16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Heart & Soul of Heck, August 20, 2008
What a great premise this book has. Polar opposite siblings, bad-girl goth Marlo and straight-laced bookish Milton, die in a marshmellow explosion and both end up in Heck, not H-E-double-hockey-sticks, but more of an inferno with training wheel, a reform school from, well, hell. Basye stocks his colorful underworld with a pack of cleverly named characters in ironic situations (Nixon teaching ethics, Lizzie Borden teaching Home Ec). But the book sends mixed messages. Many of the references geared over the head of its adolescent audience (how many 12 year olds know who Typhoid Mary was or what Watergate was all about?). And he never quite explains what the purpose of this place is, is it an opportunity for redemption? Is it a Roald Dahl-style nightmare land for kids to escape? That part of the story could have been better developed; if it had the story would have reached a whole new level. But it does have charm, mainly the charm of the tug-of-war bond between the two heroes. Whether they're fighting each other or fighting for each other, Marlo and Milton's relationship is a true brother-sister relationship, and they are together the heart and soul of the book.
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14 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Oh Heck...I love this book!, August 2, 2008
Who would I recommend this book to? Anyone and Everyone...regardless of age.
This book, by new author Dale Basye, is the most entertaining, inventive and creative reads I have experienced in a long time. I actually compared it to Memoirs of a Geisha and The Historian...not for the story lines (duh...obviously) but in the sense that those two books had a style of writing that made you feel like you could really see every little detail of the surroundings. Those books made me want to visit Asia and Europe....and now I wish there really was a HECK...and I wish I could visit it!! Although I'm pretty sure with my track record, I will be going to a far hotter, more grown up destination.
A darkly funny, sometimes silly (boogers and poop are funny no matter how young or old), always entertaining tale of Milton and Marlo Fauster - two siblings sent straight to Heck: an otherwordly reform school.
With teachers like Lizzie Borden (Home Ec) Richard Nixon (ethics) and Blackbeard The Pirate (gym) and the likes of Principal Bea "Elsa" Bubb breathing down their necks it seems unlikely they will ever escape.
I loved Heck so much, I recommended it to my book club (a group of 30-something savvy readers) and everyone is really excited to read it. The gals with children loved the idea of reading a book club book to their kids. We are Portland, OR based and hoping to have the author join us to discuss his inspiration. (Hey...we can dream!)
I already anxiously await the 2nd book!
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Remember when...?, July 5, 2011
This review is from: Heck: Where the Bad Kids Go (Paperback)
I loved this book, beginning with the overtly euphemistic title (Remember 'Phil' from Dilbert? 'Prince of Insufficient Light,' come to 'darn you to Heck, for an inconveniently long time'?)
To any moderately literate adult the name-puns are delicious: Milton, Marlo, Fauster, Virgil... and the satire is infectuous: Nixon teaching ethics; Lizzie Borden teaching home economics.
In reading through the reviews on this book -- particularly the negative reviews -- I am struck by how few adults apparently retain any memory of how they thought and felt as children. Maybe this is a good thing, but if so, said adults probably ought not to be reading and reviewing children's books.
Yes, many satiric references will go over the heads of most kids in the target audience (4th-6th graders). But how many of us who grew up watching reruns of "The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show" got the humor in "Boris Badenov," "Natasha Fatale," or in the coordinator of the communist spy-network, "Fearless Leader" being a Nazi, when we were 10 years old?
I view "Heck" in that same vein, a story designed to appeal to kids, but with a little something extra tucked in there for parents who happen to pick up the book. And hey, now and then a kid just might be impelled to -ask- a parent, "so who the heck was Nixon?" providing an opportunity for parent/child interaction _and_ a history lesson, rolled into one.
Then there is the gross-out humor and repetition. A lot of time is spent encountering bodily secretions in a variety of disgusting settings. Too much time for most adults, probably, but it's hard to fathom how any adult who's spent time around kids in this age-range could be so deaf as to not notice that 4th-graders find this stuff hysterically funny.
And yes, the "Bea 'Elsa' Bub" pun gets repeated over and over and over... But has any parent not had the experience of their ten or eleven-year old learning a (to them) new joke, and then repeating it endlessly for days and weeks -- in appropriate and inappropriate situations -- until the next "new" joke came along?
In short, I think Dale Basye understands his intended audience very well indeed, and does an excellent job of writing for them. That he's also erudite enough to create some amusing adult satire with characters like Blackbeard and Typhoid Mary along the way is just icing on the cake. I can't wait to read the next book in the series. I highly recommend this book for 9-13 year old readers, and to those adults who retain at least a vague recollection of what -they- were like at those ages.
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