Reviews: (by author)

(4 reviews)

Ardagh, Philip. A House Called Awful End. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 2000. $14.95. ISBN 0805068287.

Originally written as a series of entertaining letters for the author's nephew (while he attended boarding school in England), A House Called Awful End details the misadventures of Eddie Dickens. The young British boy is sent to live with his insane great-uncle and great-aunt while his parents recover from an illness which "made them turn yellow, go a bit crinkly around the edges, and smell of old hot-water bottles." Written with a tongue-in-cheek style reminiscent of the UK's "Monty Python" comedians, this book is witty and entertaining from the author's note to the glossary. This satire of British society during the 1800s and early 1900s is an uncommon, but amusing, style of children's literature. Ardagh pokes fun at the seemingly random terms for everyday objects (such as a tack room) and the contradictory and pointless behavior of adults, from a child's perspective. Any child with a sense of humor will be able to appreciate the silliness of this book.

Recommended Reading Level: Age 7-13

Reviewed by Elizabeth Wade

 

Ardagh, Philip. A House Called Awful End. Illus. David Roberts. New York: Henry Holt, 2000. $14.95. ISBN: 0-8050-6828-7. www.philipardagh.com

There's certainly nothing awful about Philip Ardagh's A House Called Awful End. Ask anyone! I'm sure 99.9% of the population would agree. The only person that might disagree, perhaps, is the young hero of this bizarre tale: Eddie Dickens. He doesn't seem to enjoy leaving his parents who contract an "awful disease" that makes them "turn yellow, go a bit crinkly around the edges, and smell of old hot-water bottles." It's also possible that he doesn't like the idea of going to live with his "Mad Uncle Jack and Even Madder Aunt Maud" at their home "Awful End." Still, I don't think that even I could enjoy being sent to "St. Horrid's Home for Grateful Orphans." Although Eddie finds no pleasure in the adventures Ardagh created for him, most readers certainly will.

Through the use of odd characters (Gibbering Jane, a chambermaid who failed her "eight-week bed-making course and lives in a cupboard under the stairs of the Dickens home), random informational tangents (when the Dickens house catches file, Ardagh spends a full page explaining how geese were once used as smoke alarms), and unexpected story-twists (you can't expect me to give away the whole story) Ardagh creates a weird and wonderful tale. The casual way he addresses the reader (he continually refers to himself as "I" and to the reader as "you" ) creates the sense that the story was written just for the reader. This, perhaps, is due to the fact that the book was originally written as a series of letters to Ardagh's nephew.
Read it aloud (and I suggest creating voices for each of the characters if you do this) or curl up with it. Either way, Ardagh will leave you wanting more (which is handy, since there are three more books detailing further Eddie Dickens adventures).

Highly recommended.
Elizabeth Klug. September '03

 

Ardagh, Philip. Dreadful Acts. Illus. David Roberts. New York: Henry Holt, 2001. $12.95. ISBN: 0-8050-7155-5. www.philipardagh.com

Dreadful Acts, Ardagh's second book detailing the adventures of a certain Eddie Dickens, is (according to the title page) "a sumptuous feast of reading pleasure." While Ardagh's first book, A House Called Awful End, focuses on Eddie's adventurous journey to Awful End (his great uncle's home), Dreadful Acts is set at Awful End and in the surrounding English countryside. Eddie again seems fated to encounter every dangerously hilarious adventure that could possibly come his way.
The action in this story gets underway quickly. Eddie is awakened one morning with a shock when his Mad Uncle Jack accidentally drops an electric eel on him. Then—as if that's not strange enough—he urges Eddie to hurry downstairs because there is a lost hearse standing in their driveway. Thus begins another round of wacky adventures featuring Eddie, Mad Uncle Jack, Even Madder Aunt Maud, Eddie's Mother and Father, and a delightful assortment of other odd characters.
Ardagh's unique style (comedy intermingled with catastrophe) is sure to bring a smile to even the most stoic face. Although the events of the book are quite dreadful (gas explosions, hot air balloon crashes, kidnappings, etc.), Ardagh locates the absurd in every situation and thereby locates the humor. An example of this can be found in one of the book's oddest characters: Barking. Although Barking, along with his fellow escaped convicts, kidnaps Eddie and forces him to help located a hidden stash of stolen diamonds, his actions are still hilarious since he behaves as if he thought he were a dog.

The book's language is also immensely enjoyable. I don't know many children who are overly excited about learning new vocabulary. However, Ardagh's casual conversational style lends itself easily to teaching vocabulary. The book is so full of strange things that need explanation that it is natural for Ardagh to explain the meanings of difficult words through the story. He also includes a comical glossary in the back of the book, which explains words like "pram" ("short for the very grand word perambulator, but nothing more than a baby carriage" ) and "nappy" ("a diaper—the less said the better" ).

Terrible Times follows Dreadful Acts in Ardagh's Eddie Dickens Trilogy.

Highly Recommended.
Elizabeth Klug. October '03

 

Ardagh, Philip. Terrible Times. Illus. David Roberts. New York: Henry Holt, 2003. $12.95. ISBN: 0-8050-7156-3. www.philipardagh.com

In Terrible Times, the third book in the Eddie Dickens trilogy, Ardagh again turns the misfortune that surrounds young Eddie Dickens and his strange family into hilarity. As with the first two books, Eddie must deal with his family's crazy eccentricities in addition to complications from outside sources. As with the past two books, Eddie is quite on his own, his family seeming to be oblivious to the dangerous circumstances he encounters.

Since his father is laid up after falling from a tree, his mother is on crutches and his aunt and uncle are…well…mad, young Eddie must travel to American to find out what has gone wrong at the family newspaper: the Terrible Times. Yet, he never actually arrives in America because too many exciting things happen prior to his departure and on the America-bound ship, the Pompous Pig. The worst trouble happens when the ship's most valuable cargo, the Dog's Bone Diamond, is stolen and, after Eddie catches the thieves, is forced into a leaking rowboat and left to drift. Eddie's family soon arrives on the Pompous Pig to retrieve his Mad Aunt Maude (who stowed herself in Eddie's trunk), but not before Eddie rescues himself by riding the back of a sea turtle.

Terrible Times, set in England during the reign of Queen Victoria, is highly enjoyable on several levels. The plot is suspenseful and interesting. Ardagh's style is full of anecdotes that, although depart from the plot, still afford much entertainment. Additionally, Ardagh includes bits of strange, historical information about Victorian life. These factors all combine to make a truly delightful story. Readers who might have been upset to find Terrible Times is the last book in a trilogy will be delighted to know that Ardagh recently published a fourth Eddie Dickens book: Dubious Deeds.

Highly recommended.
Elizabeth Klug, November '03

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