THE BUGALUGS BUM THIEF

Tim Winton may be one of Australia's most famous authors of serious adult fiction, but one hearing of THE BUGALUGS BUM THIEF will make you wish he'd write more often for children. This is a ridiculously sublime story about what happens when everyone in town wakes up to find their--"ahem"--bums missing. It turns out that bums are incredibly useful items; without them you slide off chairs and lose your pants. Well-known Australian actor Stig Wemyss reads with the perfect amount of insouciance and naïve seriousness. His Skeeta Anderson--the boy who decides to solve the mystery of the missing bums--is straight-ahead detective with a bit of middle school bravado. The adults sound much as adults sound to kids: important and clueless. His pacing is up-tempo, as befits a town crisis. And the laughs are many. A.C.S. © AudioFile 2005, Portland, Maine [Published: JUNE/JULY 05]