Rem World - Hardcover

Philbrick, Rodman

3.57

192 ratings by Goodreads

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0439083621 ISBN 13: 9780439083621

Publisher: Blue Sky Press, 2000

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When Arthur Woodbury orders a weight-loss device from a comic book, he suddenly finds himself trapped in REM World, the endangered realm of dreams.

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About the Author:

Rodman Philbrick is the author of six award-winning novels for young readers. His first novel, Freak the Mighty, won the California Young Reader Medal. It was received with great acclaim and has sold more than a million copies. The sequel, Max the Mighty, received starred reviews, and his novel The Fire Pony was named a 1996 Capital Choice. His more recent books for the Blue Sky Press are REM World; The Last Book in the Universe, which was named an ALA Best Book for Young Adults; and The Young Man and the Sea, which received a starred review from School Library Journal. He and his wife live in Maine and the Florida Keys.

From School Library Journal:

Grade 3-6-This fantasy may appeal to a young audience unfamiliar with the genre, but it leaves much to be desired. Arthur Woodbury, 10, has had enough of fat jokes, so when he sees an ad for a sleep device that guarantees weight loss, he wastes no time. However, he fails to read the instructions completely, and the magic helmet deposits him in REM World, creating a conundrum that violates the laws of the universe. Arthur must get home, or the creeping Nothing will envelop Everything and the universe will cease to exist. In action-packed, cliff-hanging chapters, Arthur is helped by REM World beings ("Morf," "Grog," "Mr. Pockets") and earns himself a new name, Arthur Courage. The plot wanders from one surprising encounter to the next, with only a cursory mythology to explain Nothing and Everything, and an underdeveloped setting, so that REM World never quite feels like an actual place. Arthur is miraculously thin when he returns home, but the explanation that he's been unusually active over the course of a few days doesn't suffice. In fact, the issue of Arthur's body shape drops out of the picture while he's in REM World (it's the "courage" issue that surfaces there), so this framing device for the story seems hollow. It also is conspicuously reminiscent of Norton Juster's The Phantom Tollbooth (Knopf, 1961), in which this device is carried through and developed. Despite the thinness in plot, REM may hold appeal for some reluctant readers; Philbrick's narrative voice is exciting and pulls the right strings.
Nina Lindsay, Oakland Public Library, CA
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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