Strange Happenings: Five Tales of Transformation

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Editorial Reviews:

Product Description

Children become cats and birds, a once-invisible young woman pieces herself back together, and the identity of a mysterious baseball mascot is uncovered—all within this eclectic collection from master storyteller Avi. By turns chilling, ethereal, and surreal, these thought-provoking tales are sure to engage anyone who has ever wondered what it would be like to become someone—or something—else.

Customer Reviews:

4 out of 5 stars

An enchanting collection of stories June 1, 2006
2 out of 4 found this review helpful

Be afraid. Be very afraid. Because many strange things happen in the five stories in this book.

Tom is so bored he wishes he could sleep all day like his cat Charlie. Suddenly, this unusual feline starts talking to Tom and asks if he really would like to be a cat. Tom thinks he would, so Charlie takes him to a deserted building filled with cats. They are granted an audience with the wizard cat, who transforms Tom into Charlie and vice versa. For Tom, however, the experience isn't quite what he expected it to be; after a few weeks he's even more bored as a cat and wishes he could return to being a human. There's a small problem though: Charlie likes being a boy and doesn't want to change back. He explains to Tom the difficulty of transforming back into a human and that many of the cats in the deserted building are boys and girls who thought they were bored as well. Does Tom return to being a boy? It's a very strange happening.

And then there's a queen who desperately wants a little girl --- the most flawlessly beautiful girl in the world, to be exact. So she secretly consults a withered, ugly old hag named Esmeralda and proceeds to insult her. Still, Esmeralda grants her wish and soon the queen gives birth to a flawlessly beautiful daughter named Babette the Beautiful. The trouble is, the princess is so flawless that she's invisible! The queen banishes all mirrors from the kingdom and describes to artists how to draw portraits of her daughter. When the queen dies, Babette does not know she's invisible since there are no mirrors. When the princess encounters Esmeralda by chance, Esmeralda tells her the truth. Understandably Babette is astounded and furious, and demands to have a mirror brought to her. She seeks out Esmeralda again and discovers how to become visible. Unfortunately, things don't turn out exactly right, and Babette the Beautiful isn't so beautiful any more.

STRANGE HAPPENINGS is not for the faint-hearted. But for anyone who believes there are more things in heaven and earth that no one can explain, this just may be the book for you. You've been warned!

--- Reviewed by Robert M. Oksner (oksnerinc@attglobal.net)

4 out of 5 stars

Nice kitty July 16, 2006
2 out of 3 found this review helpful

Cats haven't been considered really and truly evil for centuries now, but try telling that to Avi in his latest collection of short stories. Cats? They're friends with the devil himself. They'll transform bodies with you and then leave you stuck as a feline for the rest of your days. In "Strange Happenings: Five Tales of Transformation", Avi gives up the world of historical fiction and kid adventures to bring us some fantasy and sci-fi tales that come across as low-key Ray Bradbury. Not quite as chilling, of course. Let's just consider them starter-Bradbury fare. They're not always moral tales and not always agreeable, but they've the advantage of always being interesting and always containing just a hint of darkness to their souls. Whether he's channeling fables or Rod Serling, Avi's book is for those kids who want tales of magic rather than scary fare. These stories are warnings. Not frightenings.

The first tale, "Bored Tom" (which sounds like a character from Struwwelpeter) is the first of these transformative tales. Tom's bored as all get out. He's like Maurice Sendak's Pierre, feeling that life has nothing new to offer him. That is, until one day a cat comes to him with a particularly interesting proposition. Story number two is "Babette the Beautiful". In it, a queen wishes for a daughter of complete and utter perfection. She gets her wish, but it's the daughter that has to pay the price. Story number three was "Curious" about a boy's search to discover who's really inside the local baseball mascot's costume. Curiosity kills the cat in this one. Rounding out the book are Avi's attempts at creating new fables. "The Shoemaker and Old Scratch", involves a man, a cat, and the devil himself as one character attempts to outwit the other. Finally there's "Simon", about a man who wanted everyone in the world to take notice of him and the consequences of when they do.

The connecting thread between these tales is that in each one someone, or some thing, changes from one physical appearance to another. Transformation, both internally and externally, as it were. Because of its particularly pretty cover art, the book is bound to attract a whole host of enthusiastic child readers. The question is, how strong a book is this? It's always difficult to review collections of short stories, especially for children, since you're judging the author on scant little glimpses of interesting tales. What it comes down to is whether or not the author adapts just as well to the short format as he or she does to the longer. In Avi's case, it's kind of touch and go. He's certainly won the reader over in terms of interest. Every tale is an interesting one, even those of a moralistic bent. So how well do they stick with you in the long run? Will the kid that reads these stories be thinking of them long afterwards or will they immediately forget them? The answer is both. I think the fables, like "Simon" and the "Old Scratch" tale, are forgettable. They're fine as stories go, but they don't stick too tightly in the brain. The slightly horrific "Curious", will be more memorable for some kids than others. And personally, I think the first two stories in this collection are the strongest, and come across as the most affecting.

Once in a great while a teacher will tell his or her class to locate a book of short stories and report on them in some fashion. In other cases, kids are told to find a book of short stories and act one of the tales out like a play. There are a million different uses for a book of this type, and for their purposes, "Strange Happenings", will be an ideal choice. I don't think that it's the best of Avi's work or even the best collection of short stories for kids by a single author, but it's definitely a lot of fun. Well worth picking up if you get a chance.

4 out of 5 stars

Strange Indeed...Worth Reading! December 25, 2006
1 out of 1 found this review helpful

This is the kind of book I would have chosen when I was 8-10 years old...all those year ago! Strange Happenings is a collection of five short stores by one author around the central theme of transformation. In this slim tome, the author covers all manner of transformations - we get animal transfiguration with a twist; a girl who creates her own image and discovers perfection is not all it's cracked up to be; the curious boy who gets more than he bargains for when he becomes fixated on finding out just WHO is in that mascot costume; an old-time favorite...the many faces of Ol' Scratch himself and what human greed can make us do for no real reason; and lastly, the Story of Simon who demanded the best...who above all else prized wealth and image and who discovers that getting what you want doesn't always mean getting what you want!

Overall the theme is well illustrated in the selection of stories; they are both simple but most have a "gotcha" twist at the end that has become standard for this type of story. Strange Happenings is not really a horror book, not is it wholly sci-fi...the author's style is reminiscent of Ray Bradbury (where there is always a moral to the story, even if it is somewhat ambiguous) but the stories themselves are subtler. My favorites here were Bored Tom (the transforming Cats) and Babbette the Beautiful. My least favorite was The Shoemaker and Old Scratch which was the least interesting and most drawn out of the stories (I felt). That said, none of the stories was bad and all of them were well written! I enjoyed reading these five tales and quick reading it was. This would make for find classroom discussion around a central theme...each story is simple yet engaging and all of them can lead to relevant discussion of self image and motivations. I can see this being entertaining AND food for thought! I'd recommend this highly to young readers (ages 8-12, with 8-10 being ideal) who've transitioned fully to chapter books but still need relatively simple plots that are both SIMPLE and INTERESTING!

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