It
was the loveliest summer afternoon, perfect for a relaxing snooze... especially
for a cat. Max was in the middle of a most pleasant dream involving being fed
strips of smoked salmon by a very pretty girl when he smelled smoke! Smoke?
Gasp! That meant fire! Fire? That meant danger!!! Maybe lives must be saved.
Where was everyone? He had to save the book, the book that had started the
whole series of adventures, with the twins’ parents becoming lost in the mists
of time, trapped in the pages of history. He couldn’t let the book be
destroyed, because then Mum and Dad would be gone forever. However, when he
plunged (not very) bravely into the smoke, he found himself back in the past,
in 1644 to be exact, and he just knew that somehow this involved another very
uncomfortable adventure that he hadn’t asked for!
A
snarky cat called Berry was waiting to take him back to a tumbledown old cottage
that seemed strangely familiar, and in fact, he’d already been there in a
previous side adventure of his own (Max’s
Christmas Adventure). The whole place was quite spooky, and there was a
weird old woman called Goodwife Clowes, who insisted he was necessary to help
rescue her sister from an evil man. Combined with this rude cat’s annoying
attitude (or should that be cattitude?), Max just longed to go home. Then the
weird old woman told him that the evil man was a witchfinder and that’s why he
was needed to rescue her sister. Witchfinder? Max asked himself (as did I) was
that even a job? In a nutshell, the Witchfinder General (the man had even given
himself a title!) was going from village to village, rounding up women who
might be witches, or who people had accused of witchcraft. Many innocent people
in the village of Mistley Thorn would suffer if Max didn’t help. Can he muster
up the last remnants of what passed for courage to lend a hand?
Max
has the unfortunate tendency to be thrust into situations that require great bravery
and feats of derring-do when this is entirely not in his nature. Once again,
he’ll have to pull out all the stops. A brief and memorably nasty encounter at
the local jail reveals the enormity of the situation and the truly evil nature
of Matthew Hopkins, who specialised in sniffing out witches, or in fact any old
lady (like this one), with a broom and a beady stare. Lovely details place
young readers right into the setting of All Hallows’ Even (which we know as
Hallowe’en), with a suitably eerie atmosphere and an uncomfortable amount of
danger. But the peril is too great, the Witchfinder and his men can’t be overcome
by two mere cats, even talking ones. Inevitably, Max is sent back to his own
era, to plan and return to defeat the Witchfinder. Now Max has the reassurance
of Jemima, Joe, and brainy Charlie on his side as reinforcements! Watch out,
Witchfinder. Max will be back!
Author
Wendy Leighton-Porter, as always, has a treasure trove of extra detail for avid
young fans of the series and this fifth mini adventure in Max’s side forays.
The origins of Hallowe’en and the pagan festival of Samhain are explained, as
are local suspicions of the time and details of why people were blamed for
natural disasters and diseases. Lovely word play ensues as well with Max
getting quite confused about names, although given the stressful situation,
this is quite understandable. Max’s Hallowe’en Adventure is a delightful and deliciously scary prelude to the
next adventure (the tenth) for Jemima, Joe, and Charlie, entitled The Shadow of the Witchfinder. It has a
wonderfully spooky cover and I can’t wait to read it!
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