A Dark and Stormy Night

Kelly L. Green is editor of the Canadian Book Review Annual’s
Children’s Literature edition.

Sara Stanley and her cousins, Felicity and Felix King, must help their
friend Gus Pike, who is being manipulated by a pair of thieves, Robert
Rutherford and Amanda Stone. Gus has unwittingly become the bearer of
stolen property (a cache of jewels) that the beautiful, but deadly,
Amanda has left in his safekeeping—the better to hoodwink her ruthless
partner Robert. The friends solve the mystery of the stolen jewels, but
the evil pair leave Avonlea to steal another day.

Fans of the Avonlea television productions will enjoy this latest entry
in the novelization series of individual shows, but few others will find
much to attract them here. Author Hamilton is true to the spirit of the
television series, but without the charming interpretations of the young
actors, the prose is flat and lifeless. Hamilton’s heavy reliance upon
cliché may be tongue in cheek, but young readers will not necessarily
realize this, and deserve better descriptive writing, even from formula
books. Recommended with reservations for fans of Avonlea.