Jackson Jones, Book 1
The Tale of a Boy, an Elf, and a Very Stinky Fish
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- $3.99
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- $3.99
Publisher Description
When family reunion day arrives, Jackson, a lonely ten-and-a-half-year-old boy, is loathe to share his room with Great Aunt Harriet. She's a hundred and twelve years old, talks unintelligibly out of her toothless mouth, and has very, very, very big hair. But when he falls into her piles of hair during the night, Jackson encounters a world he'd never dreamed existed. In this magical fantasy complemented by zany illustrations, Jackson meets a host of extraordinary characters and finds that his life, far from being average and uneventful, is being written by the great Author, in whom all stories find their meaning.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Kelly steps out on a limb, sending the titular intrepid boy (who last got into his great-aunt's hair, literally, in the series opener) into a tree, where he meets a social misfit of a troll (with nose hair) named Stimple, a squawky chicken named Miss Flaversham, many thousands of squirrels, and a creepy red-eyed rat, among other creatures. Jackson's been blown away while cleaning the pool following a dustup with his little brother, and needs to find his way home ("In Which You Think This Is The Wizard of Oz, but It Isn't," a chapter title notes). Poor Jackson has to do that and teach his readers about the power of prayer in this unsettled mix of a book that has laugh-out-loud moments, stinky giggly ones, a bit of allegory (that rat is creepy for a reason), and clever illustrations. It also struggles a bit with its Christian apparatus of meaning. Kelly is an imaginative writer; here's hoping her imagination, like her hero, continues to buck restraint. Ages 9 12.
