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Synopsis
Rose knows that nothing stays the same forever.
Still, it's hard to watch her sisters and brother growing up and moving so far ahead of her. Caddy is back, but she's not living at home. And worse -- she's broken up with Darling Michael. Saffy and Indigo are so busy, they are seldom home. With her father in London and her mother painting in the shed, Rose is often alone in the house.
Maybe that's why she agrees to her new friend Molly's crazy scheme. At least it seems crazy when Rose finds herself locked in the zoo at night with a roaring tiger. Maybe she should have been paying more attention to what Molly was saying. But on that spooky night, Rose finds out a secret that just might change everything -- and help bring her family and friends together and new life to their old house.
Hilary McKay infuses her charming characters with much love and laughter in this final visit with the delightfully daffy Casson family.
Publishers Weekly
The fifth—and, sadly, final—volume about the Casson family, Brits like the author, is the best of them all, a jewel of a domestic comedy. Rose, the youngest, is now 11 and occupies an as yet uncharted zone between daft and brilliant. Writing in a diary (she cheerfully ignores the printed dates and supplies her own), she copes with her separated but still doting parents, her talented siblings and the assorted people they collect (where is Caddy, the oldest sister, when she periodically phones Rose? And what is to be done with David, her brother's lummox of a friend who has been kicked out by his mother and has no place to put his drum set?). Then there's Rose's friend Molly, with her nutty plan to hide out overnight at the zoo in the arctic foxes' shelter, a scheme Rose will go along with only because she's certain it will fail. McKay is an expert at twinning the point of view: she lets readers see Rose's logic, but her timing calls forth every bit of the situational humor. The ending ties all the ends together—some may say too neatly, but fans will find the wrapup utterly satisfying. Ages 10—14. (Apr.)
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