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carriealibrarian's review against another edition
lighthearted
medium-paced
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
A fabulous, silly family read-aloud.
li3an1na4's review against another edition
2.0
My mother-in-law got me this book for my birthday recently in both it's Russian and English versions. My understanding is that the original Swedish version and the Russian version make Karlson out to be kind of charming and funny and the story itself is whimsical, however that doesn't stand true for the English version. To me, he came off as extremely creepy and inappropriate. He would sneak into the main character's room (Smidge, a 7 year old boy), hide from his parents, and then lie, gaslight and manipulate Smidge at every opportunity. Then they go around town having weird mildly illegal adventures. Karlson was like a very off-putting Roald Dahl adult character mixed a bit with Donald Trump. Karlson is narcissistic, greedy, selfish, ignorant, a thief, and peddles lies as if his life depended on it.
I get children's stories that give a child a real friend that everyone thinks is imaginary and they go off and have adventures together. But this English version is not that. Off-putting and uncomfortable are the words that I would use to describe this book. The illustrations in the Russian book were significantly better than the English version, except Karlson looks even more creepy in the Russian version. There's no winning.
I get children's stories that give a child a real friend that everyone thinks is imaginary and they go off and have adventures together. But this English version is not that. Off-putting and uncomfortable are the words that I would use to describe this book. The illustrations in the Russian book were significantly better than the English version, except Karlson looks even more creepy in the Russian version. There's no winning.
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