Ollie's Odyssey

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The bad guys are really bad and scary, enough to get you concerned about the fate of the main characters. With a seasoned storyteller's skill, Joyce sets the stage for an incredibleadventure, using Billy's childish perspective (and vocabulary) to convey thevastness and scariness of the world beyond one's backyard, as well as to createa place where toys can come to life. It's where he meets multiple other living objects who seem to just sit around reminiscing about when they were useful. As e-books put pressure on the printed word, picture books that romanticize books proliferate (The Lonely Book, It’s a Book, and Dog Loves Books come to mind). Un basurero es un lugar triste pero maravilloso, un lugar de recuerdos y tiempos pasados, lleno de fragmentos de vida que han seguido su viaje.

But maybe you'll be able to like this book for what it is, because despite the hollywoodish plotline and all the action for the sake of action and slapstick and lazy tropes (these things bore me more than they probably should, maybe it's because I read more children's books than I probably should) it's a very lovely story with a lovely message and lovely illustrations and lovely quotes. I felt it was too "kid friendly" and there were some annoying (to me) writing ticks used by Joyce that I just couldn't get past: all of the purposefully bad grammar and all of the unnecessary quotation marks.Launching the Guardians series, a chapter book counterpart to Joyce's Guardians of Childhood picture book series, this beguiling clash of good vs. Heroic Sacrifice: Zozo holds the collapsing ceiling of the tunnel of love up long enough for everyone else to escape.

Love Redeems: Zozo's brief reunion with the spirit of the Ballerina makes him realize what it is he's been doing. The 103 third parties who use cookies on this service do so for their purposes of displaying and measuring personalized ads, generating audience insights, and developing and improving products. It looked like a teddy bear, but for reasons that Billy’s mother could not explain, she had also given it long ears that were vaguely rabbit-like.

To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. Under the right circumstances a toy can become so very much more than something to be played with or amused by. THough there are some minor "Grim/Dark" overtones, this is still an engaging, fast-paced read, suitable for middle-grade readers (or perhaps adults who are young-at-heart), and it really illustrates what "Children's Literature" can (and should) stand for.

When Ollie is toy-napped, Billy must rescue his beloved favorite from Zozo’s subterranean lair in the old Carnival Place, past the park, through the woods, and into the night.In a rousing climax, Ollie andhis loyal junkyard allies overcome Zozo and free the toys: "Okay," hetells his troops, "Our plan is gonna be: do some Robin Hood, and some Usethe Force Luke, and some Trojan Horse, and some. A true luminary and creative spirit, William Joyce has put his personal stamp on children’s media in every direction. The third-person narration retains a storyteller's wisdom as it shifts between Billy and Ollie's naive perspectives; pacing is leisurely despite Zozo's sinister presence being introduced fairly early in the plot.

The dashing derring-do of this eponymous hero is set forth in eight piquant chapters that offer, according to PW , ``high adventure and rib-tickling hilarity in the best tall-tale tradition. Unwitting Instigator of Doom: In the final days of the amusement park's life, a young girl came to the Bonk A Zozo game. Fears about growing up and the future and what this life stuff is about are explored in amazing simple terms. Joyce's irresistible illustrations and joyouswordplay ("I am the Grand High Safemaster of Planet Billy," Ollietells himself) are icing on the cake. Stephanie Snyder of Common Sense Media gave the series 4/5 stars praising its cinematography and storytelling while criticizing its "inauthentic" Southern accent of the characters.The bond between the child and his favorite toy brought me great nostalgia about how realistic my favorite toys were to me when I was growing up.