Curry, J.L. (1978). The Bassumtyte Treasure. Margaret K. McElderry Book: Atheneum, New York.
Awards: Mark Twain Award Nominee 1980-1981
Edgar Award for Best Juvenile Nominees
Annotation: This coming of age mystery novel is about ten-year-old Thomas Bassumtyte is sent to England to live with his only remaining relative.
Book Talk: Thomas is sent to live in a strange country, to a strange house, and taken away from everything he knows to live in a four hundred-year-old ancestral home. Thomas remembers an old rhyme his grandfather taught him:
Bassumtyte’s treasure,
Dear beyond measure,
Keeps safe from seizure
At moon’s pleasure.
The key that unlocks
Is shut in a box
Sealed in a box
Closed in a box
By the Old Fox
Of Gloucestershire.
Can Thomas find the secret room that no one else has been able to find in over four hundred years? Can he solve the riddle of The Bassumtyte Treasure?
Jacket illustration by Fred Marcellino
