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He's the kind of grandfather that any 11-year-old would love to have: a salty old scalawag who's sailed the Seven Seas, chock-full of tales about shark attacks, press gangs, Chinese "tat parlors," and how the boys off Sumatra wear tiger-tooth amulets on the sheaths of their fighting knives. (Realize, of course, that we're talking about 1914 here.)

Evan Bryant is just such an 11-year-... More

He's the kind of grandfather that any 11-year-old would love to have: a salty old scalawag who's sailed the Seven Seas, chock-full of tales about shark attacks, press gangs, Chinese "tat parlors," and how the boys off Sumatra wear tiger-tooth amulets on the sheaths of their fighting knives. (Realize, of course, that we're talking about 1914 here.)

Evan Bryant is just such an 11-year-old. And although he didn't even think he had a grandpa (his mom's dad was thought to have been lost at sea when she was only 3), a surprise letter arrives from him--one Thomas "Chips" Pentreath, formerly of Mouzel, England, now living in an old sailors' home in Brooklyn-- saying that he'd like to visit his long-lost daughter. Evan's mom and dad are both uneasy about reuniting with this mysterious relative, especially with such an impressionable young son about. But even they don't realize that they might have reason to be leery--and they won't discover the old man's guilty secret until after he arrives.

This exciting, fun, and downright convincing period tale about family, friendship, and honesty from veteran children's author Theodore Taylor is sure to make many a kid wish they'd be shanghaied. (Ages 9 to 12) --Paul Hughes

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