--- product_id: 111732467 title: "Curious Toys" price: "€ 38.67" currency: EUR in_stock: true reviews_count: 5 url: https://www.desertcart.be/products/111732467-curious-toys store_origin: BE region: Belgium --- # Curious Toys **Price:** € 38.67 **Availability:** ✅ In Stock ## Quick Answers - **What is this?** Curious Toys - **How much does it cost?** € 38.67 with free shipping - **Is it available?** Yes, in stock and ready to ship - **Where can I buy it?** [www.desertcart.be](https://www.desertcart.be/products/111732467-curious-toys) ## Best For - Customers looking for quality international products ## Why This Product - Free international shipping included - Worldwide delivery with tracking - 15-day hassle-free returns ## Description Curious Toys [Hand, Elizabeth] on desertcart.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. Curious Toys Review: Captivating tale. Loved it. - Oh, I loved this book so much. I haven’t been reading as much as I’d like to. A lot of books out there that make the “top” lists are written for the masses, and ultimately many of them bore me and don’t keep my interest for long. This was such a nice respite from the same-old, same old. Wonderful characters. A different perspective. Colorful tale. Well researched. And the story and mystery is absolutely captivating. I LOVE PIN! Thank you for giving a spotlight to queer characters. Review: good mystery set in an amusement park in 1915 - This mystery is set in a (fictional) Chicago amusement park in 1915, where girls on the edge of puberty begin disappearing—and then turning up dead. The person who finds the first one is Pin (given her nickname because she was “small and sharp”), only a little past puberty herself and still struggling to figure out just who and what (in gender terms) she is. At the insistence of her mother, who works at the park as a fortuneteller, she dresses as a boy—supposedly for safety reasons, but in some ways she thinks of herself as a boy as well. In trying to find the murderer, she gains the help of an eccentric little man named Henry Darger, who also has strong ideas about protecting little girls and devotes his spare time to writing an endless novel about them, complete with colorful illustrations of their adventures with him. Darger was a real “outsider artist,” the subject of a documentary film (In the Realms of the Unreal) and a number of art books; he lived in poverty and obscurity during his life but became famous when his works were discovered after his death. I saw the movie and was curious to learn more about him. I am also a big fan of Hand’s fantasies, such as Mortal Love, and her mystery series starring photographer Cass Neary, which also have an otherworldly air, and I was curious to see what she would do with Darger as a character. In fact she didn’t do quite as much as I expected. Although Darger is a significant character, he is not (contrary to the implication of Hand’s dedication) the “detective”; Pin handles that. However, Pin herself is both likeable and interestingly complex in her struggle with gender identity, so I enjoyed spending time with her. The story also gives a little look at the silent film industry of the day, since Pin visits the Essanay Studio (also real) and even briefly meets Charlie Chaplin. Somewhat to my surprise, the story proved to be a straight mystery, with no fantasy elements. It was a good one, though, and I would recommend it to anyone who likes Hand’s writing (excellent here, as always), historical mysteries, or stories set in amusement parks and carnivals. ## Technical Specifications | Specification | Value | |---------------|-------| | Best Sellers Rank | #2,922,794 in Books ( See Top 100 in Books ) #4,158 in Historical Mystery #8,659 in Amateur Sleuths #9,318 in Women Sleuths (Books) | | Customer Reviews | 4.4 4.4 out of 5 stars (273) | | Dimensions | 6.4 x 1.55 x 9.55 inches | | Edition | First Edition | | ISBN-10 | 0316485888 | | ISBN-13 | 978-0316485883 | | Item Weight | 1.35 pounds | | Language | English | | Print length | 384 pages | | Publication date | October 15, 2019 | | Publisher | Mulholland Books | ## Images ![Curious Toys - Image 1](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51yxiu-SrxL.jpg) ## Customer Reviews ### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Captivating tale. Loved it. *by B***M on December 3, 2019* Oh, I loved this book so much. I haven’t been reading as much as I’d like to. A lot of books out there that make the “top” lists are written for the masses, and ultimately many of them bore me and don’t keep my interest for long. This was such a nice respite from the same-old, same old. Wonderful characters. A different perspective. Colorful tale. Well researched. And the story and mystery is absolutely captivating. I LOVE PIN! Thank you for giving a spotlight to queer characters. ### ⭐⭐⭐⭐ good mystery set in an amusement park in 1915 *by L***) on November 28, 2019* This mystery is set in a (fictional) Chicago amusement park in 1915, where girls on the edge of puberty begin disappearing—and then turning up dead. The person who finds the first one is Pin (given her nickname because she was “small