The Disappearing Bike Shop
By Elvira Woodruff
Holiday House, April 1992
Ages 8-14
978-0823409334 hardcover
978-0440910077 paperback

Tyler and his friend Freckle can’t believe their eyes as they watch a stone building rise up from its foundation and disappear into a whirling cloud of dust. When the building comes back, the boys discover it’s a bike shop, complete with a talking parrot, and Quentin Quigley, a bizarre old man who looks more like a wizard than a shop owner. Who is this strange man and why is there a human skull in his shop? As the two boys get trapped in one of Mr. Quigley’s remarkable inventions and travel through time in a hair-rasing adventure, they discover the wizard’s true and surprising identity.

Praise for The Disappearing Bike Shop:
"It is fascinating to watch as the strange building shimmers, disappears, and reappears on the vacant lot at the end of Dewberry Street. Tyler and his best friend, Freckle, have no idea what will happen when they finally find the courage to enter Quigley’s Bike Shop. The boys agree to keep the store, and the mesmerizing man who lives there, a secret. But Tyler is in for tough times when he is paired with the class bully, known as the Viking, to research Leonardo da Vinci. When the Viking discovers Quigley’s, and as he and Tyler learn more about the artist/inventor, they begin to realize that the wizardlike shopkeeper could be Leonardo himself. Woodruff’s story combines mystery, suspense, and an element of danger into a rollicking good adventure. Readers will be drawn into the smoothly building plot and find that the past can be truly exciting. Woodruff nicely integrates historical facts, valuable lessons in relationships, and issues of self-awareness into an invigorating story that will have readers disappearing with the book as quickly as it appears on the shelves."—School Library Journal