and becomes intrigued by tales of buried treasure in the area. He and his grandmother learn more about the treasure, and he begins to piece together clues to its whereabouts. As he hunts, Tony encounters a couple who are illegally diving for the treasure, and they warn him away from their boat with an attack on his sailboat. After being lost in a storm, he puts together the final clues only to be captured by the villains and then, predictably, rescued in the nick of time. While this brief novel begins with a 1777 shipwreck that precipitates the modern story, the events of past and present are too neatly drawn together. The characterization and suspense of Avi's The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle (Orchard, 1990) are absent here. Even so, for readers in search of an accessible adventure story, this will provide satisfaction. --Barbara Chatton, College of Education, University of Wyoming, Laramie