Customer Reviews

May Bird and the Ever After

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

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

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

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!

This book is like Alice in Wonderland + Coraline + Beetlejuice... but so much more. When I wasn't freaked out, I was laughing. There's a little bit of everything here. I'm so glad it's the first in a trilogy-- I can't wait to read the next one!

What happens when you fall into another world? Alice could tell you all about Wonderland. Likewise, May Bird could tell you all about the Ever After.

May Bird is a bright, independent and imaginative young girl whose best friend is her hairless cat, the aptly-named Somber Kitty. One day, she receives a mysterious letter which prompts her to visit the nearby woods. Little does she know that she's about to go on the trip of her life -- among the no-longer-living!

With the help of Pumpkin - a timid ghost who has, without her knowledge, been her long-time guardian - she navigates the strange land. The Ever After is part Beetlejuice, part Oz, and sometimes a little scary for May, but her bravery sees her through.

Somber Kitty also fell into the Ever After, but he was separated from his owner. While May Bird tries to find a way home, Somber Kitty attempts to find her by following her scent. Somber Kitty is absolutely adorable and simply meowvelous. His determination and loyalty make his part of the story just as important as hers.

May Bird and the Ever After by Jodi Lynn Anderson is the first in a trilogy. The second is May Bird Among the Stars. The third title has yet to be released or announced.

I can't wait to find out what happens next!

The characters come alive and are likable and that makes this adventure worthwhile and a joy to read, even if a little weird, and not much progress is made on the final goal until the end of book 3.

This story is a great read for us big kids (I'm in my mid 30's) as well!!! The character development is so rich that you feel as if you truly know the individuals in this story personally. Somber Kitty is personified in such a way that he was my personal favorite. Ms. Anderson is truly a talented author and I am sure this series will not be her last successful work.

May Bird is a ten year old girl who lives in Briery Swamp. May Bird doesn't know that about fifteen people disappeared in the lakes of Briery Swamp many years ago. Then one day May falls into the lake and lands in the ever after. May Bird must get out fast!
This book is really good. My favorite part is when May Bird meets the undertaker!

May Bird has always been an outsider in the small West Virginia town of Briery Swamp. She's small and knobby-kneed and prefers to live in a world of her own making, along with her hairless Rex cat Somber Kitty. The two live out adventures where May is a Warrior Princess dressed in a black spangly swimsuit ready to battle evil forces. Needless to say, this doesn't endear her to the local girls, and she's never invited to parties or the like.

Unbeknownst to May, Briery Swamp is actually a hotspot; it's a portal to the Ever After, where all departed souls end up. While digging through a wrecked post office searching for treasure, May finds a letter addressed to her. The letter contains a map to a non-existent lake in the forest.

May is lured to the mysterious lake and falls in. When she manages to claw her way out, she finds that she is able to see ghosts. May's erratic, paranoid behavior terrifies her mother, who seeks to place her in a Catholic boarding school in New York. But May is drawn back to the lake and is plunged into the Ever After, where she embarks on a quest to escape the evil Bo Cleevil and his henchman the Boogeyman and his Black Shuck dogs, and find the Book of the Dead, which tells what her future will hold. May is an unlikely heroine; self-doubting, she constantly second-guesses herself, and only wants to go home.

Some of the plot points range from the vague (why May decides to return to the scene of her near-drowning) to confusing and flat-out gross, but kids who enjoy the dark fantasies of Tim Burton, thrill to Scary Stories to Tell in The Dark and who relish Poe will love the adventures of May Bird and the Ever After. This is the first book in a trilogy, followed by May Bird Among the Stars: Book Two and May Bird, Warrior Princess: Book Three.

My daughter is not a reader. I bought her this book though (as with many others) in hopes that something will set off a spark and have her wanting to read. For some reason (I'm sure it was the wonderful artwork on the cover) she was attracted to this one. Once her nose was in the book, you almost never saw it leave. She absolutely loved it. So much so that I decided I needed to read it too. I adored the book. Jodi Lynn Anderson does such a good job at spinning a wonderful tale of the Ever After. She makes the story a little creepy but not too much and makes you care about the characters you are reading about. I found my nose stuck in the book most of the time too.