Trolls (Little Golden Books)

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I remember how that first sentence hooked me, carpooling with a friend in second grade. That family always travelled with audio books. I don’t remember the name of the narrator but she was outstanding, with this very clean, sharp line delivery and perfect diction that sealed each line in your memory. It’s been in my head ever since. Everyone needs an Aunt Sally. Someone who mixes truth with play; deeper meaning, for those who wish to extract more than just what the surface of listening carries within it. Aunt Sally doesn’t do things the usual way. She tells them stories—stories about their family that they’ve never heard before, stories so outrageous that it’s hard to believe that they’re true. She makes them WANT to eat green beans. In short, Aunt Sally is wonderful. Three kids leave their spoiled little brother for the trolls on Halloween night. The parents realize that the child is missing, and eventually a search party finds him. He never speaks of what happened to him that night, but he’s never able to bond with those siblings again either.

Sex: There’s a hint that the mother of a neighborhood kid, whom Sally cruelly dubs “Fat Little Mean Girl” had a scandalous past, at least by small-town 1960s-70s standards. Likewise, one wonders how exactly FLMG/Marianne herself got Edward Anderson to marry her, the event which led to both of them dying young. Like the activities of the trolls, this is left almost completely blank, and what the reader comes up with to fill it in depends entirely on the worldly knowledge of the reader. When Aunt Sally arrives she is a surprise to the kids. Tall, wearing very high heels with chunky soles and laces that wound up her legs. She had a lot of yellow hair that was piled high on the top of her head, sparkly eyes and long dangle earrings. The three Anderson children’s parents are going to France for a week’s vacation. With the usual babysitter out of commission, the kids are left in the care of their Aunt Sally, whom they have never met before. It starts when Melissa, Amanda, and Pee Wee's usual babysitter "came down with a mild case of bubonic plague and called tearfully to say she didn't want to spread the buboes around." So her parents (who are going to Paris for a week) are forced to call on Aunt Sally, whom they have never met and their father never talks about.

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Most of the stories within "The Trolls" went well over my kid's heads (6.5; 8; 10; and 11 year's old respectively). They were waiting for the trolls to appear and didn't like that the story never made them known; and, they didn't like an ending without end. This book was no winner for them. Throughout the story, Aunt Sally will tell the children different stories about their relatives. Once Frank/Pee Wee the youngest goes to bed she also starts to tell the older girls a story about the trolls. She claims not to tell Frank this story because it will be too scary for him and he'll have nightmares and as a child I never questioned this explanation, yet as I reread this story it seems as if Aunt Sally is telling the girls this story as a lesson, as a warning of sorts to them, so they don't follow in the same vein as she did in the story. I liked this book; and, I didn't. It's not a book I'm encouraging my children to keep, (we're going to donate it); however, I'm glad we read it. Aunt Sally came to stay with Melissa, Amanda and Pee Wee while their parents went to Paris. From the beginning, I wondered why she was the last resort, and Dad did not want to call his sister.

As you might have noticed, some of the humor in this book is not politically correct. I first read this book in second grade and was never tempted to call anyone “Fat Little Mean Girl” or anything close to that after reading it. But if your young reader is the type to repeat whatever they hear, take note. I'm not sure how I feel about this book, which I just found on our shelf, having no idea when or how we acquired it. I'm perhaps rating it a bit high, but I did enjoy it. It's quite funny in parts, quirky thoughout, and full of food for thought. Politics and Religion: Louis accuses a local pastor of leaving four consecutive wives for the trolls. Uncle Lewis told Aunt Sally's family that the reverend had gone through six wives. When he was finished with one, he would take her to the beach and leave her for the trolls. "That," said Aunt Sally, "is what happened to all six wives." Uncle Lewis also told about the neighbor's dog, which fell off the front porch. She was also taken to the beach and left for the trolls.If you get involved with it, you'll be really entertained. A downright psychedelic firework display that, on the one hand, has one or two surprises also for the adult filmgoers in the subtext, but also in the spoken jokes. Ironically, these were the parts where the kids laughed the loudest, which I can't really explain. This book is great because it is enjoyable on 2 levels...child and adult. It is a book of great childhood stories....and a meditation on the kinds of acts that change everything instantly incidents that can change relationships for a lifetime. But it's also about hope and healing. With one crucial difference—Joseph forgave his siblings. Robbie never quite could. Even at the end of the book, he refuses to look Sally in the eye.

