Roscoe's Leap

by Gillian Cross

Book Overview

A plan to restore a guillotine and other strange toys once belonging to an eccentric millionaire fills his twelve-year-old great-great-grandson with nameless dread and concern for his family's safety.

• Format: Mass Market Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0440204534
• ISBN13: 9780440204534
• Release Date: July 1989
• Publisher: Laurel Leaf Library
• Length: 186 Pages
• Weight: 0.25 lbs.
• Age Range: 12 years and up
• Grade Range: Grade 7 and higher

Customer Reviews

Great Psycological Suspense for Teens and Young Adults

Roscoe's Leap is a very fascinating book for several reasons. First of all, it gives young Americans a glimpse of the daily life shared by their Brittish counterparts, complete with slang, etc... Secondly, author Gillian Cross creates a story that functions well on two levels: a mysterious thriller and the story of a wounded and dysfunctional family struggling to pick up the pieces. First, the thriller aspect. Hannah and stephen are two adolecent's who live in the decaying mansion of their eccentric great-grandfather who was a Victorian millionaire. When a young student named Nick comes to visit the house, Roscoe's Leap, to do research on their famous relative, the three are drawn into a web of mystery as they discover and investigate Roscoe's prodigious collection of 18th and 19th century automatons, including the gruesome "toy" guillotine, the "French Terror". Hannah, Stephen, and Nick set about to restore the infamous "Terror", each of them unraveling in the process. Next, the familial aspect: Roscoe's Leap is also the story of a very dysfunctional family, whose fractioning has a major bearing on the plot. In the end, the reader can see that the real monster that Hannah and Stephen have to battle is not the French Terror but themselves, and the grief and pain they are feeling from their mental and physical abandonment of their parents. Guilt and anger play major roles in the psyche's of all the characters, even the less featured adults. Lastly, I would highly reccommend Roscoe's leap for anyone 14-18 years of age. It is compelling, well-written, and imaginative. I do not know if an 18th century automaton comparable to the "terror" exisited, if not I must give Gillian Cross credit for imagining such a gruesome plaything. If you read this book and like it, I also reccommend Cross's "The Dark Behind the Curtain", a reworking of the Sweeney Todd tale set in a school play.