From: Cathy Sullivan Seblonka <cathys>
Date: Fri, 24 Sep 1999 13:04:57 -0400 (EDT)

Last night I read Trolls by Polly Horvath who lives on Vancouver Island. It's a book that fits nicely in your hand--smaller than a book of juvenile fiction and larger than a paperback. Wendy Anderson Halperin is the illustrator--dust jacket and tiny pictures above each chapter heading. I referred to the back of the dust jacket with its detailed drawings of the family members throughout my reading of the book.

Aunt Sally, from Canada, babysits two nieces and a nephew in Ohio for a week. Every evening she tells family stories. The stories can make you laugh out loud, yet, there is also much darkness in most of the stories. The ending of the book leaves you wondering about this family's history and the relationship between Aunt Sally and her brother Robbie, the children's father. Aunt Sally is the most wonderful adult the children know. When she's not telling stories, she's geting the children to eat their green beans in a most peculiar manner and treating her nephew with the respect he does not receive from his two older sisters.

Horvath makes much fun of the way U.S. residents perceive Canadians. The dialogue among the sibilings is often very funny, especially when the oldest child, ten year old Melissa, defines Aunt Sally's large words for her younger siblings using two smaller, more understandable, words.

The Trolls is a book to treasure and send to your Canadian friends.

Cathy Sullivan Seblonka Youth Services Coordinator Peter White Public Library 217 N. Front St. Marquette, MI 49855
(906) 228?10 fax (906) 228s15 e-mail: cathys at uproc.lib.mi.us
Received on Fri 24 Sep 1999 12:04:57 PM CDT