The December Rose - Hardcover

Leon Garfield was born in Brighton in 1921. He was the acclaimed author of more than thirty novels for children and adults including Devil in the Fog, winner of the inaugural Guardian Children's Fiction Prize in 1967, The God Beneath the Sea, winner of the 1970 Carnegie Medal, and John Diamond, winner of the 1980 Whitbread literary award. He was also elected a member of the Royal Society of Literature. He died in 1996.

Grade 5-9 Mystery and adventure abound as Barnacle, a young chimney sweep in Victorian London, falls from a chimney and is swept up in a conspiracy that involves murder, espionage, and political intrigue. The story was first written as a screenplay for television, and the setting and characters come as vividly to life as though one were watching in living color. Characters are imbued with their own humaness and peculiarities: Inspector Creaker, ordered to ``put a stop to the boy's birthdays''; Mrs. McDipper, a barge owner who is thus a ``woman of property''; her daughter Miranda, Barnacle's thorn, and yet the one who saves his life; and Tom Gosling, a simple and honorable man who gives Barnacle a home on his barge and who, in the end, has the most wisdom of all. While Garfield's latest offering is a thrilling adventure seasoned with wonderful touches of humor, it also has something to say, as readers watch Barnacle, a survivor and an observer, change from a boy with no sense of self importance to a young man with honor and self esteem. This is the type of book that must be read twiceonce breathlessly to find out what happens and again, slowly, to savor its richness. Trev Jones, ``School Library Journal''
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