She spilled onto the roof, arms splayed to break her fall, and turned in time to witness Rolo puling his brother to safety.
But there was something unusual about the rescue. It was if Uncle Rolo’s arms stretched further than their length should have allowed. And that Rondolf had fallen far below the edge of the roof, far beyond any chance of rescue, before he was hoisted upright.
Aurelie’s childhood has been far from normal – but that’s how she likes it. Her family run Bonhoffen’s Seaside Peier, and she has grown up playing the dead girl in the ghost train and the back end of the cow, sleeping in her room above the ghost train ,and surrounded by loving relatives, especially her doting uncles Rolo and Rindolf. But, on the day she turns twelve, Aurelie accidentally discovers her family’s secret, a secret so strange she struggles to accept it. Then Aurelei and her new friend Rufus discover a plot to force the family from the pier, and Aurelie must use the secret to help her defeat the town’s most powerful man.
The Remarkable Secret of Aurelie Bonhoffen is a fun but also touching story of family togetherness, filled with things kids love – funfairs, chocolate, funny characters, ghosts and more. In this story the good characters are not only kind hearted, they are also delightfully quirky, and the bad characters are like bumbling, blustering pantomime baddies, who, in the way of pantomimes, also sometimes realise the error of their ways to become good.
This is a gorgeous read, which middle and upper primary aged readers will adore.
The Remarkable Secret of Aurelie Bonhoffen, by Deborah Abela
Random House Australia, 2009
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