The minute he saw the boat with the red sails moving into the harbor of Capri, Michele knew that something exciting was going to happen. But how could anyone know that three strangers—one searching for beauty, one for adventure, and one for "something difficult to explain"—would find the secret of the mysterious cove (the Blue Grotto) and so change the whole life of the island? A crisply told, exciting story, sparkling with good talk and the sunshine and color of its romantic setting.
The story is part true and part fiction, and it is unusual in its way of telling, as Mrs. Weil explained in a letter to the publishers:
"For a long time I've been interested in the fact that children are attracted to almost any kind of dialogue, and I thought it would be fun—just once—to give them a book that was almost all conversation. The plot and the suspense all develop because people talk. Of course I hope children will be interested in the story, but I hope the actual reading of the book will be fun as well. Children can gulp down those long conversations, a page at a time, and it's fun—and a new experience—to let your eyes go straight down a page for a change, Chinese fashion, instead of across. That's why, whenever I thought there could be no doubt as to who was talking, I let the characters talk back and forth, the way people really talk, without all the 'he saids' and 'she saids' to interrupt."
We feel as we read that we are privileged listeners to the small talk of Michele and Pietro, the inseparables, who are part of all the work and the excitement, to the discussions of the master and mistress of the little inn perched high up on the mountain, to the talk of the three strangers who are to make the great discovery, and above all to the picturesque fisherman, Angelo, the lazy one, who really managed most of it.
—from the dust jacket
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