The Boy with the Cuckoo-Clock Heart

This delightful fantasy contains all the components of a traditional fairy tale, but Malzieu's rich, often sexual, imagery carries it to a much more adult level. The celebrated Jim Dale is an inspired choice to present this quirky take on a timeless love story. His lovely English accent, gift for creating voices, and mastery of pace and intensity make this performance a real treat. Dale is perhaps best known for his delivery of children's books and classics such as the HARRY POTTER series and ALICE'S ADVENTURES in WONDERLAND. (For ALICE, he says, he enjoyed creating "over-the-top character voices.") Here Dale's skills will enthrall adult listeners as they enjoy the magic of Malzieu's enticing tale. M.O.B. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award (c) AudioFile 2010, Portland, Maine

December 7, 2009
Set in late-19th-century Europe, this slim, melancholy, and sometimes thin novel affords considerable escapist pleasures. At 14, Jack, a misfit orphan with a cuckoo-clock installed in his chest, treks across Europe in search of Miss Acacia, “a little singer... who's always bumping into things,” he met four years before. In Paris, he finds a companion in Méliès, a lovesick, quixotic magician, and as their journey unfolds, Malzieu sketches European landscapes and crafts figurative language with irresistible relish: Miss Acacia's laugh, for instance, is “as light as beads tumbling over a xylophone.” After Jack reaches Spain and finds Miss Acacia, he embarks on a tumultuous relationship with his beloved that will alter his life forever. Despite a few too-cutesy sexual metaphors and coming-of-age tropes, the novel's sentimentality only rarely devolves into treacle. Calling to mind a host of cultural touchstones, from Pinocchio to The Wizard of Oz
, this kaleidoscopic picaresque will enchant many adults and young people alike.