Anything can happen in debut author Jonathan Auxier's fantastical world. Even kids who read widely and suspect from the beginning that blind, orphaned Peter Nimble is destined for great things will be caught up in the suspenseful doings and surprise twists. And this book may well convert those who don't consider themselves readers.
The 10-year-old hero, discovered as a baby bobbing in a basket by some drunken sailors, and named by some magistrates "after a misremembered nursery rhyme," overcomes many challenges--including blindness and abject poverty--to earn the title "the greatest thief who ever lived" by story's end. And what a story it is! An omniscient narrator who can perceive things that Peter cannot adopts a wry tone (by way of explaining Peter's talents, he says, "There is an old saying about how easy it is to 'take candy from a baby.' This saying is utterly false"). Auxier's captivating narrator remains mindful of Peter's handicap while extolling the virtues of the hero's highly attuned remaining four senses. He paints Peter as a boy who must steal in order to survive, but who also possesses a heart of gold.
The turning point for Peter occurs when he meets a haberdasher who can read his mind, and who plants a box with an impossibly difficult series of locks to protect the "fantastic eyes" of the title--knowing full well that Peter can't resist a challenge. Each pair of eyes possesses a magical trait that leads to a series of farflung adventures, including a chance meeting with Sir Tode, a human-kitten-horse hybrid under a hag's spell, a desert full of thieves, a vanished kingdom, a giant dogfish named Good Ol' Frederick who helps defeat a school of sea serpents, ravens that could be good or evil, and talking apes on a Night Patrol that chain up children as slaves--among them a princess. To Auxier's credit, he ties all of these together--they don't feel extraneous or (too) over-the top. Amid the humor and battle scenes, he also raises some searching questions, such as whether modern reason has overridden the ancient need for magic, and what qualities define a true hero.
The narrator lets readers in on enough clues to put some pieces together before Peter and Sir Tode click all the facts into place. Kids will love being on the inside track and watching how the action unfolds. But most of all, they will root for this reluctant hero and hope for his return. --Jennifer M. Brown