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3.81 AVERAGE
3.81 AVERAGE
adventurous
emotional
hopeful
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
A teacher gave me this to read when I was 11 to see what I thought of it. I remember saying I felt the writing level was a bit heavy for the subject of clockwork mice, but it left enough of an impression on me to remember reading it 16 years later. One to re-read at some point.
A cute story of a windup mouse and his son and the adventures they have. I would call it a found family story.
a Middle grade story. Not great but not bad. Enjoyable.
a Middle grade story. Not great but not bad. Enjoyable.
adventurous
dark
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Not what I expected at first. The first half was incredibly dark. But very poetically written when the characters weren't being eaten or smashed or when I wasn't struggling with mechanical engineering innovations. In the end all's well that ends well, etc. 3.5 stars
Really cute story :) Some parts felt kinda long and dragged out , but overall it was pretty good!
Spoiler
(there were a lot of times when they were just standing in the same place with nothing happening so thats what I mean)
What a surprise! Loved all the different characters. The narration by William Dufris is amazing. Definitely try to get the audio version.
Technically, this book is not read. I couldn't finish it. I was listening to it and the read was horrendous - too scary for children and too over the top for adults. I've forced my way through a lot of audio books, but couldn't finish this one.
I read this because I remember seeing the movie as a child and being deeply disturbed by it. And yet, I think my sister and I watched it again and again. Parts of the story really stuck with me, so that once I got to them in the book, they were crystal clear in my memory. While this is a sweet and meaningful story, I'm just not really sure how to feel about it. I have trouble finding it's appeal to children - though I'm a lot older than a child and maybe I've lost touch with what would be an interesting read. This book reminded me a lot of The Phantom Tollbooth in its layers of meaning, but it just didn't have the same sort of magic that caught me up and has made me reread the book. I am glad that I finally read it and made the connection to the movie. And I think I've finally gotten over that donkey getting so brutally smashed... or maybe not. Eep!
Is this the best book Hoban wrote? Or, could you argue, are they all one big book that he spent his life writing with variations of the same themes repeating in wildly different formats but all pointing to the same end: Hoban’s peculiar but wildly optimistic and joyful view of the circle of life
In many ways this is a nice companion to his later Trokeville Way, which makes many of t same points but in a somewhat more literal manner. Here Hoban is using the concept of the toys coming alive to tell something closer to a fable - in many ways it pitches somewhere between the simplistic allegory of Pilgrim’s Progress and the Alice books. But there’s an innate Hoban-ness about it (and it really needs the beautiful scratchy art of Lillian Hoban too, not this new cover nonsense) that makes it unique
Death is always at the surface. Many characters die and sometimes in wildly blackly comic manners. Sometimes in very matter of fact ways. Another character goes through a literal transformation, almost all the others go through a figurative one. And at the centre of it all is The Last Visible Dog and the search for Self Winding. One is an existential moment of self empowerment as the child realised that what is beyond the last visible dog is himself and the other a design for life, but one which requires the help of others
It’s incredible and beautiful and endlessly full of Hoban’s genius and everyone needs to enjoy it at least once in their life
In many ways this is a nice companion to his later Trokeville Way, which makes many of t same points but in a somewhat more literal manner. Here Hoban is using the concept of the toys coming alive to tell something closer to a fable - in many ways it pitches somewhere between the simplistic allegory of Pilgrim’s Progress and the Alice books. But there’s an innate Hoban-ness about it (and it really needs the beautiful scratchy art of Lillian Hoban too, not this new cover nonsense) that makes it unique
Death is always at the surface. Many characters die and sometimes in wildly blackly comic manners. Sometimes in very matter of fact ways. Another character goes through a literal transformation, almost all the others go through a figurative one. And at the centre of it all is The Last Visible Dog and the search for Self Winding. One is an existential moment of self empowerment as the child realised that what is beyond the last visible dog is himself and the other a design for life, but one which requires the help of others
It’s incredible and beautiful and endlessly full of Hoban’s genius and everyone needs to enjoy it at least once in their life