Whales on Stilts: M.T. Anderson's Thrilling Tales

by M.T. Anderson

Book Overview

In the first intallment of National Book Award winner M.T. Anderson's Pals in Peril series, a madman has unleashed an army of stilt-walking, laser-beaming, thoroughly angry whales upon the world... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0152053409
• ISBN13: 9780152053406
• Release Date: January 2005
• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
• Length: 188 Pages
• Weight: 0.65 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 5.4" x 7.6"
• Age Range: 10 to 12 years
• Grade Range: Grades 5 to 7

Customer Reviews

the funniest book I've ever read

I read this aloud to my kiddos (ages 11, 8, and 5). We laughed until we cried, literally. I've recommended it to all of my friends with kids. It's just huge fun. It was tough deciding what to follow it with, it was that good. (We decided on the Percy Jackson series.)

funny and random

Lily is just a normal girl. Her best friends are anything but normal. One is Jasper Dash, Boy Technonaut. He can invent anything! Her other best friend is a super hero that has her own series of book and active fan club. Lily leads a normal life until one day she visits her father's office as part of a school assignment. While there she makes a startling discovery! Her father's company is making stilts for evil robotic whales that plan to take over the word. It's all up to Lily and her friends to save the day! This book reminded us of the Lemony Snicket's "A Series of Unfortunate Events" stories. It's very random and full of humor!

Brilliant satire of "Nancy Drew", "Tom Swift", and other children's series

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."

Ha ha, ho ho, hee hee!

Well, dash it all, I have to say that this was the funniest thing I've read in a long,long time. It skewers every kids' series convention that I can think of, and adds in a David-Foster-Wallace-esque footnote (there's really only room for one), questions for reading groups and the thrilling first chapter of the next book in the series. I bought it for my 10-year-old, but I think it will be a while until he gets all the jokes. Definitely recommended for adults who still love juvenile fiction.

great fun!

We just finished Whales on Stilts--we'll I was reading it to my nine year old and he couldn't wait to finish it so I finished it after him--anyway--very funny, over the top--lol! We loved the end of the book "literature circle" discussion prompts and essay question starters. We spent an hour making up our own silly book club discussion questions after reading MT Anderson's and had fun using his format to lampoon other books my son had to read for literature circle this year. We hope there will be more to come!