However, what I got instead was the undercurrents of the story. The hints of the real and the relational in the story. The sadness of the stories not because of the things that happened but instead because of the things that don't. As an adult I saw the truth of family relationships that broke and the knowledge that there might be no way to mend the relationship. Aunt Sally talks to the kids as people and not kids. Her stories are entertaining but with a message about families and how the members relate and the importance of families. Some seem so full of exaggeration to be hard to believe and some so very down to earth. Sally and her brothers buy a product from a friend’s mom, who’s a Wiccan, hoping to cast a spell to make FLMG/Marianne stop bullying their sister. They sprinkle it on her school lunch, but all it accomplishes is making her barf all over herself. Each night, the children would beg for green beans. Pee Wee built them into log cabins before eating them. And each night she would tell of the family history. Aunt Sally told them about Uncle Lewis who came for two weeks and stayed to six years. There was also a tale of Great Aunt Hatty and the mysterious man. Language: Melissa and Amanda are cutting and a bit rude to their little brother, constantly telling him to shut up and that he doesn’t know anything. Sally has no patience for this. One could argue that the girls learning to treat Pee Wee well is the whole point of the book, so their unkindness is there to teach a lesson.

Trolls World Tour Little Golden Book

I have a problem with the story of the Fat Little Mean Girl. Even the chapter title is unkind to fat people! If I were reading the book to children, I might leave this chapter out, or just leave out the word fat, though it gets a bit more complicated than that in one or two places. The chapter also involves Wiccans, but does not portray them in a very attractive way and I wouldn't mind reading that part to kids, despite my Christian faith. (It doesn't portray them as Satan-worshippers either, but plausibly, as fairly ordinary eccentrics, one of whom is mean.) If I gave the book to a child, I would talk to them about calling people fat and about Wiccans.

Violence: Sally’s Uncle Louis claims that the woods along the beach on Vancouver are inhabited by nocturnal trolls. People who want to get rid of something badly sometimes leave that thing on the beach for the trolls to find. I would classify this book as upper middle-grade, even though it’s short, due to the advanced vocabulary/sentence structure and the subject matter. If your kid can handle Inkheart they can definitely handle this. And it’s witty, poignant, and surprising enough that teens and adults reading by themselves can still be caught up by it. I read this with my 8-year-old son and found it more thought-provoking than the "grown-up" novel I was reading at the time. This book centers on Aunt Sally, a sophisticated kind of Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle, who comes to stay with her 2 nieces and nephew when their parents vacation in France. Every chapter is another fanciful story told by Aunt Sally, involving her family in Canada growing up. The story includes the children's father (the youngest sibling of Aunt Sally in the story). There is a subtle undercurrent of family brokenness....why did Dad never talk about Aunt Sally? Why was Dad hesitant to have Aunt Sally come stay with the children while they were gone? I don’t think Horvath’s opinion on either Christianity or Wicca can be inferred from these incidents, but your mileage may vary. Aunt Sally’s stories are hilariously, heartbreakingly funny—heartbreaking because you wish your own childhood had been like that, outrageous and funny and full of larger-than-life characters and adventures.The week before Mr. and Mrs. Anderson were to leave Tenderly, Ohio, for the somewhat more bustling metropolis of Paris, their babysitter…came down with a minor case of bubonic plague and called tearfully to say she didn’t want to spread the buboes around. I'm in a bit of a daze after finishing this book. At a book signing, I told Ms. Horvath that I was a huge fan of The Canning Season and asked which of her books she would recommend. Without hesitation, she said The Trolls.