The Spanish Kidnapping Disaster

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Tagging along on her mother's honeymoon in Spain, Felicia knows there's no love lost between herself and her new stepsiblings, Amy and Phillip. But when Grace, an exotic and self-styled ``citizen of the world,'' kidnaps the three, their differences become far less important than escape and simple survival. As in Zilpha Snyder's The Famous Stanley Kidnapping , the European locale serves to emphasize each child's particular temperament. Phillip the know-it-all offers a passing fluency in Spanish, while headstrong Felicia leads them out of the trouble she has helped cause. The book bucks convention by presenting the abductors fairly: in showing the reader cold-eyed Orlando, weak Charles and the idealistic and appealing Grace, Hahn offers a surprisingly understanding look at what impels people to terrorist activity. While the resolution of the natural resentment among the stepchildren may verge on the facile, the story offers a lively adventure for middle-grade readers. Ages 9-12. (Mar.)

From The Critics

"Good recreational fare."

School Library Journal

Gr 4-6-- While accompanying her newlywed mother; stepfather; and new siblings, Amy and Phillip, on a trip to Spain, Felix's exaggerations to a stranger about her family's wealth get the three children abducted by the mysterious Grace. Once the kidnapping has occurred, Felix plots with her stepbrother and stepsister to escape, and after a wild bus and van chase, the family is reunited. While the abduction and escape are one aspect of the plot, the other is the adjustment of the children to their new family situation. Thus, a craving for attention leads to Felix's lies, and the wearisome bickering between the two girls lasts until the very end of the story. While Grace, a ``citizen of the world,'' does have a foreign air that would be intriguing to a young girl, her two cohorts in crime are rather shadowy, almost stereotypical figures who are fairly incompetent for all their glares and threats. There's little edge-of-the-seat suspense in the story, which depends on some implausibility and occasionally weak dialogue. In the end, Grace, who had initiated the kidnapping to get money ``to help the African babies,'' is rewarded for helping the children escape after she is disillusioned with her partners, and the girls promise to be kinder to each other. --Susan Schuller, Milwaukee Pub . Lib .