Handles

By Jan Mark and Mark Jan

Book Overview

Erica, a lover of motorcycles, finds her country holiday dreary until she runs into a cat with false teeth, new friends with interesting names, and a lot of motorcycles. This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0689311400
• ISBN13: 9780689311406
• Release Date: January 1985
• Publisher: Atheneum Books
• Length: 162 Pages
• Weight: 0.95 lbs.
• Age Range: 8 to 12 years
• Grade Range: Grades 3 to 7

Customer Reviews

Another Winner from Jan Mark

This one does not disappoint and is even better than Mark's prize-winning THUNDER AND LIGHTNINGS. Pre-teen Erica has a secret love, motorcycles. When she is sent for "vacation" to a remote, rural area of England, in an isolated household occupied by three scarcely-human creeps, she finds her life revolving around picking and selling vegetables from the household's garden. Not much chance to see motorcycles here, presumably. But a visit to the nearest village introduces her to an "industrial park" consisting only of a seedy, muddy alley, and... a MOTORCYCLE REPAIR SHOP! Every detail of this fine novel aimed at "young adults" rings true, the characters intended to be likeable are extremely so, and there is actually a plot of sorts, ultimately involving the creative "tatooing" of what the Brits call "vegetable marrows," which I take to be a kind of cucumber. Several of the characters, for example the owner of the motorcycle repair shop, silently bear crosses of a sort which would be crushing to the weak. Whatever your age, in reading this book you will spend a couple of hours with people you like, in realistic and interesting situations, and you will learn some important lessons about real life in the bargain.