and sharp”), only a little past puberty herself and still struggling to figure out just who and what (in gender terms) she is. At the insistence of her mother, who works at the park as a fortuneteller, she dresses as a boy—supposedly for safety reasons, but in some ways she thinks of herself as a boy as well. In trying to find the murderer, she gains the help of an eccentric little man named Henry Darger, who also has strong ideas about protecting little girls and devotes his spare time to writing an endless novel about them, complete with colorful illustrations of their adventures with him. Darger was a real “outsider artist,” the subject of a documentary film (In the Realms of the Unreal) and a number of art books; he lived in poverty and obscurity during his life but became famous when his works were discovered after his death. I saw the movie and was curious to learn more about him. I am also a big fan of Hand’s fantasies, such as Mortal Love, and her mystery series starring photographer Cass Neary, which also have an otherworldly air, and I was curious to see what she would do with Darger as a character. In fact she didn’t do quite as much as I expected. Although Darger is a significant character, he is not (contrary to the implication of Hand’s dedication) the “detective”; Pin handles that. However, Pin herself is both likeable and interestingly complex in her struggle with gender identity, so I enjoyed spending time with her. The story also gives a little look at the silent film industry of the day, since Pin visits the Essanay Studio (also real) and even briefly meets Charlie Chaplin. Somewhat to my surprise, the story proved to be a straight mystery, with no fantasy elements. It was a good one, though, and I would recommend it to anyone who likes Hand’s writing (excellent here, as always), historical mysteries, or stories set in amusement parks and carnivals. ### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ So This Is What They Mean When They Say A Book "BLEW MY MIND!" *by L***R on November 7, 2019* I moved with my parents to Chicagoland, as it's called, when I was a boy; by the time I left a few years later I was a newspaper reporter who'd managed to squeak in at the finale of what they call The Golden Age of newspapering in the Windy City. In CURIOUS TOYS; Elizabeth Hand conjures up an earlier Chicago, specifically of Riverview, the wondrous amusement park where I roamed with pals and sought out dark corners to smooch with girlfriends when I was in high school. In this amazing novel, Hand evokes Riverview in 1915 and finds corners much, much darker than I ever imagined. And those corners are populated by ... well, by monsters! These are human monsters, the sort who prey on children and, in Hand's Riverview, toss their lifeless little bodies into fetid lagoons or abandoned brick kilns. Much of Hand's evocation of Riverview was still familiar to one who spent summer evenings there four decades after the setting of CURIOUS TOYS: the Bobs roller-coaster, the devil above the entrance to a "fun house," the bell that rang whenever a lost child was reported or, in slightly smaller numbers, it seems, found! Negotiating hs way through the crowds and the carnies and the coppers is Pin, a 14-year-old boy who turns out to be a girl! She is a girl who admires brave women and who displays extraordinary courage herself as she and an astounding little man (based on the oddball Chicago fantasy writer and artist Henry Darger, who died in 1973) set out to solve the case of the disappearing young girls and to bring their killer to justice. That's enough about the plot. Hand's writing is almost impossibly lovely at times as she plumbs the minds of Pin, the brave teenager who wishes she were a boy, of the insane Darger, whose fantasy life is detailed in an autobiographical journal of words and drawings and scraps (found after his death, it turns out if you read Wikipedia) and of a Riverview cop, a pederast or two or three, a "Gypsy fortune teller," of some movie actors, including Charlie Chaplin, and of a handful of other characters who make life for young Pin almost impossibly tough and at the same time sweet, sweet beyond words! I couldn't wait to pick this book up every time I set it aside even for a moment. And I'm not ashamed to tell you that as I read the final pages I found my eyes were tearing, whether out of wonderment at Pin's thrilling story or Hand's delicious writing I'm still not sure. --- ## Why Shop on Desertcart? - 🛒 **Trusted by 1.3+ Million Shoppers** — Serving international shoppers since 2016 - 🌍 **Shop Globally** — Access 737+ million products across 21 categories - 💰 **No Hidden Fees** — All customs, duties, and taxes included in the price - 🔄 **15-Day Free Returns** — Hassle-free returns (30 days for PRO members) - 🔒 **Secure Payments** — Trusted payment options with buyer protection - ⭐ **TrustPilot Rated 4.5/5** — Based on 8,000+ happy customer reviews **Shop now:** [https://www.desertcart.be/products/111732467-curious-toys](https://www.desertcart.be/products/111732467-curious-toys) --- *Product available on Desertcart Belgium* *Store origin: BE* *Last updated: 2026-05-02*