The Ghastly Glasses

by Beatrice Gormley

Overview

Fifth grader Andrea, getting glasses for the first time, just wants to see better. She has suspicions about the creepy building her ditzy Aunt Bets finds—and about the white-coated woman, Ms. Weirse, who fits her with strange-looking glasses. Then Andrea discovers her thrilling power to change people with those glasses. And then, before you can say “focus,” she’s in Big Trouble.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940032881735
Publisher:	Beatrice Gormley
Publication date:	11/21/2011
Sold by:	Smashwords
Format:	NOOK Book
File size:	149 KB

About the Author

Beatrice Gormley is the author of many popular novels and biographies for young people. Most recent books: Poisoned Honey, a story of Mary Magdalene; Barack Obama: Our 44th President; and Salome: A Novel. Other books include Back to the Titanic! and Amelia Earhart, Young Aviator. Beatrice lives in Massachusetts with her husband, Robert Gormley, and their dog and cats.

Editorial Reviews

Gormley will elate readers with the sequel to Mail-Order Wings, in which 10-year-old Andrea Reves muddles through a second surreal adventure. During her parents' absence, Andrea and her brother Jim are in moony Aunt Bets's care and she mistakes the huge eye over a shop for the girl's optometrist. The place belongs to a psychic researcher who fits Andrea with glasses that give her disconcerting powers. The change Jim's ways of belittling her into such brotherly solicitude that it's stifling. They alienate Aunt Bets's affection for her old lazy cat; Andrea anguishes when the poor cat is dumped at the ASPCA. But the worst and funniest episode occurs when Andrea wishes the school principal empathized with kids and he outdoes the most delinquent student, raising unheard-of havoc. McCully's drawings add to the merriment and suspense. (711)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Gr 3-5 In this sequel to Mail-Order Wings (Dutton, 1981), Andrea's Aunt Bets takes her to be fitted for new glasses. By accident they wind up in a place called Borderline Institute for Research into Psychic Phenomenaor BIRPP. Valerie Weirse, the strange researcher there, provides Andrea with equally strange glasses. Andrea discovers that by focusing hard, she can change people's personalities. At first she is excited by the ``improvements'' she can make in people, but then the changes do not go well. Eventually, Andrea learns that the glasses are only Weirse's first step toward giving everyone in the world psychic abilities. She destroys her glasses (which frees the people on whom she previously focused), and she and her cat Samuel Tail focus on Valerie, turning her from a parapsychology fanatic to a cat worshipper. The characters, Andrea excepted, tend to be rather one-dimensional, but the plot moves rapidly, absorbing readers in Andrea's problems. The ethical conflict in meddling with other's personalities is keenly felt. Lisa Smith, Cold Spring Harbor Library, N . Y .

School Library Journal

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