Customer Reviews

Odder Than Ever

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

 

 

If you've ever read anything by Bruce Coville, and thought it was cool, well by all means, BUY THIS BOOK! I'm serious. Some of the stories have appeared in the anthologies(Like "Biscuts of Glory"), but it's worth it to have this book too, trust me.

The quality of the stories in Odder Than Ever is superb. By turns, I found the stories to be witty, scary, intelligent, moving and silly. I especially liked "The Stinky Princess" - a charming, silly love story concerning an atypical princess. "There's Nothing Under the Bed" is a frightening story about a boy's struggle to be believed. True to the book's title, "The Giant's Tooth" is a very odd chronicle of life in a giant's mouth. The story "Am I Blue" does go into controversial waters but in my reading of the story, it does so in a safe and interesting manner. "The Metamorphosis of Justin Jones" and "I, Earthling" are coming of age tales of responsibility and insight beyond one's own concerns.

I don't normally read YA books but I have been so pleasantly surprised by Bruce Coville's ability to write on a number of levels for both children and adults that I picked up a couple of his other books. I also heartily recommend Jennifer Murdley's Toad.

this is one of my very very favorite books of all time and i have read over thousands for sure. The stories in this book range from funny to dark to moving to breathtakingly beatiful. One thing they all have in common is that they are entertaining and some of them i am sure you will never forget. This is truly a wonderful collection of stories.
from a funny love story about a goblin and a princess and a heartbreakingly bittersweet story of a boy who gains wings and a very hard choice, everthing in this book is original and wonderfully written. I highly reccomend this to anyone.

Odder Than Ever,
By Bruce Coville
Short stories

4 out of five star ratting
In The Golden Sail, a boy named Jan's father left in search of a boat from stories with a golden sail, after he saw the sail out at sea one day. Shortly after that his mom dies, and his father never comes back. In hope that's his father would come back Jan goes to the shore every day for years to see if his father comes back.
A net maker named Samos is blind and always tries to get Jan to stop looking when suddenly one day a ship starts to come towards them and doesn't stop some thing made Jan and the net maker walk towards the ship and they get on and before they know it the ship takes off at a very fast pace they search the ship and no one is aboard. The ship is moving it's self they are stuck on this ship for days when the ship suddenly lands at an island and they get off the ship turns into a coin which they keep they start to walk through a jungle and they find a golden palace. They went into the palace and found Jan's dad, who is stuck and an tries to free his father but he can't so Jan's dad asks him to take over his lord ship of the golden people and Jan refuses then he set off to do what he wants on the boat with a golden sail.

In biscuits of glory a boy is scarred of his house cause his family was robbed when they lived in their old house. So ever sense then he has been vary scared of his house, and it's weird noises like the dripping of the faucet and the creaking of a floorboard when some one walks. So one night he wakes up at mid night and takes a baseball bat with him to the kitchen where he thinks he can hear someone. When he gets to the kitchen he astonished to see a ghost making biscuits and singing biscuits of glory (hence the title) and she is singing in a very sad voice. When the boy asks what is wrong she tells the sorry of how she died and how she can reach heaven and I will not reveal that to you for you'll have to find out your self.

I gave the book a four out of five star rating because it was a fast reader and it had a lot of variety. That is for people that like tones of genera of books. After all this is a collection of short stories. So who knows what you'll find. But I also didn't like this book that much cause nothing really bad ever happened.

End.

My mature 10 year old son (advanced reader) checked this book out from our school's elementary library hoping it would contain creepy mystery stories, similar to Goosebumps, but instead read very bizarre, at times disturbing stories which contained topics not appropriate for an elementary-middle school aged student.
One story is of a man who can't decide his sexual orientation so he is visited by his "fairy Godfather". The fairy Godfather originated after he was killed in a gay bashing incident(killed with a tire iron) and felt becoming a fairy Godfather was most appropriate since he spent his life being called faggot and fairy. The man wishes all gay people would turn blue so he doesn't have to refine his "gaydar" senses and then he can date more easily by identify individuals to date if he so chooses to become homosexual.
Another story is of a bloody mirror which brings a creature into your body every time you look at it ultimately killing one and living inside another. The boy has to contemplate suicide as a way of freeing himself from the creature.
After skimming a few other stories which involve death and torture and no resolve for a happy ending, I had read enough. Sadly, my son had read the whole book for a book report and was left disappointed and at his age did not fully understand all of the content and was overly creeped out by some of the other stories. If I had read this book prior to him, I would have helped him choose another.
After discussing this book with his teacher and another parent, all are in agreement that it was surprising that he found this at our library and will likely have it shipped to the high school. The cover, excerpts and back do not indicate the true nature of this book. My husband wonders what is the true agenda of this author promoting the book for this age level? As an educator, I do not promote book banning, but the explicit topic of deciding sexual orientation, gay-bashing and suicidal thoughts does not seem appropriate for an elementary library (even at 5th grade and is very questionable for middle school). Given the bizarre nature, older-aged topics and at times disturbing ideas this book has in contrast with wonderful literature/mysteries that is available, I would not recommend this for my 17 year old either.
Please use parental and educator caution when considering this book.

