Readers will sense that the girl achieves her quest but will never understand its purpose. The accompanying illustrations are unpleasantly colored and amateurish faces are distorted, and the pictures often deviate from the text. Presented as prose despite the attempted verse, the story fails to generate interest. It’s clear that lessons are supposedly being taught, but what exactly that wisdom entails is lost in text that is awkward, lengthy and clichéd. Determined to find the meaning behind it, she embarks on a quest, along the way meeting various preachy animals in different settings. In what is ostensibly verse, Akley tells of a little girl who has a dream–or perhaps a metaphorical adventure or spiritual awakening–about a gold candlestick. 4-7)Ī young girl’s dream takes her on a fantastical adventure. Traditional and sweet, just like homemade buttermilk biscuits with honey. One welcome touch in this series is the gender of Biscuit's owner, a dark-haired little girl (rather than the usual male main character in most easy reader series), joined here by her friend, an Asian girl. Biscuit is a charming little fellow, like most puppies, and Schories captures his puppy antics with her conventional illustrations in pen and ink with a watercolor wash. The story line is necessarily simplistic due to the format requirements, but there is a clear plot with a subtle lesson about joining into play with others. This entry in the My First I Can Read series is at the emergent level for the newest readers, with simple, repetitive vocabulary and just a few words in large type on each page. The story ends with the kittens still chasing a butterfly, and Biscuit following after his new friends. Biscuit tries to get them to play puppy-style with a ball or a stick, but the kittens are more interested in chasing insects. (Can the plush toy and animated TV series be far behind?) Capucilli ( Biscuit's New Trick, 2000, etc.) has written another simple story about her cavorting canine, this time about his discovery of two playful kittens. Ripper expert Paul Begg called Bax Horton's findings a "well-researched, well-written, and long-needed book-length examination of a likely suspect.Golden-brown puppy Biscuit seems to have arrived at superstar status: a stack of related easy-reader titles about the puppy's activities and holidays, four more titles for spring 2001, and over a million Biscuit books in print. Hyams' name had been on a "long list" of potential suspects but she said he had "never before been fully explored as a Ripper suspect." He was permanently committed to a mental asylum in September 1889, and died in 1913.īax Horton, whose great-great-grandfather was posted at the headquarters of the investigation, concluded that Hyams, who had previously attacked his wife with a "chopper", killed because of his physical and mental decline, worsened by alcoholism. Hyams had regular seizures due to epilepsy, the notes, taken from hospitals and asylums, indicated. There were also close similarities in his height and build to the witness descriptions. They showed he had an injury that left him unable to bend or extend his left arm, and also dragged his foot and could not straighten his knees. The author, whose book "One-Armed Jack: Uncovering the Real Jack the Ripper" comes out next month, unearthed medical records for Hyams, who was aged 35 in 1888. Witnesses at the time described a man seen with the victims who was in his mid-30s, with a stiff arm, irregular gait and bent knees. The "Jack the Ripper" murders, which saw at least six women killed in the East End of London in 1888, remain one of Britain's most notorious unsolved cases.Ī whole industry has sprung up around the case, including books, exhibitions and tours around the streets of the Whitechapel district where the women were killed.īax Horton said she had identified Hyams, an epileptic and alcoholic who was in an out of mental asylums, as the likely culprit. Sarah Bax Horton has written a book on her research into local cigar-maker Hyam Hyams, who she said closely matches witness descriptions from the time of a suspect seen with the victims. The great-great-granddaughter of a police officer who investigated the "Jack the Ripper" murders in 19th century London believes she has uncovered the killer's true identity, the Sunday Telegraph reported.
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