Product Description

Welcome to the Scatterhorn Museum! But don't get too excited - it's a cold and dingy place, crammed full of tatty stuffed animals and junk. Nobody much wants to visit any more, and its days are surely numbered. But when Tom is sent to live here he soon finds there is more to this museum than meets the eye. The animals may be shabby and moth-eaten - but they possess an incredible secret. And when Tom discovers he can go right back to the time of their making, a hundred years earlier, he embarks on a journey full of unimaginable terrors... Join Tom in his breathtaking adventure in and out of time, from an Edwardian ice fair to the wastes of Mongolia, the jungles of India, and beyond....

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #32443 in Books
• Published on: 2008-09-04
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 464 pages

Customer Reviews

Wonderful magical adventure
I bought this for a 10 year old prolific reader, who devours books faster than they can be published, because I saw that it was new in print. I read it before I gave it to him.
It is wonderful - a fantastic, fabulous and magical adventure of a boy, Tom Scatterhorn, who becomes involved in an old, ramshackle, family-owned natural history museum. It quickly becomes apparent that there is more than meets the eye - the animals on display, created by a master taxidermist in the last century, can come alive. Tom finds a portal in the museum, which enables him to travel back and forth in time, between the modern day and the years in which the museum was created, and he becomes an apprentice to the master taxidermist. He finds out that the taxidermist has discovered an "elixir of life". But Tom isn't the only one travelling in time, and there are other, not-so-nice people looking for the rumoured elixir...
It is beautifully written, and very exciting. Highly recommended, I'd say for 9 - 12 year olds. My 10 year old loved it, read it practically in one go, and wants to know when there will be more (it is called "Book 1"). I hope there will be more!

Brilliant book
What a fantastic book! Full marks for this book; if there were 10 stars to give, this book would deserve every single one of them! It's about a boy called Tom who moves in with relatives who own an old museum of stuffed animals who, he discovers, aren't really dead at all. A great adventure begins with Tom time-travelling back and forth. As the book says, they are `remarkable adventures'! One of the best books I've ever read. I really loved this book and was sorry when I finished it. Hopefully there'll be a sequel soon!

SUPERB !
I can only agree witht he previous reviewer (that's why I bought the book) - this is a fantastic book - I too have read it first and hope there will be more - I was definately ready for more adventures. I cruised through the book, snatching time whenever I could to carry on reading. I would have loved this book as a child and highly recommend this to everyone with children 9+ (because it is such a long book) but I am sure younger able readers would love it too.