A review by jesssalexander
Roverandom by Wayne G. Hammond, J.R.R. Tolkien, Christina Scull

2.0

This teensy little thing took me forever to read because I kept falling asleep a page or two in. It's the story of a puppy named Rover who gets turned into a little toy by a magician and then has adventures with Rover the moon-dog up on the dark and light sides of the moon with the powerful wizard the-man-in-the-moon and then later has underwater adventures with Rover the mer-dog and the highly inept wizard who originally turned him into a toy. (The wizard had moved underwater because he'd married a mer-princess of course). Rover's name gets changed to Roverandom so the wizards don't get confused about who they are talking about. Some of the scenes are beautiful (the little dog flying up a moon beam or falling down through a hole until he has to climb up on the other side of the moon, the giant sea snake that's so big that when he moves in his sleep he makes hurricanes, Roverandum chasing his tail because he's surprised he can't find his wings). I'd be curious to read this to a kid (the intended audience) and gage their reaction. I struggle with finding kid's chapter books like this (I'm thinking the Narnia series) boring and hard to get through because the narrator's I'm-story-telling-to-a-child voice. But they are such twinkly gems of imagination!