Jackson Jones, Book 2
The Tale of a Boy, a Troll, and a Rather Large Chicken
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- $3.99
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- $3.99
Publisher Description
You never know where your story will take you.
All Jackson had to do was clean the pool. One simple task. It would have been simple, anyway, if that freak storm hadn’t come from nowhere and carried him away. Now Jackson is trapped in the branches of a massive tree, and he can’t find a way out. While he wanders, he meets a flesh-eating hound named Muffin, a hen who wears too much makeup, a million angry squirrels, and a Troll with nose hair down to there. Before Jackson can go home, he’ll have to discover the great task the Author has planned for him and learn what it really means to put down roots.
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.
