Product Description

Here's the exciting second book in the bestselling Cat's Eye Corner series. It begins with our hero, Olivier, perusing an unusual book called Enquire Within Upon Everything. Not only is this book an encyclopedia of fascinating information, but strange things emerge from its pages: a puckish wisp of leftover smoke from Mt. Vesuvius that causes no end of trouble, a ghost named Peely Wally who refuses to believe that he is a ghost, and a tiny Chinese "ink" monkey who snatches up Olivier's pen friend, Murray Schaefer, and disappears. Olivier pursues the monkey and a new adventure begins.

Cat's Eye Corner was shortlisted for the Mr. Christie Book Award and the Red Cedar Award. The Toronto Star raved, "...unpredictable but logically satisfying, full of adventures, puns and clever imagination."

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #610967 in Books
• Published on: 2004-02-18
• Released on: 2004-02-18
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 192 pages

Amazon.ca
For Alice, it was a rabbit in a waistcoat that got things going. For Olivier, the hero of The Silver Door, the delightful sequel to Terry Griggs's popular children's fantasy novel Cat's Eye Corner, it's a tiny Chinese "ink" monkey. The monkey literally springs out of a mysterious old book that Olivier has borrowed from his eccentric "step-step-stepgramma" and kidnaps his best friend (who happens to be a fountain pen with the moniker of Murray Sheaffer). Accompanied by a boy ghost who refuses to believe he's dead and a mystical wind-girl (not to mention a puff of smoke from Mount Vesuvius), Olivier pursues the thieving primate into a terrifying underworld ruled by the child-hating Emperor of Ice Cream.

Griggs, whose first children's book was shortlisted for both the Mr. Christie's Book Award and the Red Cedar Award, cleverly plays upon familiar fantasy motifs such as the secret passageway into another world and the magic talisman (in this case, a jeweled TV remote). The Silver Door is rich in allusions to The Wizard of Oz, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, The Phantom Tollbooth, the Narnia books, and even the poetry of Wallace Stevens. Admittedly a bit slow at the beginning, it quickly picks up speed as Olivier and his companions descend into the Empire of Ice Cream where children are stored in deep freeze and their parents brainwashed with a steady diet of butterscotch ripple and kaleidoscope cow. Marvelously inventive, The Silver Door is also sprinkled with lots of delicious wordplay--as befits a book about a talking pen! --Lisa Alward

Books in Canada
While reading The Silver Door I was reminded of the famous statement by C.S. Lewis about how he wrote his books for children: “I put in what I would have liked to read when I was a child and what I still like reading now that I am in my fifties.” I am in my fifties, and I did not like reading The Silver Door. There was plenty of adventure, and I can enjoy that now just as much as I did when I was a child. Instead I remained bored from beginning to end because Griggs did not make me care what happened.
The book sounds interesting in outline. Olivier is staying with his grandfather and step-step-stepgramma at Cat’s Eye Corner. Gramma, the owner of the house, is a witch-like woman who cooks things like “deep-fried bubble gum, bark, stew, hand cream on a cracker.” Cat’s Eye Corner is a magical house whose rooms shift around. Once, for example, the kitchen and dining room went missing and they had to eat in the games room. Olivier’s companions are a fountain pen named Murray Sheaffer that writes automatically and a puff of smoke that has escaped from the entry on Mount Vesuvius in an amazing book from Gramma called Enquire Within Upon Everything.
Enter Peely, the ghost of a boy about Olivier’s age, and Linnet, a girl who has “all kinds of air currents . . . at her beck and call.” When Murray is stolen by an ink monkey that disappears through a silver door, Olivier, the smoke, Peely, and Linnet chase the thief into another world that exists somewhere below and beyond Cat’s Eye Corner. This world, ruled by the nasty Emperor and Empress of Ice Cream, is somewhat stranger than the strange house from which they have come, but vaguely and fitfully related.
Ms. Oscarella Vivid, screaming CEO of exceedingly dull “Adventures Unlimited”; Mrs. Kidd, kid-hating flower killer; and the Empress of Ice Cream, greedy dessert-eater and child enslaver-are all as unpleasant as the bad-mannered, destructive Lady Muck who is visiting Gramma at Cat’s Eye Corner. Uncle Truckbuncles, owner of the Odditorium and dispenser of lunch; Ig, the stone man and rescuer from frozen oblivion; hip Jack, the messenger-are all as pleasant as Olivier’s beloved Grandpa. But there is no consistent connection between the familiar, bizarre world of home and the unfamiliar, bizarre world of the adventure. All is confusing muddle.
Griggs is inventive but she has not crafted the novel carefully. For example, Peely wears socks that change weather, but there is insufficient reason for Peely’s cowardice and treachery, and ultimately these serious flaws don’t much matter. Linnet encounters some Spelling Bees that communicate by buzzing, zigging, and zagging until they create letters in the air that form words. The long, wonderful word they teach Linnet comes in handy when Mrs. Kidd is trying to trick the children with riddles. But the word, honorificabilitudinitatibus, an archaic word for “honourableness”, does not, say, or capture a theme in the novel. It is just a big word.
Really there is no theme. The bad adults think children are horrible or exploitable. Olivier and his friends, with some help from good adults, run about willy nilly, see fantastic sights like a man whose head is that of a moose, zap things with the jewelled remote, help capture the nasty Emperor and Empress, and free the enslaved children in the ice cream factory. But, although Olivier feels sympathy for the undernourished children when he sees them, he had not intended to save them. He was just looking for his pen, Murray. But why was he looking for Murray? Murray is a dull, conceited pen who only writes cliches or makes himself the hero of the story. Olivier has no compelling motive for recovering Murray.
As C.S. Lewis said in “On Three Ways of Writing for Children”, the bad way of writing for children is cynically “giving the public what it wants.” He went on: “Children are, of course, a special public” and such writers think “you find out what they want and give them that, however little you like it yourself.” To this adult, it seemed that the talented Griggs (recipient of the 2003 Marian Engel Award) was feeling pressured to dash off a bestselling children’s book that could compete with arcade games for frenzied activity. Her word play is at times brilliant, but her main characters and her plot are not fully developed. Neither Olivier nor his friends grow inwardly, and their experiences lack meaning.
Heather Kirk (Books in Canada)

From School Library Journal
Grade 4-7 - In this sequel to Cat's Eye Corner (Raincoast, 2003), Olivier's magical summer continues. His step-step-stepgramma has given him a book, Enquire Within Upon Everything, and some of the "everything" begins to escape from the volume. To further complicate his life, horrible guests come to visit, a ghost named Peely Wally appears, and Olivier's talking pen, Murray Shaefer, is stolen. The boy, his friend Linnet, and Peely follow Murray's trail to the land of the Emperor of Ice Cream, where they find children imprisoned in an ice-cream factory and rock-beings called Shuks. The protagonist is a sympathetic hero, and his problems are presented realistically. Linnet and Peely are well drawn and have their own roles to play, and the Emperor and Empress are completely despicable. Clever and entertaining wordplay, with echoes of Norton Juster's The Phantom Tollbooth (Random, 1961), enhances this fast-paced story. Sophisticated fantasy readers will enjoy this fully created world. - Beth L. Meister, Yeshiva of Central Queens, Flushing, NY
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