The Neddiad: How Neddie Took the Train, Went to Hollywood, and Saved Civilization [Hardcover]

Daniel Manus Pinkwater (Author), Calef Brown (Illustrator)

Book Description

Age Level: 10 and up | Grade Level: 5 and up

The old powers try to come back, and the planet is plunged into chaos, and civilization is destroyed, and it gets all violent and evil...the old legends tell that a hero...with the sacred turtle, always...

Los Angeles, California.
Neddie Wentworthstein is the guy with the turtle.
Sandor Eucalyptus is the guy with the jellybean.
Sholmos Bunyip wants the turtle...and he'll stop at nothing to get it.

This is the story of how Neddie, three good friends, a shaman, a ghost, and a little maneuver known as the French substitution determine the fate of the world.

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

Grade 5–9—A bright and breezy adventure with a smart and funny narrator, this story is part historical travelogue, part Saturday matinee, with bits of turtle lore and Catskills stand-up comedy. Los Angeles in the late 1940s is a magical place of swashbuckling movie stars, restaurants shaped like hats and doughnuts, tar pits, fancy private schools, and Neddie Wentworthstein. His eccentric, wealthy father has decided to relocate the family from Chicago to L.A. On the journey, a shaman named Melvin gives Neddie a turtle carved from a meteorite, possibly the rarest and most precious one in existence, and the only thing standing between humanity and the destruction of all civilization. Accidentally left behind in Flagstaff, AZ, Neddie is befriended by Seamus Finn, his movie-star dad, and Billy the Phantom Bellhop. The four visit the Grand Canyon and are held up at gunpoint by Sandor Eucalyptus, who is looking for the turtle. When they make it to Los Angeles, well, then things get even weirder. The ending is a little abrupt and kids may not get all the references, but they'll get the mystery, the excitement, the friendships, the aliens from outer space, the battle between good and extraordinarily awful evil, and the live woolly mammoth that performs circus tricks in a replica of the Roman Forum (told you things get pretty weird). Fans of Sid Fleischman will find much to like in this goofy and lovingly nostalgic historical fantasy.—Mara Alpert, Los Angeles Public Library
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

In the 1940s, young Nedworth Wentworthstein is traveling across America with his family when he meets an Indian shaman, who slips him a sacred stone turtle. Ned soon discovers that bad guys are after the turtle, and he enlists the help of newfound friends (including the ghost of a bellboy) to help him protect his treasure. Eventually, though, the turtle falls into the wrong hands, and Ned is forced to confront terrifying, magical beasts. There are actually two novels here: one centers around the supernatural world, where Ned's epic battles play out; the other details 1940s America, from the pleasures of riding the Super Chief to the slightly off-kilter culture of postwar Southern California. The two parts don't really come together into a cohesive whole; the plotline that includes observations of late 1940s America provides the stronger narrative. There are plenty of funny lines and scenes, though, and fans of Pinkwater will probably enjoy this messy, entertaining enterprise. Todd Morning
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 10 and up
  
• Hardcover: 307 pages
• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Company; 1ST edition (April 23, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0618594442
• ISBN-13: 978-0618594443
• Product Dimensions: 8.7 x 5.8 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #886,552 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Daniel Pinkwater lives with his wife, the illustrator and novelist Jill Pinkwater, and several dogs and cats in a very old farmhouse in New York's Hudson River Valley.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

57 of 63 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars--what else?, May 8, 2007

By 

Daniel Pinkwater - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Neddiad: How Neddie Took the Train, Went to Hollywood, and Saved Civilization (Hardcover)

I have read all the reviews of this book so far. Most of the reviewers liked it pretty well. Did any of them actually get what it's about? Not really. Do I know what it's about? Well, I'm the author. Am I going to say what it's about? Nope--that would be telling. I hope you will read it, and make up your own mind. If you hate the book, you can always make it a present to someone whose taste you don't respect, or use it for pressing flowers, or a doorstop.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Part school story, part adventure, part fantasy and all hilarious, June 5, 2007

By 

A Customer (New York, NY) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Neddiad: How Neddie Took the Train, Went to Hollywood, and Saved Civilization (Hardcover)

Most of the world (or at least the segment that listens to public radio) knows Daniel Pinkwater primarily as that funny guy who talks about children's books on Saturday morning's "Weekend Edition" program. Pinkwater has been around for much longer than that, though, coming up with a string of consistently hilarious --- and consistently off-the-wall --- novels and picture books for as long as I can remember. From 1977's THE HOBOKEN CHICKEN EMERGENCY (about a 266-pound pet chicken) to 2005's irreverent take on school in THE EDUCATION OF ROBERT NIFKIN, Pinkwater has time and again proven himself as one of the funniest writers for young people.

Pinkwater's latest, THE NEDDIAD, is no exception. Part of Pinkwater's style is a certain playfulness, a wide-ranging imagination that relies on comic situations, one-liners and images as much as on plot. On the face of it, the concept of THE NEDDIAD might seem absurd; after all, its subtitle is "How Neddie Took the Train, Went to Hollywood, and Saved Civilization." But Pinkwater manages to make it all make sense --- or at least, to make his readers laugh too hard to care whether it does or not.

Neddie Wentworthstein lives in Chicago a few years after World War II. When Neddie idly mentions that he'd love to eat at the Brown Derby restaurant in Los Angeles, Neddie's enthusiastic father (who'd made a fortune selling shoelaces to the military) suggests that the whole family move to California to see the landmark for themselves. Neddie loves adventure --- and the movies --- so he's eager to have an adventure of his own. "I expected, we all expected, to do exciting things," he writes, "This is why going away on a big adventure all the way across the country seemed normal to me."

Neddie's trip probably won't seem normal to just about anyone else, though. Starting with Neddie's mysterious encounter with a Navajo shaman named Melvin, continuing with his acquisition of a highly desirable turtle figurine and his separation from his parents, and from there following Neddie all the way to Los Angeles, where he gains new friends, a new school and a whole slew of enemies, THE NEDDIAD is truly an epic journey.

Part road trip adventure, part school story, part adventure, part fantasy and all hilarious, THE NEDDIAD is outrageously unique and undeniably the work of Daniel Pinkwater's comic genius.

--- Reviewed by Norah Piehl

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Best Pinkwater in Quite Some Time, May 29, 2007

By 

Larry Tuxbury (Green Island, NY) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Neddiad: How Neddie Took the Train, Went to Hollywood, and Saved Civilization (Hardcover)

Let me get this out of the way: I'm a solid Pinkwater fan and have been one since I was 8 or 9, and begged my parents for $1 to buy a copy of "Wingman." Having read a big chunk of his catalogue, I'd say that "The Neddiad" is one of my top five Pinkwater books...this from a guy who's written hundreds of books. It's got that classic Pinkwater deadpan humor, a great mystery that stretches back over eons, a quest, and turtles, turtles, turtles! Also, you learn about lots of cool stuff; don't let that turn you off the book, though. Wonderful! Keep writing, Daniel, and thanks.