{"id":2967,"date":"2011-03-20T21:50:47","date_gmt":"2011-03-21T01:50:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/?p=2967"},"modified":"2011-03-20T21:50:47","modified_gmt":"2011-03-21T01:50:47","slug":"review-of-the-odious-ogre-by-norton-juster-and-jules-feiffer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/?p=2967","title":{"rendered":"Review of The Odious Ogre, by Norton Juster and Jules Feiffer"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>The Odious Ogre<\/em><\/p>\n

story by Norton Juster
\npictures by Jules Feiffer<\/p>\n

Michael Di Capua Books (Scholastic), 2010. 32 pages.
\nStarred Review<\/p>\n

When I heard that the creators of the brilliant book The Phantom Tollbooth<\/em>, which I loved as a child, had done another collaboration, I knew I had to read it. The Odious Ogre<\/em> is quite different from their earlier collaboration, since it’s a picture book rather than a chapter book. All the better to make the most of Jules Feiffer’s illustrations.<\/p>\n

This is a book that begs to be read aloud. Not to the preschool storytime crowd necessarily — unless they are very good listeners — but definitely to young elementary school classrooms. The large picture book format makes the most of the ogre’s true odiousness for all to see, and the language — Ah! the language!<\/p>\n

You see, the odious ogre who has been terrorizing the populace “did have quite an impressive vocabulary, due mainly to having inadvertently swallowed a large dictionary while consuming the head librarian in one of the nearby towns.” The ogre says:<\/p>\n

“No one can resist me…. I am invulnerable, impregnable, insuperable, indefatigable, insurmountable.”<\/p>\n

But the ogre had never met anyone like the pretty little girl with her flower garden. She is completely unimpressed.<\/p>\n

“Oh, you’re not really so terrible,” the girl insisted, with a lovely, musical laugh. “Overbearing perhaps, arrogant for sure, somewhat self-important, a little too mean and violent, I’m afraid, and a bit messy. Your shoes could certainly use a polishing, but I’ll bet if you brushed your teeth, combed your hair, found some new clothes, and totally changed your attitude, you’d be quite nice.”<\/p>\n

This book clearly shows that “the terrible things that can happen when you come face-to-face with an Ogre can sometimes happen to the Ogre and not to you.”<\/p>\n

Buy from Amazon.com<\/a><\/p>\n

Find this review on Sonderbooks<\/a> at: www.sonderbooks.com\/Picture_Books\/odious_ogre.html<\/a><\/p>\n

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.<\/p>\n

Source: This review is based on a library book from the Fairfax County Public Library.<\/p>\n

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