May Bird and the Ever After (May Bird (Prebound)) [AUDIOBOOK] [UNABRIDGED] (Audio CD)

~ (Author), Bernadette Dunne (Reader)

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

Grade 5-8–May Bird is a gawky 10-year-old girl who, along with her only real friend, a furless Rex cat named Somber Kitty, is thrown into a strange world after falling into a lake near her home in Briery Swamp in this novel by Jodi Lynn Anderson (Atheneum, 2005). May and Somber Kitty are separated, and they have parallel adventures in the bizarre Ever After. May is astonished to realize that she is in the place of the dead, where everyone carries a Boogie whistle just in case they should come across a terrifying live one like her. Somber Kitty is in just as much, if not more trouble, as cats arent allowed there at all. While May meets several unusual creatures who help her, Somber Kitty is left to his own wits and devices to escape the clutches of Egyptian cat worshippers who want to sacrifice him. Bernadette Dunnes narration enhances the story with quirky inflections and easily distinguishable voices for the various characters. After a rather slow start, once May and the cat end up in the Ever After there is non-stop action and many gruesome and terrifying apparitions, making this a good choice for reluctant readers.–Charli Osborne, Oxford Public Library, MI
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

Gr. 4-7. Everything about 10-year-old May is odd: she lives at the edge of a deserted town; she's a shy misfit who hasn't a clue about making friends; and her cat is an outlandish-looking hairless rex. But not even May's worried mother knows ghosts are haunting May. After a mysterious letter lures her to a frightening world of the dead, May must find the courage to outwit the bizarre creatures hunting her and discover why she has been summoned to Ever After. This could easily have been just another formulaic story of a loner on a quest who learns how to love and lives happily ever after, but it's not. Anderson sets the unsettling, nightmarish tone of her offbeat fantasy in the first paragraph, then compounds the horror chapter after scary chapter (think Garth Nix's Sabriel, with a leavening of humor). The first of a trilogy, this book leaves loads of tantalizing, unanswered questions. Kids will love it all the same, but warn them not to read it at bedtime. Chris Sherman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 9-12
  
• Audio CD
• Publisher: Listening Library (Audio); Unabridged edition (October 11, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 030724556X
• ISBN-13: 978-0307245564
• Product Dimensions: 6.3 x 5.4 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (21 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #2,510,461 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

• This is item 1 in The May Bird Series.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Not for scaredy cats, September 2, 2006

By	Amanda Richards "Modest to the extreme" (Georgetown, Guyana) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

This review is from: May Bird and the Ever After: Book One (Paperback)

This is young adult fantasy with a difference. May Ellen Bird is the school weirdo who lives near the woods of Briery Swamp, West Virginia, a place that has lost seventeen people to mysterious causes. Her only friend is her bald, ugly cat; a hairless Rex named Somber Kitty. You can see right away that this is no cute kid and kitty story, and if you get bad dreams if you even read the word "Boogeyman", look no further.

May likes to go snooping around in old buildings looking for treasure, and one day she finds a hidden letter dating back to 1951, which somehow has her name on it. The envelope contains a letter and a map, and soon May is setting off across the Endless Briers towards a supposedly non-existent lake. Naturally she finds the lake, and falls in, and when she gets out she can see dead people, supposedly with her new-found sixth sense. For some reason she returns to the lake, and enters the Ever After, filled with ghosts, specters and other nasty things that go bump in the night.

Assisted by her ghostly guardian, Pumpkin, she embarks on a quest to find the Book of the Dead, which is supposed to tell her how to get home again, as well as the meaning of life and everything else, but to get it she must escape the clutches of the evil Bo Cleevil, his pal the Boogeyman and his dogs, and the gross ghouls who guard the book.

Confusing in places, gross in others, but highly imaginative, this one is for kids with slightly morbid tendencies.



Amanda Richards, September 2, 2006

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Ghoulishly Good Read, September 27, 2005

By	The Careful Collector (www.thecarefulcollector.com) - See all my reviews

This review is from: May Bird and the Ever After: Book One (Hardcover)

May Bird is a skinny, knobby kneed girl with no friends and a hairless cat. Her mother wants to take her from her beloved woods in the hills of West Virginia to a boarding school in New York City. One day May finds a letter, a call for help that changes her life. As May is drawn into the Ever After she discovers many things, not the least of which is friends.
This book is dark, and, perhaps for small children, a bit frightening; it is also touching, and at times, funny. The pace is lively, the dangers are immense, and the ending is wonderful. Enjoy

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The land of Ever After is ever exciting!!, November 10, 2005

By	S. E. Johnson (Washington, USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: May Bird and the Ever After: Book One (Hardcover)

I knew when I bought this book I'd love it! I actually just finished it today and hated it was over. I was kind of surprised about the ending. I thought it would of ended differently. I knew it was a series but I thought she'd make it home and then travel back to Ever After like the Dorothy in the original Oz book series. But this is good to because it makes you eager for the next book. This book is a complete mix of Tim Burton's Beetlejuice and the original Oz book series. She meets all sorts of crazy characters that you'll love. Mary Bird is a skinny shy loner who is literally dragged into the portal to the Ever After world of the dead. She has to be very careful because if she's discovered Bogeyman will come with his great black dogs. "Live ones" are forbidden to enter you see. She goes on a crazy adventure in order to get home before evil Bo Cleevil get's ahold of her. This book is stuffed with creativity and excitement. I was anxious, surprised and grossed out while reading, it was great fun! :) I think it would make a great movie!