Marilyn Courtot (Children's Literature)
Set in the future in Zimbabwe, Tendai and her siblings are kidnapped off the streets of Harare. Hot on their trail are three unusual detectives each with a unique ability--hearing, sight, and insight. A fast paced, adventure with lots of suspense and plot twists to keep readers fully engrossed, this heroic myth based on the Shona culture is hard to put down. A Newbery Honor Book. 1994, Orchard, $18.95, $19.99 and $4.99. Ages 12 up.

CCBC (Cooperative Children's Book Center Choices, 1994)
When the three children of General Amadeus Matsika connive their way out of their high-security home, they are looking for change and excitement. They find it, but the ordeal of being kidnapped provides more than they had expected. Moving from an ancient toxic waste dump, to Resthaven, where people attempt to live in the ways of long ago, to the hideout of a powerful street gang in the Mile-High MacIlwaine Hotel, the children are always one step ahead of the trio of mutant detectives--the Ear, the Eye, and the Arm--who are following their trail in the hopes of rescuing them. Set in Zimbabwe in the year 2194, this complex, action-filled adventure of the future combines elements of science fiction with Shona mythology and a running sense of humor. Honor Book, 1994 CCBC Newbery Award Discussion. CCBC categories: Fiction For Children; Fiction For Teenagers. 1994, A Richard Jackson Book / Orchard, 311 pages, $18.95. Ages 10-14.

Kirkus (Kirkus Reviews, 1994)
An author who lived for years in Africa follows a comic, well-received first novel set in present-day Mozambique (Do You Know Me, 1993) with this marvelous odyssey across Zimbabwe 200 years in the future. Tendai, 13, his sister Rita, and their little brother Kuda escape their luxurious home to explore their perilous city; Tendai's immediate aim is earning a scouting badge, but his need to prove himself -- as his protective father, Chief of Security Masika, hasn't allowed him to do -- is also compelling. Exploring seamy "Cow's Guts," these innocents are snapped up by the vast "She Elephant" who presides over the mines in Dead Man's Vlei, where society's dregs scavenge toxic waste for now-rare plastics. Escaping, they find their way to the walled enclave of Resthaven, where traditional tribal ways are preserved, bad with good ("You can't yank out part of the pattern and not damage the rest"); and then to a treacherous old Englishwoman. Meanwhile, the three are tracked by three eponymous detectives, whose folkloric talents are ascribed to the effects of a toxic environment. Weaving African tribal language and lore (notes and glossary appended) into a rich tapestry featuring a witty projection of the future, a score of vividly realized characters, and a nonstop adventure culminating in a denouement that's at once taut, comic, and touching, Farmer has created a splendidly imaginative fantasy, just right to pair with Lowry's darker vision of control and freedom (The Giver, 1993). 1994, Orchard, $17.95; PLB $17.99. Starred Review. © 1994 Kirkus Reviews/VNU eMedia, Inc. All rights reserved.

Publishers Weekly (Publishers Weekly)
Picking up where she left off in her highly successful debut, Do You Know Me, Farmer uses her knowledge of Africa to imagine a city in 23rd-century Zimbabwe, combining old traditions and speculative technology with delightfully entertaining results. In search of adventure, 13-year-old Tendai, his sister Rita and younger brother Kuda, the sheltered offspring of a maniacally rigid military general, break out of the family compound. The three are promptly kidnapped by the monstrous She Elephant, an ogre who lords over an abandoned toxic waste dump and forces its denizens to mine obsolete plastic products. They finally escape, but are captured anew and imprisoned in Resthaven, a cloistered community where the ancient African spiritual and farming traditions are practiced to the exclusion of all things modern. Meanwhile, the beleaguered general hires the Ear, the Eye and the Arm, three decidedly odd detectives who take advantage of their hyperdeveloped senses and features (the result of a nuclear accident) to track down the children. The madcap game of chase and escape clips along as the author plies her playful, sly sense of humor on a wonderfully silly cast of secondary characters, spirits and Jetsonian gadgets. This tale overflows with wise insights, lessons and observations about the ties between heritage and family. Farmer is emerging as one of the best and brightest authors for the YA audience. Ages 12-up. (Apr.)

Roger Sutton (The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books, March 1994 (Vol. 47, No. 7))
Pretty nervy these days, to set a science-fantasy novel in a Mad-Max-like Zimbabwe, 2194, particularly when the two main villainesses are a big black slavedriver named the She Elephant and a dotty, white, postmodern colonialist named Mrs. Horsepool-Worthingham, both splendidly drawn. Tendai, Rita, and little Kuda, the three children of the General, are kidnapped by the She Elephant's minions when they venture one day into the dangerous streets of Harare. The children's worried parents consult an unorthodox, semi-bumbling, and anatomically mutated detective trio (the Ear, Eye, and Arm of the title), and the chase is on, with the detectives always just one step behind the kids as they fall into and out of the She Elephant's clutches. The adventure is grand and whole-hearted, its heroics sometimes cut down to size by the ironic tone into which the book occasionally dips. Farmer has wisely considered what the passage of two centuries might bring, with her future Zimbabwe a place of grimy street life, high-rise glamor, and a simultaneous vision of apocalypse (in the toxic-wasted vlei that is the She Elephant's stronghold) and fundamentalist paradise (in Resthaven, where the "old ways" are preserved, both food-gathering and witch-baiting). There's a big and busy cast of characters, but Farmer expertly maintains the pace as she cuts from kids to cops, hunter to hunted, and home to away and back again. While the landscape is mostly bleak and the atmosphere often ominous, in its fundamental suspense and appeal the book bears an odd but satisfying resemblance to The Wizard of Oz-witches, scarecrows, and all. R*--Highly recommended as a book of special distinction. Reviewed from galleys (c) Copyright 1994, The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois. 1994, Jackson/Orchard, [320p], $17.99 and $17.95. Grades 7-12.