A Nose for Adventure

Sylvia Pantaleo is an assistant professor of education specializing in
children’s literature at Queen’s University. She is the co-author of
Learning with Literature in the Canadian Elementary Classroom.

On the plane to New York to visit his father, Alan Dingwall meets
Frieda. She is physically disabled, a year older, and much more worldly
than Alan. At the New York airport, Frieda is taken behind closed doors
to have her wheelchair searched. Alan hears Frieda’s screams for the
police and thus begins their adventure. Frieda invites Alan to come home
with her since Alan’s father is not at the airport and Alan is unable
to contact him. While they are waiting for a taxi outside of the
airport, an abandoned mutt named Sally adopts Frieda. Norbert, the alien
who lived inside Alan’s nose the previous year, arrives on the scene
and takes up residence in Sally’s nose. After Frieda’s wheelchair is
stolen (by the same individuals who wanted to search it at the airport),
Alan, Frieda, Sally, and Norbert, along with a new acquaintance, Bird (a
seemingly homeless adolescent with a cart), set off for Frieda’s
house.

Complicating the story further are Frieda’s relationship with her
mother, Egyptian art and artifacts, Norbert pretending to be the
Egyptian god Anubis, undercover police officers, and stolen property.
The novel is somewhat amusing, but there is an overabundance of
secondary characters and subplots. Events are predictable—Frieda and
her mother reconcile, Sally and Norbert assist in capturing the
criminals, and Alan grows personally and emotionally as a result of his
experiences. Overall, the book is a disappointing sequel to Scrimger’s
very successful The Nose from Jupiter. Not a first-choice purchase.