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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
27 of 27 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A four generation read aloud treat,
By
This review is from: Wonder Clock (Hardcover)
My father heard these stories as a child. He read them to me. I read them to my kids and my grandkids. The vocabulary, the cadences, the varied plots and the sheer magic of these tales is timeless. The poems at the beginning of each chapter are related to the hours. Kids insist that you read them too. Pyle always sees to it that bullies, evil magicians, cheaters and older nasty siblings get their comeuppance. Little ones enjoy that aspect. Great archaic words are dusted off along with long disused similies and metaphores. It's the kind of book that comes to mind when you meet a bright eyed new child who has read everything else or seen everything else. At age 70 I still keep a copy in my bed's head board. Rap, tap, tap he knocked at the door.
11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A bedtime favorite to 3 generations of Leadley boys,
By A Customer
This review is from: The Wonder Clock: Or, Four & Twenty Marvelous Tales, Being One for Each Hour of the Day (Paperback)
The Wonder Clock book has been a favorite source of bedtime stories for three generations of Leadley boys (my father, myself and and my son). It is best read (and read and read ...) from ages 7 to 10. The book contains 24 separate faux fairy tales that are just the right length for a 15 minute bedtime story. The short stories are bound together by a metastory of the "wonder clock" that whisks the narrator off to observe and recount the other 24 tales. Each story is preceded by a short, illuminated poem, starts with a scrollwork capital and contains at least two wonderfully ornate illustrations. DO NOT buy a copy of this book which doesn't contain the original illustrations! They are part of the "wonder" for young readers. The stories are set in the Middle Ages somewhere in northern Europe (¿Belgium, Holland or southern Germany?) and feature lots of minor kings, princes, princesses, woodcutters, swineherds, ruffians, rogues and magical creatures.Caveats: 1) Although the Wonder Clock book can be read alone by precocious readers as early as second grade, I would recommend a joint reading the first time through with asides on morality. It is my belief that the actions in stories that feature villians being dragged to death behind wild horses, beatings, blindings, whippings, etc. need to be given moral context when a young child is first exposed to them. 2) I'm not sure whether this book would have as powerful an appeal to girls. Among us, my grandfather, my father and I have only raised one girl out of ten children (my aunt) and don't have much experience to offer. Upon reading the book again from an adult prospective, I've found the female protagonists (the wise queen, the wise princess, the magical Swan Maiden, etc.) curiously passive. Even Princess Golden Hair, who treks to the end of the earth in search of her beloved husband banished by magic, seems unassertive. Conclusion: Kids, especially boys, love it. Don't feed it to them unadulterated :-).
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A great book to read aloud to kids at bedtime.,
By A Customer
This review is from: The Wonder Clock: Or, Four & Twenty Marvelous Tales, Being One for Each Hour of the Day (Paperback)
I agree with everything Scott Leadley said, with the additional comments that 1) my daughter, now 10, has always loved these stories as much as my son, in spite of the lack of active female characters (at least on the side of Good); 2) Pyle, like Kipling, understood how to write a story that would be read aloud to children. The paragraphs are short, the vocabulary pointed, and something interesting happens two or three times a page; 3) as Pyle admits in the introduction, the elements of the stories are extracted and mixed from classic fairy stories; for example, in one story the hero kills a dragon by digging a pit, waiting until the dragon crawls over him, and stabbing it in the belly, an obvious borrow from the event in the 'Volsunga Saga' in which the hero Sigurd kills Fafnir the dragon. If you know the older stories you'll enjoy spotting Pyle's sources.
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