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Library | Call Number | Status |
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Searching... McMinnville Public Library | Cottrell Boyce, F. | Searching... Unknown |
Searching... Dallas Public Library | + FICTION - COTTRELL | Searching... Unknown |
Searching... Monmouth Public Library | J Fic Cottrell Boyce, F. 2005 | Searching... Unknown |
Searching... West Salem Branch Library | J Cottrell Boyce, F. | Searching... Unknown |
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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)
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.
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.
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.
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