Sonderbooks Book Review of Whales on Stilts!

Reviewed August 27, 2005.
Harcourt, Orlando, 2005. 188 pages.
Available at Sembach Library (J MCN F AND).

Whales on Stilts! is a hilarious spoof of kids’ old-fashioned adventure yarns. When Lily goes with her father to work on career day, she doesn’t expect to discover that he works in a heavily guarded abandoned warehouse, and his boss is a mad scientist who wants to take over the world. Her father says they’re just a normal company that makes stilts for whales.

It’s up to Lily and her two adventurous friends to find a way to stop the whales who are being mind-controlled and equipped with laser eyes and stilts to take over the land. This book is delightfully silly and a whole lot of fun.

My teen picked up this book because he liked Feed so much, and he enjoyed it greatly. Now we both want my eleven-year-old to read it. It plays on all the clichés of adventure stories, with a thoroughly enjoyable result.

Reviews of other books by M. T. Anderson:
The Clue of the Linoleum Lederhosen
The Assassination of Brangwain Spurge
Elf Dog and Owl Head
Feed
Landscape with Invisible Hand
The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation: Volume I, The Pox Party
The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation: Volume II, The Kingdom on the Waves
Strange Mr. Satie
Symphony for the City of the Dead

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Book Reviews by Sondra Eklund

****Whales on Stilts!*

by M. T. Anderson