A riotousy funny and deeply personal story of wonder, discovery and friendship, full of eccentric characters and fantastical adventures, by one of America's best-loved authors. When David falls ill his tough old Aunt Annie offers to tutor him, and he soon grows fond of The Gawgon, as he nicknames her because of her resemblance to the terrifyuing Gawgon Medusa of Greek myth. Together they embark on exciting imaginary adventures rescuing King Tut's treasure, scaling mountains and outwitting master criminals.
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About the Author
Lloyd Alexander is one of America's most distinguished writers and the award-winning author of The Chronicles of Prydain. He has won the Newbery Medal and has received a Lifetime Achievement Award for Children's Literature from Parents' Choice and another from the World Fantasy Convention.
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Few writers have inspired as much affection and interest among readers young and old as Lloyd Alexander. At one point, however, it seemed unlikely that he would ever be a writer at all. His parents could not afford to send him to college. And so when a Philadelphia bank had an opening for a messenger boy, he went to work there. Finally, having saved some money, he quit and went to a local college. Dissatisfied with not having learned enough to be a writer he left at the end of one term. Adventure, he decided was the best way. The United States had already entered World War II. Convinced that here was a chance for real deeds of derring-do, he joined the army -- and was promptly shipped to Texas where he became, in disheartening succession an artilleryman, a cymbal player in the band, an organist in the post chapel, and a first-aid man. At last, he was assigned to a military intelligence center in Maryland. There he trained as a member of a combat team to be parachuted into France to work with the Resistance. "This, to my intense relief, did not happen," says Alexander. Instead, Alexander and his group sailed to Wales to finish their training. This ancient, rough-hewn country, with its castles, mountains, and its own beautiful language made a tremendous impression on him. But not until years later did he realize he had been given a glimpse of another enchanted kingdom. Alexander was sent to Alsace-Lorraine, the Rhineland, and southern Germany. When the war ended, he was assigned to a counterintelligence unit in Paris. Later he was discharged to attend the University of Paris. While a student he met a beautiful Parisian girl, Janine, and they soon married. Life abroad was fascinating, but eventually Alexander longed for home. The young couple went back to Drexel Hill, near Philadelphia, where Alexander wrote novel after novel which publishers unhesitatingly turned down. To earn his living, he worked as a cartoonist, advertising writer, layout artist, and associate editor for a small magazine. It took seven years of constant rejection before his first novel was at last published. During the next ten years, he wrote for adults. And then he began writing for young people.Doing historical research for Time Cat he discovered material on Welsh mythology. The result was The Book of Three and the other chronicles of Prydain, the imaginary kingdom being something like the enchanted land of Wales. In The Remarkable Journey of Prince Jen Alexander explored yet another fantastic world. Evoking an atmosphere of ancient China, this unique multi-layered novel was critically acclaimed as one of his finest works. Trina Schart Hyman illustrated The Fortune-tellers as a Cameroonian folktale sparkling with vibrant images, keen insight and delicious wit. Most of the books have been written in the form of fantasy. But fantasy, Alexander believes, is merely one of many ways to express attitudes and feelings about real people, real human relationships and problems
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1 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Not About an Invisible Boy at All but the Story of a Sick Boy and His Imagination!,
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This review is from: Fantastical Adventures of the Invisible Boy (Paperback)
I have to admit I bought this story based on the title (I mean Amazon provides no information nor does anyone else) and was kind of expecting it to be about an invisible boy and his adventures (I assumed they supposedly would be fantastic). I anticipated a story along the lines of H.F. Saint's classic Memoirs of an Invisible Man or Donald E Westlake's book Smoke but you know with a kid as the main character and from the picture on the cover maybe it was set back in the era of sailing ships and explorers and stuff.
So I was to be honest somewhat annoyed when I started reading the book to find out it's the story of a boy called David who seems to be living in the Charles Dickins era of London (although he says he's in Philadelphia, USA in the 1920's) but anyway he is forced to stay home sick and being set in an historic era where doctor's use bizarre and strange remedies of treating patients he outlines what he is medically going through while breaking into a fantasy world between treatments of being a pirate captain of a ship called the Sea Fox and his adventures in that fantasy world. About half way through the book David's ecstatic state of mind of being away from school is brought crashing down when his boring Aunt Annie volunteers to tutor him and he knows his fantasy world is going to turn into a boring reality. David however couldn't be more wrong! If a boy from the Charles Dickins era's fantasies about being a pirate and other stuff are what you are after then you probably can't ask for a better book. Don't know why they didn't call the title something that would attract that target market though. Mentioning an invisible boy and having a story about something else is a little bit wrong and unethical though in my opinion. If adult fiction invisible man adventures were what you were after read Memoirs of an Invisible Man or Smoke. If junior fiction invisible man/boy tales were what you were really looking for then the best of this genre are My Best Friend Is Invisible (Goosebumps) by R. L. Stine, You Are Invisible: CYOA #48 by Susan Saunders, The Invisible Day by Marthe Jocelyn, Frankenstein Makes a Sandwich by Adam Rex, you can even get an illustrated version of H.G. Wells 1897 classic The Invisible Man (Great Illustrated Classics).
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