Nacky Patcher & the Curse of the Dry-Land Boats
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2.0 • 1 Rating
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- $10.99
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- $10.99
Publisher Description
What Nacky Patcher and Teedie Flinn discover in the owl light and blackberry water of Yole Lake causes them to suspect they are losing their wits. Polished wood as far as the eye can see—an entire ship comes unbuttoned! Yet they see something else, too, something far more important: a way out from the curse that has burdened the poor folks of Yole for generations. But first, they will need the villagers to do something they haven’t done in a long time: work as a team.
Jeffrey Kluger, co-author of the blockbuster book-turned-film Apollo 13, delivers one of the finest, quirkiest, and most emotionally satisfying reads of the year. As they rise to the challenge of something greater than themselves, this cast of characters will capture readers’ hearts and imaginations.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Kluger's first novel for young readers is a fully imagined fantasy with a twist of magic. The village of Yole, once a bustling seaport, is now an arid village, following the "Great Drying" when locals drained the sea, (wrongly) suspecting that fertile land lay beneath it. Now, a greedy landowner rules over a handful of hardscrabble villagers, though Nacky Patcher, an unsuccessful thief, believes that the ballad of the Dry-Land Boats (which he's heard since he was in the cradle) holds the key to the village's redemption. When Nacky and his young sidekick, orphan Teedie Flinn, come upon the wreckage of a ship in the dried-up sea, Nacky believes it is one of these legendary boats. To reverse the curse that has befallen Yole ("This here is a ghost boat turned real.... There's a way to break the charm what's holdin' this town, and we just spotted it"), Nacky insists the villagers help him reconstruct the ship all "forty thousand and one" pieces of it. The tension mounts as Nacky and his crew work against impossible odds and deadlines to finish the ship. There are memorable characters aplenty and Nacky's swashbuckling adventure should be of special interest to those interested in shipbuilding and the seafaring life. Readers will want to follow the story with a careful eye so as not to miss any clues of the dry-land boats prophecy. Ages 10-up.
