The Book of Lost Things

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David shook his head. ‘No,’ he said, ‘but I get scared when I don’t do them. I’m afraid of what might happen.’ Another novel to have been mistakenly classified as a children's story, the Book of Lost Things, is like a roller-coaster ride inside a scary, haunted house filled with your deepest, darkest nightmares involving live, flesh-eating monsters and blood. LOTS of blood.

It's still a great read. I think it's appropriate for pre-teens across the curriculum. It will speak volumes to different types of kids -- those who love to read, those who have problems at home, those who just love fantasy, those who like history... need to compare novels like this to others in its genre to provoke true literary analytics, e.g. this vs. "Harry Potter," this vs. "Life as We Knew It" and this vs. "Chronicles of Narnia." I think it's a great "survival of the fittest" read to help young adults learn how to mature. but those are aberrations; despite them, Connolly more than succeeds in creating delightful and intriguing reinterprations of figures from fairy and folk tale. even better, David's character is a slow-burning but dynamic one, changing in bits and starts from boy to man with each new encounter. he is a realistically flawed protagonist as well as a brave and endearing little hero. They ate her," said Brother Number One. "With porridge. That's what 'ran away and was never seen again' means in these parts. It means 'eaten.'"Dionysian imitatio, a literary method of imitation conceived as the practice of emulating, adaptating, reworking and enriching a source text by an earlier author. Now, if you consider reading this with or to your children: don't. If I had to set an age limit I would say 13 years, at least. This is some real twisted Coraline shit. Don't mistake it for anything else.

I don't look at this book the way some readers apparently have: as sci-fi or fantasy, but instead see it as showing the redemptive power of books and stories in children's and adults' lives. And as an account of one boy's inner life and imagination. What the author states in an interview on The Book Of Lost Things sums up my entire take on literature. He is right, and his novel grows with the knowledge of his intentions. That is not always the case, and sometimes authors' sales pitches and literary critics' snotty analyses can even ruin stories completely. Eventually David finds himself in another world where dark, grim versions of classic fairy tale characters exist but are nothing like the way they are normally portrayed. The depictions of these characters are outstanding and it often takes a while to identify who they are because they are so stripped of the normal fluffy accoutrements. While, most of the tone is serious and even bleak, there are some great moments of comedy. For example, in one of my favorite scenes, David encounters the Seven Dwarfs who turn out to be communist revolutionaries and political activists straight out of Monty Python’s Holy Grail:

Table of Contents

of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars The Book of Lost Things by John Connolly High in his attic bedroom, twelve-year-old David mourns the death of his mother, with only the books on his shelf for company. But those books have begun to whisper to him in the darkness. Angry and alone, he takes refuge in his imagination and soon finds that reality and fantasy have begun to meld. While his family falls apart around him, David is violently propelled into a world that is a strange reflection of his own -- populated by heroes and monsters and ruled by a faded king who keeps his secrets in a mysterious book, The Book of Lost Things.