The Great Good Thing by Roderick Townley
Publisher/Year: Atheneum Books | May 1st, 2001
Pages: 232
Series: The Sylvie Cycle Book 1
Genre: Fantasy, Middle Grade
Format: Hardback
Source: Cincinnati Library
Summary (From Goodreads)
d””Rawwwwk!” Reader!” screams an orange bird. “Booook open!” groans a frog. Then the sky lifts away and the enormous face of a child peers down into Sylvie’s storybook world. At last, a reader again!Sylvie has been a twelve-year-old princess for more than eighty years, ever since the book she lives in was first printed. She’s the heroine, and her story is exciting — but it’s always exciting in the same way. That’s the trouble. Sylvie has a restless urge to explore, to accomplish a Great Good Thing beyond the margins of her book. This time, when the new face appears, Sylvie breaks the rule of all storybook characters: “Never look at the Reader.” Worse, she gets to know the reader, a shy young girl named Claire, and when Claire falls asleep with the book open, Sylvie enters her dreams.
After a fire threatens her kingdom, Sylvie rescues the other characters, taking them across the sea in an invisible fish that rolls up like a window shade when it’s out of water. For years they all live, royalty and rogues, in Claire’s subconscious — a surprising and sometimes perilous place.
In this new land, Sylvie achieves many Good Things, but the Greatest, like this dazzling book, goes far and deep, beyond even her imaginings.
Shannan’s Summary
Sylvie has been happy inside her story for her whole life. But when a new reader finally comes along, she’s interested in what lies on the outside of her book. So Sylvie travels to the edge of her forest and makes it into the other world, the dreams of the reader and the become fast friends. But strange things start happening, and quickly is in a fight to keep her story alive.
First Off…
I was perusing the shelves at the library and saw this half pint book, which was intriguing, so I flipped through the first couple pages, and the quirkiness of it made me take it home.
Thoughts:
This was an unexpectedly wonderful book. It was such a interestingly different story and an easy read as well. And yet somehow hard to explain.
The story starts with Sylvie who is the character of a story. But the things is, the characters are aware of being reading, almost like someone living a play. But Sylvie in interested in the outside world and starts traveling into the dreams of the books current reader. And that starts her adventures to keep her story alive through multiple generations.
I think though I liked the story also for the writing. The concept was so well developed and thought through and then well written. I really connected with the ability of the actual author and how the story captures the process of writing a story. In a way, it makes this book feel like the true story of any story that is written, in one way or another.
I don’t want to say much more because it such a fun story to be surprised by, but it’s a different take on telling a story that would be worth giving a try.
10 Second Summary:
- Easy read: it took me maybe 5 hours to read this book, which I tackled in one day, which means its also a capturing story in addition to an easy read
- Cleverly creative story: it was just so well told and different for a story to be told from the view of a character aware that its a character in a book.
- Standalone (kind of): I think the story was written to be a stand alone , but when ebooks became popular the author came up with an idea to extend the story. So the story has a satisfactory ending but you can read a second if you want.
Currently looking for it in hardback because amazon only has a mass production paperback right now. I’m tempted to ask the library if I can buy its copy, because I’m positive I will want to reread this one. If you like Pagemaster or Inkheart, give this a try.