Three Sensible Adventures

Steve Pitt is a Toronto-based freelance writer and an award-winning journalist. He has written many young adult and children's books, including Day of the Flying Fox: The True Story of World War II Pilot Charley Fox.

The three stories in this collection are built around a pair of unusual
sisters. The eldest, Red Tam, has amazing strength; her sibling, Green
Tam, possesses the power to communicate with any animal. The girls live
in a small seaside village, and their unusual gifts are magnets for
creatures who need help.

In their first sensible adventure, the sisters meet a wooden puppet who
tells them that all his marionette friends have been kidnapped by a
mysterious midnight thief. In their second sensible adventure, a
peg-legged sailor leads the sisters to a remote island to confront a
clock-thieving dragon. In their third sensible adventure, the girls
befriend a weary seagull who has brought a message from a monkey, who
needs help to save his master, the Prince of Cats, who has been
kidnapped by pirates. To save the prince, the girls must first rescue
the monkey and then figure out how to deal with a ship load of
buccaneers who have been known to turn little girls into breakfast
sausages.

Although there are many moments of wit in these stories, the overall
text is lacklustre. Many of the secondary characters seem borrowed from
other works of fiction, and the resolution of all three tales is
predictable from the midway point. William Lytle’s two-dimensional,
pen-and-colored-ink illustrations are adequate but not memorable. Not a
first-choice purchase.