From Publishers Weekly
A pitch-perfect delivery brightens this familiar-seeming tale about stories that come true. Visiting his relatives at their farm in Wales every summer, Michael looks forward to Gramps's storytelling, "like a long, happy sigh at the end of each day." The stories are so much a part of the fabric of the summer that when Michael takes his seven-year-old cousin, Polly, to the beach and creates a Sandman like the one Gramps has described, it does not entirely surprise them that the Sandman wakes up and eats their picnic. Determined to help the Sandman return to his native Ireland, they enlist the help of another character from Gramps's repertoire. Predictably, the family reacts to Polly's progress reports with good-natured disbelief (Michael carefully evades the issue). Consequently there is some satisfaction when the various characters reveal themselves to Gramps and Aunt Eleri, especially when Aunt Eleri proves herself a worthy hostess by producing miraculous quantities of tea. Inextricably linking summer holidays with magic, Morpurgo (Waiting for Anya) casts a spell with his ambient dialogue-the Sandman's brogue and the British inflections rise from the page like music. Ages 8-12.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From School Library Journal
Grade 3-5-Mike looks forward to his summer vacations, which he spends on a farm in Wales with his cousin. But this year Barry is laid up with a broken leg and Mike is left to play with his younger cousin, Polly. At the beach, she begs him to make her a Sandman like the one in their grandfather's stories-a giant man who was shipwrecked on the shore years ago and turned to stone. Piling sand around the stones that are supposed to comprise the giant's body, Mike tries to humor her. But she firmly believes that she can bring the Sandman to life. At this point the tale begins to fall apart. The Sandman comes to life, calls his sea turtles (three large offshore rocks), and takes the children to Coracle Island, supposedly his overturned vessel from centuries before. The appearance of a Russian submarine, captained by the grandson of the old lighthouse keeper, is a parallel plot that never really works. Perhaps it is the wooden characterizations, or the fact that the magical, mystical Welsh coast is never fully realized, but this fantasy simply doesn't have the inner logic it needs to convince readers to suspend disbelief.
Connie C. Rockman, The Ferguson Library, Stamford, CTCopyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
