The Sweet Adventures of Henry P. Twist

For forty-five years, master pastry chef Henry Peppermint Twist worked for one of the world's largest factories, Brackmeyer Sweets, in Apfeldorf, Germany. But things quickly turn sour for Henry and the nearly four thousand other factory workers as the aged and frail founder retires, leaving his evil and greedy son, Charles B. Brackmeyer Jr., to become the new president. Brackmeyer's goal it is to get rid of the dead weight?by which he means old people?and replace them with machines. Henry loses his job and, with nowhere else to go, finds lodgings in a dilapidated retirement home in the countryside. He feels miserable, old, and useless and is wondering just what he can do when he meets a strange little man in brightly colored clothes. The little man tells Henry of a wonderful place where he will never grow older, a place where he can be young and useful once again. He convinces Henry to follow him to this magical place where time moves differently everything is edible?the Sweet Lands. As Henry starts a new life there, however, he soon learns that even in the Sweet Lands, there may be danger lurking around the corner. In this novel for middle readers, an elderly pastry chef rediscovers his youth in a land of faerie myth and magic.