The Trolls - Hardcover

Horvath, Polly

3.93

1,115 ratings by Goodreads

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0374377871 ISBN 13: 9780374377878

Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux (BYR), 1999

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Laugh-out-loud stories within a story

Aunt Sally is beyond any of Melissa, Amanda, and Pee Wee's expectations. She has come all the way from Vancouver Island, Canada, to take care of the children while their parents are away, and right from the start Aunt Sally enchants them with tales of her childhood with their father. Odd characters figure largely in the stories, like Maud, a hunter rumored to have killed eighty cougars; Great-uncle Louis, a health nut who insists everyone should gnaw on sticks for extra fiber; and Fat Little Mean Girl, the star of a cautionary tale involving witchcraft and candy. All of Aunt Sally's reminiscences lead up to a crucial story about trolls, sinister creatures who supposedly lurked along the shore at night. The trolls had the power to change Aunt Sally's life forever, and their legacy may change the lives of the three present-day children as well.

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Review:

"All Sunday, the children made the most of Aunt Sally. She finished their Halloween costumes, proved a tireless player of cribbage and I Doubt It, read Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle stories out loud, using just the right expression, and never put a lid on the cookie jar. She was, all in all, the most satisfactory grownup the children had ever known."

Transported into their lives not with an umbrella like Mary Poppins, but equally as dramatically, Aunt Sally is introduced to the Ohio-dwelling Anderson family when Mom and Dad are off to Paris and in dire need of a last-minute babysitter. Aunt Sally, however, was not Mr. Anderson's first choice. Aunt Sally is his sister, and part of a past he would rather forget.

Ten-year-old Melissa, 8-year-old Amanda, and 6-year-old Frank (alias Pee Wee) know nothing of their aunt, except that every year she sends a Christmas card from Vancouver Island with a picture of a moose with tree lights strung on it. Still, it doesn't take long for the children to warm up to her, this unusual, beehive-sporting, sparkly-eyed woman who lets them draw monsters with her eyeliner, uses string beans as walrus tusks at dinner, and tells extraordinary stories about her family history, all of which she insists are true, even the ones about the trolls. The eerie troll story in particular gives us a glimpse into the psyche of the children's father--young Robbie at the time--who is left on the beach by his siblings as an offering to the trolls, in the event that trolls existed. Even though the search parties found him, he was still somehow missing: "...I guess knowing that your own trusted family could give you away, even in jest, well, it changes things. It changes things forever.... He wasn't, in the end, ever with us again."

Aunt Sally's other stories--including the ones about the Fat Little Mean Girl and Maud who shot 80 "cougars"--are fascinating, truly hilarious, artfully timed, and wonderfully detailed, and readers will be as entranced as the Anderson children. Polly Horvath has concocted a superb, funny, poignant book that stares both the fantastical and factual parts of family history in the eye and doesn't look away. "What trolls?" said their father when he came back from Paris. "Doris, did you unpack my gray sweater?" (Ages 8 to 12) --Karin Snelson

From the Back Cover:

"Polly Horvath has produced a small gem. She knows just how to twist language to make readers sit up and take notice--" The New York Times Book Review

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