Peter Nimble and His Fantastic Eyes by Jonathan Auxier
Ten-year-old Peter has a lot to deal with – he’s a blind orphan who has had to learn how to survive by becoming a thief. However, on one particularly auspicious day, he manages to steal a mysterious box from a traveling peddler. Inside the box, which he is able to unlock easily due to his spectacular thieving abilities, are three sets of eyes. When he places the first set of eyes in his empty eyesockets (sounds a little disturbing, I know, but you just have to go with it), he finds that he has been transported to the home of a Professor Cake. It seems that Professor Cake actually made the special eyes and sent the “peddler” to find Peter. Peter is destined for adventure, and each set of the fantastic eyes that the Professor made will give Peter a different ability to help him on his way.
What is an adventure without a sidekick? Peter’s sidekick is Sir Tode, a knight who has been bewitched into a part horse-part kitten creature. Together the two set off to save the Vanished Kingdom.
While this story draws on several genres – adventure, mystery, fantasy – it is truly unique. Auxier’s writing is clever and witty and had me laughing throughout, even though there are some pretty terrible things that happen in the story as well. This is not for the squeamish – which you probably could have figured out from the putting the fantastic eyes into empty eyesockets bit, right? Well, not to give anything away, but there are also some action-packed battles in the book that are pretty exciting, but quite bloody, too.
I would recommend Peter Nimble to any young reader who likes their fantasy packed with action and adventure.
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