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Type of bind: Mass Market Paperback
EAN num: 9780141311098
ISBN number: 0141311096
Label: Puffin
Manufacturer: Puffin
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 320
Printing Date: January 14, 2002
Publishing house: Puffin
Age index: Young Adult
Sale Popularity Level: 657000
Studio: Puffin
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Product Description:
In Zimbabwe in 2194, General Matsika calls in Africa's most unusual detectives - 'the Ear, the Eye, and the Arm' - to find his missing children.
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Rated by buyers 
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The title of the book is The Ear, the Eye, and the Arm by Nancy Farmer. The
book is realistic fiction and is meant for middle school.
The book takes place in Zimbabwe 2194 with three children Kuda, Rita, and Tendia all children of the General of Defense. Their father is strict and uptight. Tenda and his siblings desperately wanting to go outside get the Mellower a man who can sing Praises of people which put them under a hypnotized spell. Tendia, Rita, and Kuda get the Mellower to song Praises to their father so he will get them passes to get them outside. After their outside they explore the city and end up getting kidnapped by men and a blue monkey. Then they are put to work at Dead Man's Vlei by a woman called the She Elephant. After working for the She Elephant Tendai goes underground to fetch her some water when he over hears her talking to some workers when she says "We can sell them to the Masks". That's when Tendai freaks out then sees a ndoro and then puts it on and sees an opening after escaping they get a ride to city and try to get home. While their lost the General calls three detectives who have special skills Eye, Ear, and Arm are their names. They start rom everywhere the children went from the monkey and the men to Dead Man. Read the rest to find out the rest of this suspenseful book.
Rated by buyers 
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_The Ear, the Eye, and the Arm_ is set in Zimbabwe in 2194, where the three children of the powerful General Matsika are forbidden to leave their home for fear of kidnapping. Longing to experience the outside world, the three children figure out how to get out...and disappear. Their parents call in an unusual set of detectives, three people whose unusual physical characteristics have been produced by exposure to nuclear waste. They are the Ear, the Eye, and the Arm, and they pursue the children from the crowded marketplace through the toxic waste dump called Dead Man's Vlei to the seemingly safe suburbs and the Mile-High MacIlwaine Hotel.
Farmer mixes African folklore and tradition with a futuristic environment to create something simply fantastic. The children, brought up in restricted safety, learn about the old culture of Zimbabwe and the new culture; I particularly liked how they see the English residents as strange outsiders. The pacing is excellent, as Farmer cuts back and forth between the kids and the detectives, keeping the tension and the interest level high in both threads until they finally meet in the book's climax. And I really loved the characters, who are portrayed both sympathetically and wittily; the bizarrely talented detectives particularly could easily be over the top, but they're just as human as anyone in the book.
Rated by buyers -
Nancy Farmer, The Ear, the Eye, and the Arm (Penguin, 1994)
Nancy Farmer's young adult novels are something special, no matter what she's writing about. In this case, she takes us to Africa for an examination of class struggle in the guise of a detective story. The detectives are the Ear, the Eye, and the Arm mentioned in the title (all named for their genetic mutations; the Ear has incredible hearing, the Eye incredible sight, and the Arm incredible reach), and the victims the three children of Zimbabwe's Minister of Security.
Thirteen-year-old Tendai is bored with his existence as a pampered, sheltered child, and he needs to get his Scout badge in geography. What better way to solve both problems at once than to cook up a plan with his younger siblings and the house's mellower (a kind of live-in magical psychologist) to get around the house's security and take a quick trip across the city? Unfortunately, while the city is everything Tendai had hoped it would be and more, an encounter with a genetically altered baboon in the marketplace leads to the kids being kidnapped, and their parents calling in the detectives. While the kids start off with the short end of the stick, though, they find that they are far more resilient-- and resourceful-- than their upbringing has led them to believe.
If you're not aware of the work of Nancy Farmer yet, whatever your age, do yourself a favor and get to know her stuff. Her more recent books (e.g., The Sea of Trolls) have garnered more attention, but her earlier work (this was her second novel) is just as fine. As expected from a fantasy novel, this is strongly plotted, but it also contains some wonderful characterization, enough real history, geography, and culture (albeit exaggerated somewhat) to read like an armchair traveller's guide to Zimbabwe at times, and more humour than one can shake a stick at. Farmer is a fine writer whose books are just as compelling for adults as they are for the kids at whom they're aimed. *** ½
Rated by buyers -
This excellent book from Nancy Farmer shows this author's broad range of talent! My children love her other titles, The House of Scorpion and The Sea of Trolls. When they learned that this book was also by Ms. Farmer, they were immediately interested! I appreciate the author's ability to transport the reader to another time, place and culture, and to make other cultures' beliefs and customs easy to understand. As born-again Christians, our family has had many lively discussions after reading Ms. Farmer's books. I highly recommend this book, and the others, by Ms. Farmer. She develops the main characters well, she adds other interesting characters and settings, and there is always a sense of morality, right and wrong that comes not from what each character feels is right to himself but from some other deeper belief in an Absolute Truth.
Rated by buyers -
Although this book is named for three extremely unusual detectives, this in now mystery. This was probably the biggest shock when i started to read this book. This book takes place in the twenty second century in Zimbabwe, which has just ended a war on crime. The general of the paramilitary police, General Matsika, has three children who disappear after trying to work a scouting merit badge. The General tries to discover the wereabouts of his children, but finds his military task force is too large for any undercover missions. He is forced to call upon three detectives, the last of their kind in Zimbabwe. And if you couldn't guess, they are called the ear the eye and the arm. Now this may sound like a mystery, except it keeps on switching back to the kidnapped kids view, which although ands adventure to an otherwise boring book, defeats the purpose of the mystery. Over all a good read, it's strengths cover it's faults
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