Rex and his friends begin grade six against the backdrop of the 1962 Ban the Bomb protests on Parliament Hill. But once again it is trouble on the home front that has Rex's attention. Why is his father so insistent that Rex go with him to the November Remembrance Day services, and why does Dad become so sad at this time every year? Why does he have a stash of secret photographs and letters -- written in German? How can Rex deal with the new teacher, Miss Garr, a manipulative bully?
Yet all these problems pale when Rex finds an abandoned address book in a phone booth and sets out to find its owner. When the owner turns out to be the beautiful but desperate Natasha, the victim of an abusive husband, Rex finds himself wishing he had heroic powers so he could rescue this damsel in distress. Storybook solutions, it turns out, are no match for real-life adult problems, and once again Rex finds the answer in his own ingenuity and with the help of good friends.
Wynne-Jones goes from strength to strength...Every one of [his] characters is fully realized and every sentence interesting - this story never bows to the predictable. Wynne-Jones captures perfectly the bizarre logic and comfortable arguments of family life.
Readers of Rex Zero and the End of the World will cheer the return of this intelligent, funny, and totally original hero...Wynne-Jones creates a host of believable characters who jump right off the page an into your heart.
What more can be said about Tim Wynne-Jones and his remarkable stories? He is a gifted writer and continually creates characters to love and stories to make you stop and think.
...a wonderfully textured story...Wynne-Jones' skill is most apparent in the cast of memorable characters who are so well-drawn that readers feel as if they were sitting right in the living room listening to the kids stomp up and down the stairs.