The Boxes
William Sleator
Dutton Children's Books, 189 pages
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When I was a kid, my favorite books were those told entirely from a kids'-eye perspective, in which young protagonists
faced adventures and solved problems on their own, and adults intruded on the action only in the form of nefarious
villains or magical benefactors. William Sleator's books all have this kids'-eye quality, which perhaps--along
with their complicated, fantastic, and frequently gruesome plots--explains why they are so popular among young
readers.
Annie, the heroine of The Boxes, has one favorite person in the world: her Uncle Marco, who is constantly
traveling on exciting secret adventures, and looks and acts far younger than his actual age. When the book opens
he's about to depart again, but this time he leaves Annie with a responsibility: to take care of two mysterious
boxes, one made of wood, one made of metal. The boxes, he tells Annie, must be kept separate, and no one must know
about them. On absolutely no account can they be opened.
Naturally, Annie is consumed with curiosity, and after a while opening the boxes is all she can think about. Eventually
she pries open the wooden box, which she has stowed in the root cellar of the big old Victorian house where she
lives with her fat, mean, miserly Aunt Ruth. A tiny crablike creature comes scuttling out, and disappears into
the darkness of the basement. The metal box, hidden in Annie's closet, turns out to contain a strange clocklike
device, marked with odd hieroglyphics. Somehow, opening the second box activates the clock, which now seems to
be measuring time, though not in any way Annie can understand. Meanwhile, in the basement, the crablike creature
has begun to reproduce. The resulting tribe of beings is able to communicate telepathically; they inform Annie
that by opening the boxes she has become the "nervous system," a link of communication between them and
the clock, which they appear to worship as a kind of god.
Annie and her friend Henry, in whom she has confided, discover that the clock, if asked in a certain way (and provided
with sacrifices) can actually slow time. But the evil Crutchley Development, a construction company that wants
to tear down the old neighborhood where Annie lives and build a huge mall in its place, has hatched a plot to steal
the clock and use its time-slowing power for their own greedy ends. Annie and Henry must find a way to prevent
this from happening, foiling the company and saving the neighborhood.
The Boxes is a fast-paced, vividly imagined book. We aren't talking realism here: the twists and turns of
the plot are contrived, and the adult characters are entirely two-dimensional. But young readers will love the
fascinatingly creepy details of the creatures and the clock, and identify with Henry and Annie, who are as appealingly
brave and resourceful as the various grownups they must outwit--from miserly Aunt Ruth, who can't resist Crutchley
Development's huge financial offer, to the evil Mr. Crutchley, who wants to slow time so that he can build malls
faster than anyone else--are satisfyingly slimy. There are some lessons to be learned: Annie, a girl who spends
much far too much time trying to keep others happy, discovers how to stand up for herself. There is even some food
for thought: Crutchley Development stands for all the greedy companies in the world who try to gobble up everything
old and wild.
The book's ending, which resolves the Crutchley plot but provides no explanation of the box-creatures, the clock,
or the connection between them, takes the characters off on what appears to be the beginning of another adventure.
I'm assuming a sequel is in the works. I hope so--I'd really like to know where those creatures come from.
Copyright © 1998 Victoria Strauss
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