Available:*
Library | Call Number | Status |
---|---|---|
Searching... Stillwater Public Library | J FICTION COT | Searching... Unknown |
Bound With These Titles
On Order
Summary
Summary
A few things to know about Dylan
He is the only boy in his entire town--so forget about playing soccer.
His best friends are two pet chickens.
His family owns the world's only gas station/coffee house--their pies are to die for, but profits are in the hole.
Criminal instincts run in his family--his sister is a mastermind-in-training, and the tax men are after his father for questioning.
And one more small thing about nine-year-old Dylan--the crime of the century has just fallen into his lap.
With the same easy mix of wit, warmth, and wonder that made his debut novel, Millions, an award-winning international bestseller, Frank Cottrell Boyce tells the story of a boy who reminds an entire town of the power of art.
Reviews (5)
Publisher's Weekly Review
What can be said about a novel that successfully combines threads about Italian Renaissance art and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles? As Dylan Hughes, the narrator might put it, "completely mint." The leading export in the small Welsh town of Manod is its people, leaving the Hughes family with a gas station but few cars. Serendipitously, Dylan's mother buys an espresso machine at a car-boot sale at the same time that a large group of out-of-towners arrives. Flooding in London has led the National Gallery to move its valuable holdings to an abandoned quarry just up the mountain from the Hughes' garage. The art chief mistakes Dylan for a precocious art aficionado after hearing the names of Dylan's pet chickens: Donatello and Michelangelo. (Turtles' fans will know the real namesakes.) Meanwhile, Dylan's younger sister, a criminal mastermind-in-the-making, notes, "Art and criminals go together like fish and chips," and plots to right the family's fortunes by nicking Van Gogh's Sunflowers, and replacing it with a paint-by-numbers look-alike. Boyce plants a terrific message about the power of art to inspire and transform, as well as a belly laugh on nearly every page. The quirky Hugheses may be the most winning family of wacky Brits to cross the Atlantic since Hilary McKay's Cassons. Even the minor characters here, such as bossy schoolteacher Ms. Stannard and the dour town butcher, are deftly drawn. This sophomore effort from the author of the witty and wonderful Millions is equally charming and hilarious. Ages 8-12. (Sept.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Horn Book Review
(Intermediate, Middle School) When all the paintings from London's National Gallery, which has suffered flood damage, are temporarily relocated to Manod, narrator Dylan Hughes's sodden, gray Welsh hometown, it seems to be just what the dying former slate-mining community needs to improve its self-image. The comedy of misperception reigns in Dylan's endearingly ingenuous account of his town and family's struggle for financial and emotional stability. The man overseeing the transfer of the artwork into Manod's abandoned mine mistakenly pegs Dylan for an art lover when he learns that Dylan has pet chickens named Michelangelo and Donatello-in reality an homage to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles rather than the Renaissance masters. This false impression gives Dylan's two smart sisters ideas for how to reconfigure the family business, the Snowdonia Oasis Auto Marvel garage, to keep it afloat. Starting a catering service to entice the museum crew with baked goods called Titian Tart and Picasso Pie and planning a hilarious crime scheme to substitute van Gogh's Sunflowers with a paint-by-numbers copy are just two of Team Hughes's colorful projects. Eccentric supporting characters, including a local man who bungles an attempt to rob the Oasis and ends up a devoted worker there, enhance the vivid tableau, in which the town itself becomes perhaps the most vital and lovingly described cast member. (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted. All rights reserved.
Booklist Review
In a quiet Welsh town, nine-year-old Dylan Hughes helps his family run the struggling Snowdonia Oasis Auto Marvel. Quirky characters populate the community, including Daft Tom, who has a decades-old obsession with the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, cartoon characters named for Renaissance artists. One day a convoy of vans passes through town, headed to some abandoned slate quarry mines. Dylan learns that the convoy is transporting paintings taken from the National Gallery because of flooding in London (an incident based on a real art evacuation that took place during World War II). It isn't long before Dylan's own familiarity with the cartoon turtles results in a misunderstanding about his knowledge of art. Like the mutagen that transformed the Turtles, the presence of the paintings brings changes to Dylan's family and to the townsfolk. Even with an attempted painting heist, this is a quieter book than Millions0 (2004), but the readers who take to its message about the importance of art will be charmed. A list of the hidden paintings is appended. Chasing Vermeer0 , by Blue Balliett may be a good follow-up. --Cindy Dobrez Copyright 2006 Booklist
School Library Journal Review
Gr 6-9-Boyce's second novel is written with the same charm and deadpan humor as Millions (HarperCollins, 2004). Dylan Hughes is the only boy living in Manod, an uneventful Welsh town of drizzling grayness that he thinks is full of Hidden Beauty. His best buddies are two agoraphobic chickens named Michelangelo and Donatello after the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. His family runs the Snowdonia Oasis Auto Marvel garage. When the business falters, his father takes off, and Dylan, Mam, his older sister, Marie, and his aspiring criminal genius younger sister, Minnie, try to make Oasis more profitable so that he will return. Flooding in London causes the National Gallery to evacuate its paintings to the safety of Manod's mine. (An actual evacuation to the Manod slate quarry occurred during World War II.) Lester, the art expert in charge, takes a shine to Dylan as an art connoisseur on hearing the chickens' names. When he agrees to put one masterpiece at a time on view, the villagers' lives are changed. Minnie concocts a hilarious scheme to nick Van Gogh's Sunflowers, replacing it with a paint-by-number affair. All gets sorted out and Dad comes home. The colorful characters steal the show-even the secondary players are cleverly drawn. But it is Dylan's narrative voice, with its unintended humor, appealing na?vet?, and expression of absolute belief in his dad that is truly a masterpiece.-Connie Tyrrell Burns, Mahoney Middle School, South Portland, ME (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Kirkus Review
