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Whales on Stilts: M.T. Anderson's Thrilling Tales (M. T. Anderson's Thrilling Tales (Hardback)) | 
 enlarge | Author: M.t. Anderson
Creator: Marc Cashman
Publisher: Listening Library (Audio)
List Price: $27.00
Buy New: $15.65
You Save: $11.35 (42%)
New (17) Used (12) from $8.00
Rating:  19 reviews
Sales Rank: 1395391
Format: Audiobook, Unabridged
Media: Audio CD
Edition: Unabridged
Reading Level: Ages 9-12
Number Of Items: 3
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.4
Dimensions (in): 5.5 x 4.9 x 1
ISBN: 0307284336
EAN: 9780307284334
ASIN: 0307284336
Publication Date: April 11, 2006
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: BRAND NEW
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Product Description
Lily Gefelty is just an average twelve-year-old girl. But her dad–a normal-enough seeming guy–just so happens to work for an evil genius who plans to unleash an army of extremely cranky, stilt-walking, laser-beam-eyed whales upon the world. Lucky for Lily, her two best friends are anything but average. Both of them are famous for their adventures. Jasper Dash, Boy Technonaut, invents gadgets; Katie Mulligan spends her spare time fighting off zombies and were-goats. Surely they'll know what to do. And if they don't? then it will be up to Lily–average, everyday Lily–to come up with a plan.
With this crazy comic ride of a novel, M. T. Anderson launches a riotous and wonderfully weird new series for listeners who like their thrilling tales with tongue firmly in cheek.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 14 more reviews...
 Insanely Clever and Witty January 26, 2008
Jimmy L. (USA)
Fun for adults, too!
Whales On Stilts has become one of my all-time favorite books. I found it with a young relative's school books and was drawn in by the retro-styled cover illustration. I flipped through the pages and read a few random sentences and I was laughing out loud.
This book is hilarious.
M.T. Anderson delivers a smartly funny narrative disguised as an innocent children's adventure novel. It's not a story that HAD to be written and it's not a sophisticated work of literature that will win any medals. But that's not the point. The key is in how the story is presented.
The book is very much a spoof of the children's adventure genre. And the pages are full of creative ways of incorporating jokes in a book (including fake advertisements, humorous footnotes, a digressing narrator, a less-than-educational set of study questions, and--my favorite--the use of fonts for sight gags!).
What's great about Whales On Stilts is that it really thinks "outside the box". It knows what kind of book it is and it makes fun of itself. It knows how preposterous the story is and it celebrates that.
(For a taste, just look over the back cover. If this style of humor is not for you, then you might not enjoy the book as much.)
The book is aimed at a young audience (and kids should be able to appreciate its unique style), but the humor does not lose its effect on adults. Some of the jokes may even be funnier to adults (who'd be more apt to get the cultural references). But this is still a great book for kids. (Especially if they can sense sarcasm in print.) Buy it for your son, daughter, niece, nephew, or grandchild, then ask to borrow it when they're done. (It's pretty quick reading, especially for grown-ups.)
The story itself revolves around Lily, a normal girl whose two best friends are the adventurous stars of their own respective book series. Lily's father works for a mad scientist who turns out to be more than meets the eye (unless you get a good look the first time) and the plot has to do with Lily and her friends stopping the mad scientist's scheme to have whales destroy the city.
Kids will follow the adventure. Grown-ups will appreciate its ingenuity and humor.
I don't take life too seriously. To me, this is how books SHOULD be written.
Audio book, a Must Hear! July 3, 2007
L. Schultz
Whales on Stilts! audio book was an absolutely hilarious story narrated extremely well by Marc Cashman. My family has listened to the story at least 4 times and each of us (Ages 36+, 10 and 8) loved every minute of it. The story is interrupted several times by hilarious, sarcastic, side plots read in the style of fast "legal small print" found in radio commercials. M.T. Anderson masterfully entertains both adults and children. I highly recommend the audiobook. I am buying more from the Author / Narrator combo.
Whales on Stilts January 31, 2007
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Whales on Stilts
Are your friends famous with all types of cool gadgets and you are an ordinary person? Well, in this book, ten year old Lily has Jasper Dash (aka Boy Technonaut) and Katie Mulligan of Horror Hollow as her friends. She feels as though they are the bomb, but she is boring and plain. One day on Career day, Lily's dad takes her to his work in an old abandoned warehouse. They make stilts for whales and Larry the boss is pretty odd. To Lily, her dad's work looks like an evil mad scientist's lab and because of that Lily begins to suspect that something wrong is going to happen. Lily tells her friends and they decide to do something about it, for Lily's friends it is like another adventure, but for Lily it is extremely dangerous. Once they spy on Lily's dad's work, they find out that what she suspected was right. The worse part is that Larry wants to take over and conquer the world by whales walking on stilts. Will Lily be brave enough? Will she be the savior of the world or be shy and let the world be destroyed?What I liked about the author's style is that M.T Anderson writes so accurately that I could visualize every single thing he writes. Anderson made me laugh all the way through the book, he is also very creative in writing. Since the author of the book "Whales on Stilts" (M.T Anderson) has much imagination, he has a gift a few authors has. Another thing I noticed is that, out of all the books I've, none of them have the touch of humor, creativity, and writing style like M.T Anderson. I recommend this book to anybody that likes to read science fiction books with a lot of humor, imagination, and that includes so much imagination, that you will like to hear it again and again. If you find the book title very catchy, and interesting, so will the book be when you get to read it, that it will become one of your favorites.
Brilliant satire of "Nancy Drew", "Tom Swift", and other children's series January 9, 2007
Steven Augart (Lexington, Massachusetts U.S.A.)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
This is a brilliant satire of "Nancy Drew", "Tom Swift", and other children's series featuring plucky youngsters solving mysteries and being fodder for a series of books.
One of the characters, Katie Mulligan, is the star of the "Horror Hollow" series of books. (She just happens to live in a town named "Horror Hollow"). From about midway through this book, I'll quote the following :
Several men came in. They were thin and nervous.
"Miss Mulligan?" one said. "We'd like to find out a few details to use in an upcoming book."
" Oh no," said Katie. "It's the writers from Harcourt. They're here to find out what happened so they can write the next Horror Hollow book."
Real fun May 26, 2006
Misao Misako (Boston, MA)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
I am giving this book five stars because it made me smile and laugh so much, so often. Kids around grade 4 (and up) will love its irreverence, as Anderson skillfully skewers common conventions of kid lit, television, advertising, and all the other stupid stuff which kids today must daily ingest. (The skewering is done in such a fun-loving, cheerful way that it doesn't come across as mean or nasty.) In doing this kind of intelligent parody, Anderson treats the young reader with great respect. Some kids know they are being fed formulaic stuff a lot, and this daffy spree is a welcome antidote. The plot? Absurd as can be. The characters? Ridiculous. The structure? Deliberately outlandish. I think I laughed hardest at the "questions for discussion" at the end - anyone who's ever had to take a standardized test will love it. In short, Anderson goes straight to a kid's funny bone, and a fun read it is.
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