Father and sons spin an adventure tale

November 25, 2011 / 1 Comment

Now, for me, the background alone was reason enough to like the book.  I relished the idea of a father and his two sons making up a story, improving upon it, and even snickering on occasion as they worked through a light-hearted sub-theme.

I found myself thinking that if more families spent creative time together, instead of retreating to separate areas of their homes to work on computers, or to play video games, that our country–and our people–would be healthier for it.  So I found myself applauding the book, even hoping that the Herz family might become 21st century trend-setters by making family time once again fashionable.

Not everyone who reads this book, however, is going to know its creative  background — or even care.  Most readers will judge the book strictly by its content, and, as this book clearly was aimed at the pre-teen market, I decided that I needed to bring in my chief consultant on matters phantasmagoric for a second opinion, my grandson, Shor, 10.

Shor read Nimpentoad quickly (which is always a good sign) and pronounced himself quite satisfied with the story.  He liked the idea that had motivated Nimpentoad to consider crossing the forest in the first place — if he and his tribe could reach the domain of the Giant, they might strike a deal with him.  The Niblings would help the Giant with chores that his big fat fingers were too clumsy to accomplish, and the Giant, in turn, would offer them protection from all those hungry monsters out there.   (If I remember my own studies correctly, this was more or less the concept behind feudalism.)

While Shor liked the story, he was less than enamored with certain parenthetical asides (which I, au contraire, thought funny.)  He said words like “yuck”  in parentheses tell readers what to think, instead of allowing them to make up their minds for themselves.  Furthermore, suggested my consultant, the vocabulary in Nimpentoad could have been a little more challenging.

Overall,  however, Shor gave the book the critic’s “thumbs-up!”

I must confess I had a little difficulty deciding which illustration matched which monster.  Captions under the fine drawings by Sean Eddingfield and Bill Maus might have helped clarify this point.

Whatever those monsters’ names, I was glad I didn’t have to meet them in some forest.

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Harrison is editor of San Diego Jewish World.  He may be contacted at donald.harrison@sdjewishworld.com