Trolls (Little Golden Books)

Product Information

Sally and her brothers buy a product from a friend’s mom, who’s a Wiccan, hoping to cast a spell to make FLMG/Marianne stop bullying their sister. They sprinkle it on her school lunch, but all it accomplishes is making her barf all over herself. There's nothing about the plot here - because, being honest, there's hardly anything you could really call a plot. Trolls on a rescue mission, but in the end it's just colorful, loud with a lot of music, singing and dancing, with music that wanders through the pop culture of the last 50 years and yet makes it its own in a completely new way. Aunt Sally’s stories are hilariously, heartbreakingly funny—heartbreaking because you wish your own childhood had been like that, outrageous and funny and full of larger-than-life characters and adventures. I'm not sure how I feel about this book, which I just found on our shelf, having no idea when or how we acquired it. I'm perhaps rating it a bit high, but I did enjoy it. It's quite funny in parts, quirky thoughout, and full of food for thought. I have a problem with the story of the Fat Little Mean Girl. Even the chapter title is unkind to fat people! If I were reading the book to children, I might leave this chapter out, or just leave out the word fat, though it gets a bit more complicated than that in one or two places. The chapter also involves Wiccans, but does not portray them in a very attractive way and I wouldn't mind reading that part to kids, despite my Christian faith. (It doesn't portray them as Satan-worshippers either, but plausibly, as fairly ordinary eccentrics, one of whom is mean.) If I gave the book to a child, I would talk to them about calling people fat and about Wiccans.

I'm in a bit of a daze after finishing this book. At a book signing, I told Ms. Horvath that I was a huge fan of The Canning Season and asked which of her books she would recommend. Without hesitation, she said The Trolls.For Sally’s stories so transfix her nieces and nephew that they’d rather listen to her than watch TV. They’re the stories of growing up on Vancouver Island in the late sixties and early seventies that their father has never told them. The tales are full of witty observations, sometimes uproariously funny, but there lurks an undercurrent of darkness. Pee Wee is too young to notice, but his sisters do, and are drawn to it even as they dread it… If you get involved with it, you'll be really entertained. A downright psychedelic firework display that, on the one hand, has one or two surprises also for the adult filmgoers in the subtext, but also in the spoken jokes. Ironically, these were the parts where the kids laughed the loudest, which I can't really explain.

It starts when Melissa, Amanda, and Pee Wee's usual babysitter "came down with a mild case of bubonic plague and called tearfully to say she didn't want to spread the buboes around." So her parents (who are going to Paris for a week) are forced to call on Aunt Sally, whom they have never met and their father never talks about. Uncle Lewis told Aunt Sally's family that the reverend had gone through six wives. When he was finished with one, he would take her to the beach and leave her for the trolls. "That," said Aunt Sally, "is what happened to all six wives." Uncle Lewis also told about the neighbor's dog, which fell off the front porch. She was also taken to the beach and left for the trolls. The ending ties the present-day frame story to the main one in the past. You thought you were reading an episodic chronicle of family life, and all along it was building to a retelling of Joseph of the varicolored coat and the brothers who left him for dead. Language: Melissa and Amanda are cutting and a bit rude to their little brother, constantly telling him to shut up and that he doesn’t know anything. Sally has no patience for this. One could argue that the girls learning to treat Pee Wee well is the whole point of the book, so their unkindness is there to teach a lesson.

I liked this book; and, I didn't. It's not a book I'm encouraging my children to keep, (we're going to donate it); however, I'm glad we read it. Along with Amanda, Melissa and Pee Wee, I loved Aunt Sally's storytelling, building a tree house, and teaching the children how to eat meatloaf by adding surprises. The children continued to wonder why their dad did not want her around. Aunt Sally talks to the kids as people and not kids. Her stories are entertaining but with a message about families and how the members relate and the importance of families. Some seem so full of exaggeration to be hard to believe and some so very down to earth.

I don’t think Horvath’s opinion on either Christianity or Wicca can be inferred from these incidents, but your mileage may vary. Sex: There’s a hint that the mother of a neighborhood kid, whom Sally cruelly dubs “Fat Little Mean Girl” had a scandalous past, at least by small-town 1960s-70s standards. Likewise, one wonders how exactly FLMG/Marianne herself got Edward Anderson to marry her, the event which led to both of them dying young. Like the activities of the trolls, this is left almost completely blank, and what the reader comes up with to fill it in depends entirely on the worldly knowledge of the reader. I won't give away too much from here on out, but there are some spoilers. I would say the following observations may help you enjoy the book a bit better.Each night, the children would beg for green beans. Pee Wee built them into log cabins before eating them. And each night she would tell of the family history. Aunt Sally told them about Uncle Lewis who came for two weeks and stayed to six years. There was also a tale of Great Aunt Hatty and the mysterious man. The week before Mr. and Mrs. Anderson were to leave Tenderly, Ohio, for the somewhat more bustling metropolis of Paris, their babysitter…came down with a minor case of bubonic plague and called tearfully to say she didn’t want to spread the buboes around.