Book Review: The Great Good Thing

I know I said that I wanted to read books for adults this summer—and I am!—but I have also slipped in some kid lit and thought I would do some book reviews for you. Awhile back (like two or three years! oops!),  I had a parent recommend a book called Into the Labyrinth by Roderick Townley. I thought I would finally get it off my reading list this summer, but discovered that it was actually the second book in a series. I don't know about you, but I never jump into the middle of a series. Never. So I went down to the library and picked up the first book, The Great Good Thing:

Townley starts with a great concept. What if the characters in a book were really alive and performed their story over and over, like actors in a play, whenever the book was opened by a Reader? What if a character—in this case Princess Sylvie—got bored with the story and wanted to change it?

I adored the beginning. How could I not, with lines like this: "Everyone dove for cover, the jester closing himself inside parentheses, Queen Emmeline wedging herself into a dependent clause, and Sylvie racing to the Acknowledgements page, where she disappeared among a dozen names, including the author's pets and several friends without whose help this book could not have been written." Ah, nerd humor! I heart.

I also loved Townley's description of the relationship between the characters and the Reader. "Storybook characters live for the sound of Readers breathing, especially as it softens and settles like the breath of dreamers. It gives the characters courage to go on through the most difficult plot twists." He continues on to describe how the Reader responds to the different parts of Sylvie's story. What a wonderful discussion you could have with your students about this idea!

Unfortunately, Townley seemed to have saved all his best bits for the beginning, because the story starts to go downhill rapidly. Sylvie makes contact with the Reader (Claire), and begins to have adventures with her in Claire's dreams. Claire's brother ends up burning the book, and the characters escape, thanks to Sylvie, into Claire's dreams. But the problems don't end there! The jester turns evil and takes over the new castle, characters start rusting as Claire begins to forget them, and much more.

This was not a tightly woven narrative. Characters are inconsistent. For example, Prince Riggeloff performs a noble deed by making sure the Princess and her family escape the fire, and then later supports the jester when he takes over the throne. Um, what?

The plot wanders all over the place. Should we be concerned with the jester overtaking the throne or with the fact that Claire is dying and the characters must find somewhere else to go? Hmm, what's the bigger problem here? Also, for a book that tackles some pretty big concepts, some of the mystical and (presumably) deeply meaningful elements of the book were laughable. For example, one of the characters, Claire's old geometry teacher (whose name is Fangl—sheesh, really?), gives sage advice like "Keep your eye on the shape" and "You can't solve a problem from inside it. You've got to get outside the parallelogram." Um, okaaaay. Sorry, Fangl, you're no Kung Fu master, and Sylvie's no young grasshopper.

So, basically, I started out loving this book and thinking of all the wonderful ways I could use it in my classroom for a whole class read aloud with mini-lessons and class discussions. And then I just liked it and thought it might be useful for a small book group. And then I thought it was okay, but I probably wouldn't use it in the classroom. And then…well, you get the picture. While I could easily have finished this book in a couple of hours, it actually took me almost two weeks. Every time I put the book down, it took me longer and longer to pick it back up.

I guess I won't be reading the second one, after all…