What a summer it turned out to be! Not that John thought it looked any good, at first—a summer in France without his mother and father, a summer with his activities hampered by his still-lame leg! Of course, there was the bike to look forward to, if he did what was expected of him—the wonderful bike with three gears and lights!

As John put it, at the time, "Why, for a bicycle like that, I guess I would have promised to sprout wings and a halo, to go to church every day in the week, to keep my nails clean, to wash behind my ears and to do my school lessons without even being told. Instead, all I had to do was to go to a French town, with mon oncle, build an avion there, probably fly around in the avion and have a noble time doing it—and walk and learn French."

Although, one way and another, much of that dream came true, a lot happened before it did. The man with the crooked beard was the first indication that all might not be right with the sleepy little village in the south of France. Then there was the finding of the pistol in the loaf of bread, the affair of the pig of the mayor, the midnight walk of the blind peddler—and finally, Uncle Paul's glider flown in a desperate cause—guess by whom?

Here's a book that boys and girls will love, a book that has everything—fun and trouble and mystery and surprise. It's a book that is entertainment above all. But it is also a first passport to the understanding—more necessary than ever—that even people who speak a language all their own are still people, after all.

From the dust jacket