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Revision as of 08:56, 14 October 2020
, 08:56, 14 October 2020no edit summary
Rob Keeley is back! Hooray! We here at Bookbag Towers are always happy to read a new adventure from Rob - his stories combine fast pace and lots of action, an easy to read style, an unerring eye for children's friendships and rivalries, and always a good dollop of naughty humour. They're all present here, in ''The Treasure in the Tower''. The chance purchase of a book during a school trip sparks the whole adventure. Who can follow the clues best and find the treasure? Jess, her brother Mason and their friend Kessie through sheer persistence? Or spoiled brat Perdita with her money and tech gadgets and willingness to cheat? We know which team ''we're'' rooting for, of course!
You'll like Jess, who has a strong sense of fair play and lots of energy , and her relationship with her irrepressible, prank-loving brother Masonis a joy to read. And Kessie, who gets bullied by Perdita over her dyslexia, but who has a strong sense of right and wrong and a good brain to back up her morals. The three use every tool at their disposal to solve Dr Pyrite's clues, only to be foiled at almost every turn by Perdita's less-than-sporting attitude to competition. Keeley captures school pecking orders brilliantly and you can see all sorts of thoughtful subtleties that really make the relationships in this story three-dimensional - for example, Perdita may be domineering and controlling of her hanger-on, shy Thomas, but she also protects him. She's not a cookie cutter villain.
The clues all follow an aspect of history - women learning to drive and volunteering with the ambulance service during World War One, capital punishment in medieval times, for example - and readers will take in quite a bit of information, inspiring them to find out more. And there are some fabulous slapstick moments which drop the essential element of humour into the mix. I won't give them all away, but my favourites involved jam sandwiches and fake blood in the form of tomato soup!
