Bookblog #46: Grinch books



Leo Lionni, Alexander and the Wind-Up Mouse (Knopf 1991)
Pamela Allen, Felix (Viking Australia 2008)
Neil Gaiman, The Graveyard Book (Bloomsbury 2008)
Christian Lander, Stuff White People Like: A Guide to the Unique Taste of Millions (Random House 2008)
Julie Donovan, Molly and the little teddy tree (self published 2008)

Why Grinch books? Because I bought them as Christmas presents and stole a read.

I bought Alexander and the Wind-up Mouse for a four year old. It's a sweet story of friendship between a real mouse who lives as an outsider and a mechanical mouse who appears to be cherished by its owner but has a tightly constricted life. Leo Lionni is one of the great masters of picture books, and this is marvellous. Pamela Allen created a couple of the very favourite picture books of my early parenting years -- Who Sank the Boat? and Mr Archimedes Bath -- so it seemed a fair bet to buy one of her books for a relative who is currently in the early years of her life. Having stolen a read, I think it's a good choice: a cat chases a mouse, which runs into a jar; the cat gets its head caught in the jar and spends most of the book trying to shake the jar off and catch the mouse, filling page after page with its acrobatic contortions. It's far too repetitive for my taste, but I expect it will be a source of sustained joy for my great niece.

The Graveyard Book didn't require any such second-guessing. I expect that its designated recipient, who is 12 years old, will have a great time with it, though I may have to check with her parents about its scariness levels. But, to be completely honest, my main motivation for buying this book for her was that I wanted to read it myself. On its cover, no less a person than Diana Wynne Jones describes it as the best book Neil Gaiman has ever written. I'd have no idea how to evaluate a judgement like that since there's so much chalk and cheese in what Neil (as we readers of his blog call him) has produced. Is Coraline better than the Sandman saga? Does Anansi Boys trump The Day I Swapped My Dad for Two Goldfish or The Wolves in the Walls? But we know what DWJ means, or think we do, an she's probably right. The book is a re-imagining of The Jungle Book in which its young hero is reared by ghosts in a graveyard rather than by wolves in a jungle. Bod, short for 'Nobody', loses his parents when he is just a toddler, and escapes from their murderer more by chance than by design, to be adopted by a ghostly couple in the graveyard-turned-nature-reserve near his home. His guardian, Silas, probably a reformed vampire, explains that his life is in danger if he leaves the graveyard, and becomes his link to the outside world. In each of the book's pretty much self contained chapters, Bod faces spooky and corporeal dangers and makes allies and friends -- many among the dead and one or two among the living. There are spectacular setpieces -- a dangerous, knockabout encounter with ghouls, a wonderful danse macabre, a school-bully episode. The longest chapter, in which 15-year-old Bod faces his enemies, discovers their true nature, and -- with help from his living friend Scarlett among others -- saves the world, is most satisfactory. It took me a little while to engage with the story: for the first couple of chapters, I had to imagine them being read aloud by Neil or by Vincent Price to make my mind appropriately receptive (you can see Neil read the whole book to nine different audiences, chapter by chapter, here -- I've only listened to a little of it). There was plenty to enjoy in those first chapters, but it took until Chapter Four for me to realise that I cared what happened to Bod.

This sentence describing one of the book's most dangerous villains leapt out at me as a worthy sample of the book's unexpectedness:
'Hul-lo,' said Jack Ketch, with a twitch of his moustache, and he smiled at Scarlett through the bars like a rabbit with a secret.

I mention Stuff White People Like and Mollie and the Teddy Tree in the interests of full disclosure. I didn't read very much of the former, which was a December birthday present for a twenty-something relative rather than a Christmas present. I did, however, read bits of it aloud to my companion when we were walking to the post office, and we both laughed, uncomfortably. I've also laughed, uncomfortably, at the web site that gave birth to it. I may not have read enough to have this right, but I'd venture to say that it's an interesting take on white, liberal, middle-class people (of whom the author appears to be one), and pretty much hits the mark for Australians as well. I don't know if it quite counts as satire, but it does have an edge. The latter is a sweet, self-published picture book that would hold its own against books published by big companies. Five dollars from every purchase goes to The World Society for the Protection of Animals to help with Bear rescue programs. I'm confident of finding a very young person who will love it.

Posted: Thu - December 4, 2008 at 12:24 PM           |

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