What-the-Dickens

November 5, 2007
More ambitious than many of Maguire’s (Leaping Beauty
; Wicked
) previous works, this novel combines the author’s taste for the fairytale backstory with explorations of the values of storytelling. A contemporary narrative frame opens the book with a setting inspired by Hurricane Katrina: after a terrible storm brutalizes the region, the parents in a strict fundamentalist family have wagered outside, leaving their three children with rapidly diminishing supplies in the care of their 21-year-old English-teacher cousin, Gage. To divert them from their hunger and their anxiety, Gage spends an entire night telling them about a “skibberee” (tooth fairy) who grows up on its own and only by chance discovers that the presence of other skibbereen. Dense with allusion, metaphor and pun, Maguire’s prose shines, compensating literary-minded readers for the slow start of the skibberee story. By the time the urgency of the skibberee story matches that of the framing tale, however, Maguire’s agenda emerges in its complexity. Each of the characters takes a different approach to Gage’s story: Dinah, the 10-year-old, needs the magic that Gage’s tale delivers; her older brother claims to need to eschew its fancy, in favor of his parents’ teachings about faith and reason; Gage needs story to exist; and the youngest, who celebrates her second birthday, needs the wish the story promises. Comic scenes, elaborate tableaux and suspenseful sequences will entertain readers who prefer more straightforward fiction, but those readers may be frustrated by the unresolved ending. Ages 10-13.

February 1, 2008
Gr 4-6-In Gregory Maguires fantasy (Candlewick, 2007), siblings Zeke, Dinah, and Rebecca Ruth are stranded in their home during a cataclysmic storm along with their cousin/babysitter Gage. To pass time and distract the children, Gage tells them a story of What-the-Dickens, a tooth fairy, and his search for identity and belonging. Although hatched alone in an old tuna can, What-the-Dickens discovers that he is one of the skibbereen who normally live in large groups. He meets Pepper, a probationary agent of change, who introduces him to her colony of skibbereen. He learns about their history, hierarchy, and function but ultimately decides not to join them, so he and Pepper set out on their own. As the story and night progress, the familys dynamics play out as the children scrounge food, plan to celebrate Rebecca Ruths second birthday, and elude the attempt of the emergency services to evacuate them to a shelter. Listeners are left with no more certainty about their future than that of What-the-Dickens and Pepper, although there is the sense that both the fairy and human characters will be fine. The author encourages listeners to explore the interplay between story and reality as well as the causative power of stories. Jason Culps understated narration gives subtle and appropriate voices to the characters. In the review copy, there was an editing glitch on disc 4 in which text was repeated. A good choice for young fantasy lovers."Louise L. Sherman, formerly Anna C. Scott School, Leonia, NJ"

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