Synopses & Reviews
Nothing ever happens in
MacOongafoondsen (population 21) ...
. . . that is, until a mysterious ship washes up on the town's beach. The lone survivor is a small, hairy figure the townspeople take for a Frenchman. While thirteen-year-old Emmaline Perth and her best friend, Flurp, the Town Fool, welcome Monsieur Eek, the rest of the town is a little uncertain of the stranger. In fact, Shmink the Bailiff thinks Monsieur Eek is a spy! In short order, Eek is arrested and put on trial for his life. As the town's fear of foreigners grows, Emmaline and Flurp find themselves not only defending their new friend's life, but also trying to save their own.
Review
“This story will appeal to those who enjoy the ridiculous. Ives kept this reviewer reading.” VOYA
Review
“Fastmoving cinematic plot…nonstop action, a bit of shivery mystery leavened by humor and a happily ever after ending.” School Library Journal
About the Author
David Ives was born in Chicago and educated at Northwestern University and Yale School of Drama. A Guggenheim Fellow in playwriting, he is probably best known for his evening of one-act comedies called "All In the Timing". The show won the Outer Critics Circle Playwriting Award, ran for two years Off-Broadway, and in the 1995-96 season was the most-performed play in the country after Shakespeare productions. His short plays are collected in two anthologies, "All In the Timing" (Vintage) and "Time Flies" (Grove). His full-length works for theatre are available in "Polish Joke and Other Plays" (Grove). He is also the author of a young adult novel,
Monsieur Eek (HarperCollins), the almost-true story of how a chimpanzee got mistaken for a Frenchman.
David Ives is an Artistic Associate at Encores!, the celebrated forum for great American musicals at City Center, New York, where to date he has adapted 15 of their shows. He adapted David Copperfield's "Dreams and Nightmares" for Broadway, wrote the book for "Dance of the Vampires", the Jim Steinman Broadway musical, and is the co-bookwriter of "Irving Berlin's White Christmas", which premiered in San Francisco to huge acclaim in winter 2004. He lives in New York City with his wife Martha.