After checking this book out at the local library, I was so disgusted I sent them the following letter to urge its removal from the YA section:

I am very disturbed by the content of a Young Adult Fiction book I recently checked out. I strongly feel that you should consider removing it from the shelf, since some of the ideas it presents could be harmful to young adults at very vulnerable times in their lives. The book is Bruce Coville's short story collection titled _Odder Than Ever_. While most of the stories are simply strange or funny, the last three promote clearly negative and shortsighted ideological agendas.

The story "The Japanese Mirror" concerns a boy who has trouble controlling his violent temper, until the day he sees a strangely distorted version of himself in an old mirror. His outbursts of temper start to radically diminish, through no particular effort on his part, but every time he does not become violent, his anger is transferred to the monster in the mirror. The monster becomes stronger and stronger, until at last the power of the boy's repressed anger allows it to break free to wreak havoc. At this point the boy learns that in order to stop the monster, he must accept it and love it, and welcome his anger back into his own soul. While there is indeed something to be said in favor of healthy expression of emotion, I am disturbed by this story's message because it presents a false dilemma: either the boy must lose all control of his anger or he must wholeheartedly embrace it. Nowhere is a third choice presented, the possibility that the boy might learn other, more mature responses to the situations that have provoked his outbursts of anger.

The second disturbing story is titled "Am I Blue?" This story promotes an incredibly intolerant and narrowminded attitude toward people whose values may differ from one's own, and advances a number of stereotypes. In the story, a boy struggling to understand his own developing sexuality is visited by his fairy godfather. This fairy godfather practiced homosexuality in his lifetime, and died as the result of a hate crime. He enables the young central character to see the people around him in terms of the strength of what the author posits as homosexual tendencies or degrees of gayness. Those who exhibit such tendencies turn different shades of blue depending on the strength of their tendency. This story is offensive on a number of levels. First, it presents a radically oversimplified and distorted picture of the results of the choice to engage in homosexual behavior. Second, with its odd notion of homosexual tendencies, it presents the totally false idea that some people have no choice whether they engage in homosexual behavior or not--in other words, it suggests to young adults that their lives are more controlled by heredity and environment than by the choices they make. Third, the story advances dangerous and intolerant stereotypes. It implicates the totally specious equivalence of artistic talent with homosexual tendencies, and most insulting of all, clearly suggests that the only reason a person would object to homosexual behavior is because he or she is violently suppressing his or her own desire to engage in that behavior. This is ridiculous logic; the fact that I object strenuously to murder does not mean I am violently suppressing a desire to kill someone.

But it is the last story whose ideas have, arguably, the most potential to cause serious harm to young adult readers. In "The Metamorphosis of Justin Jones," the young protagonist manages, by supernatural means, to escape an abusive homelife dominated by an alcoholic uncle. At the end of the story, though, his magical benefactress convinces him that he must return to live with his uncle, instead of staying in the refuge he has found. At first sight, her reasoning seems sound; she tells Justin that if he stays away he will never develop spiritually and emotionally into the loving man he is meant to become, a man who will help other children. So, of course, Justin makes the "heroic" decision, and returns to his abusive uncle. The problem with that "heroic" decision is this: it implies clearly that the decision to leave an abusive home is somehow immature or inferior. It could easily influence a vulnerable young adult reader not to report abuse, and/or to needlessly remain in an abusive situation because the suffering is seen as somehow redemptive in and of itself. Such a decision to stay or keep quiet could also endanger younger family members, and perpetuate the cycle of abuse.

Because of the emotionally and spiritually dangerous messages presented in this book, I strongly urge that it be removed from the Young Adult collection.
Thank you for your consideration.

Basically, avoid this book. Joey (above) hit the nail on the head.

Odder Than Ever is the worst book I ever read. It is a bunch of really really really stupid short stories. One is about a guy who thinks he is gay, another is about a mean father who leaves and never comes back untill his sun find him ruleing an odd world. If you have nightmares after reading scary stories dont read this book. One story is about a kid that gets sucked under his bed into another world and has to be a slave that delivers nightmares in the middle of the night forever. Dont read this book.