Thank goodness I persevered
|
|
I almost gave up on this book at one point. As mentioned, the idea is that three children and their cat enter an attic to find a watch. The attic is, of course, a whole other reality connected at certain points to our own reality. After a short while I found the childrens acceptance of their situation a little too unbelievable, I almost stopped reading. Fortunately I carried on and the book gradually weaved it's magic on me in much the same way that the attic seemed to affect the children. I was captured and just moved with the story from one adventure to another. There are so many ideas in here that I hope the author wants to write more before moving on to other things!
|
|
Brilliant!
|
|
Fabulous book. I loved it so much I didn't want it to end and I can't wait for the next one (I hope theres going to be a next one!). When I first bought it I thought OK it's going to be another Narnia, but it wasn't like Narnia at all, it had all its own atmosphere and story - the only thing it has in common is it uses a sort of porthole in the house, in this case a trapdoor, to reach another world, and lots of stories do that. I would recommend this book to anyone, especially my age (13) and older or younger.
|
|
|
A pleasure to get lost in!
|
I bought this book after reading Neil Gaiman's praise for it, and I'm glad I did. It's a novel that is by turns charming, scaring, moving and exciting.
The premise is simple: three children venture into the attic of their new home in search of a pocket-watch belonging to the previous tenant (an old curmudgeon who now occupies the adjacent flat). They wander beyond the expected boundaries of their attic and enter a country-sized world of weirdness, full of strange inhabitants. The story thus becomes a series of adventures as the children try to find their own trapdoor home.
The real strength in this book for me -- being, I suspect, much older than the target audience -- was the characters. The three children, Chloe, Jordy and Alex, are very different in temperament and interests, and deal with each new problem in profoundly different ways. But each conquer their fears and, not only survive, but actually thrive and grow on their escapades. I found myself really rooting for them. Younger readers will just love the weird settings and strange folk like the Bortrekker, the Removal Firm, and the Board-comber with his pet bat. There are even Atticans who ride about in cars converted from sewing machines!
I lost myself in Attica for several enjoyable evenings.
|
|
|
United States | 
United Kingdom | 
Canada