When the entire contents of the National Gallery are brought to the dead-end town of Manod, Wales, for safekeeping in a hollowed-out slate quarry, life changes forever for the Hughes family. Business at the Snowdonia Oasis Auto Marvel has been drying up as more and more people move out of town, leaving the family without any viable source of income and narrator Dylan without a single boy to play soccer with. When the chief caretaker of the artworks mistakes Dylan's fondness for the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles for an appreciation of Renaissance artists, a line of communication opens up between Manod and the quarry that gently transforms both, as the response of the citizens of Manod to the art brings life back to the nearly moribund town, and humanity to the Gallery personnel. While the art does its quiet work, however, Dylan's little sister Minnie, a criminal genius in the making, determines that the only way to rescue the Snowdonia Oasis is to pull off a heist, threatening everything. Boyce's signature daffiness plays hilarity and pathos off each other with not one wrong note. (Fiction. 10-14) Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Excerpts
Excerpts
Framed Chapter One You've probably never heard of Vincenzo Perugia. But we know all about him. He was a famous art thief and we used to be in the same line of work. My sister Minnie even had a picture of him on her bedroom wall. She reckons that when Vincenzo stole the Mona Lisa from the Louvre museum in Paris on August 21, 1911, that was the most immensely perfect crime ever. The Mona Lisa was the world's most famous painting, but Vincenzo did such a neat job no one even noticed it was missing for two days. Then they did notice, and everything went mental. Everyone went to the Louvre to look at the empty space where the painting had been. They lined up to look at an empty space! Even Vincenzo Perugia lined up. And when they got to the front of the line, they all looked at that empty space and thought about what used to be there. I can understand that. Sometimes something vanishes, and afterward you can't stop looking at the place where it used to be. And all this time Vincenzo had it in his little room--the Mona Lisa was in a trunk next to the bed. Sometimes he took the painting out and played it funny songs on his mandolin. He didn't try to sell it. He didn't steal any other paintings. He didn't want to be famous or rich. He just wanted the Mona Lisa . And that's where he went right. That's why it was the perfect crime. Because he didn't want anything else. And that's probably where we went wrong. We wanted something. Snowdonia Oasis Auto Marvel, Manod February 11 Cars today: Blue Ford Fiesta--Ms. Stannard (Twix) Scania 118 Low Loader--Wrexham Recovery Weather: Rain Note: Oil is different from antifreeze My dad, right--ask anyone this, they'll all say the same--my dad can fix anything. Toyota. Hyundai. Ford. Even Nice Tom's mam's diddy Daihatsu Copen (top speed 106 mph), which is about the size of a marshmallow so you need tweezers to fix it. And it's not just cars. Like the time when we were at Prestatyn and Minnie wanted a swim but I wouldn't get in the water because it was too cold. She kept saying, "Come in. It's fine once you're in." And I kept saying, "No." Dad got up, went to the trailer and came back with a kettle of boiling water. He poured the water in the sea and said, "Dylan, come and test it. Tell me if it's all right or does it need a bit more?" I said, "No, that's fine now, thanks, Da." "Sure now?" "Sure now." "Not too hot then?" "No, just right." "Give me a shout. If it gets cold again, I can always boil up some more." Then Minnie splashed me and I splashed her and we stayed in the water till the sun went down. He fixed the sea for us. Now that is a thing to be admired. My big sister, Marie, never came in the water even after Dad fixed it. She said, "Have you any idea what sea water can do to your hair?" And later on when we were playing Monopoly in the trailer, she said, "Did you really think that one kettle of water could warm up the entire Irish Sea?" I said, "Not the whole sea, obviously. Just the bit we were swimming in." "Yeah, like that would really work," said Minnie. "Let me explain the physics . . ." "Minnie," said Mam, "Euston Road. Three houses. Two hundred and seventy pounds, please." Typical of Mam, by the way, cleverly changing the subject like that. Obviously I know now that the kettle didn't warm up the sea, but that's not the point. I got into the water, that's the point. Dad looked at that situation and he thought, I can't do anything about the physics, but I can do something about Dylan. So he did. He's keen for us all to learn how to fix things too. That's how I came to be helping him with the oil change on Ms. Stannard's blue Fiesta (top speed 110 mph). I don't know how I came to make the mix-up about the oil. Dad said it would probably be best if I didn't go near the workshop again. Or near a car again, really. He was quite calm about it. He said it was the kind of thing that could happen to anyone. Anyone who didn't know the difference between motor oil and antifreeze, that is. After that, Mam said I could take over the petrol log. That's the massive red book next to the till where we write down all the petrol sales so we can track supply and demand. The book is red, with gold patterns on the front. It looks like a Bible. Mam got it in a trunk sale (Trunk Crazy at the Dynamo Blaenau Soccer Club ground) for fifty pence. It's got over a thousand pages. We only use about a page a week, so it should last us twenty years. Bargain! No disrespect to Mam, obviously, but she was probably too busy with the new baby to make the most of that job. She just wrote stuff like, "10:20 a.m.--four gallons unleaded." Whereas I put down all the detail--the make, the year, name of the driver, anything. I'd stay out on the asphalt forecourt in front of the shop from after school till teatime. Sometimes Nice Tom would come and sit with me, and if he said something like, "Mr. Morgan's back left tire is baldy," I'd put that down too. When Dad saw it, he said, "Dylan, you have made a fifty-pence petrol log into a database. That is something to be admired." A database is very useful. For instance, when Dad read, "Mr. Morgan: back left tire is baldy," he sourced a new tire and offered it to Mr. Morgan. So a job that would . . . Framed . Copyright © by Frank Cottrell Boyce. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. Available now wherever books are sold. Excerpted from Framed by Frank Cottrell Boyce All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.