Stick Head is the main character and his greatest quality is
helping others. The mismatched creatures living together in a castle care for
and support one another as a family of oddities. Stitch Head cleans up all of
the messes that result from the doctor’s other creations so he automatically
decides to help a human named Arabella escape from an orphanage. Stick Head
realizes he doesn’t look completely human so he must maintain a disguise while
going undercover. Ivo, a small, slender creature with one arm, will be even
more difficult to hide so he pretends to be a doll. Pox, a monkey-bat, and the
Creature, a huge three-armed monstrosity, want to help but hiding their
appearances is impossible. The gothic illustrations accompanying the narrative artfully
help readers visualize the various, unique characters.
Arabella is a curious character as she’s quite contrary and
doesn’t need a reason to give someone a quick kick. She even has kicking shoes!
While she’s the character who needs to be rescued, she’s not a big part of the
action once the plot moves to the orphanage. Initially, Stick Head can’t find
her anywhere. The behavior of the other orphans is unexpected as the plot
transitions to a sort of mystery with Stitch Head trying to find an
explanation. Stitch Head suspects the creepy, watchful professor can see through
his disguise but the woman running the place is constantly singing a song about
the wonderfulness of being an orphan. Hidden passages are found behind the
orphanage walls with one of them leading to the lair of a giant spider!
Not surprisingly, the story includes levity arising from the
creations, dialogue, and events. The Creature calls the orphanage the AWFULAGE
with some of his loudly spoken words printed in all capital letters. Many of
the chapters begin with Mad Musings from crazy Professor Erasmus Erasmus like “Science
without madness is like a castle without monsters.” The song Madame Venin repeatedly
sings is titled “It’s Not So Awful Being an Orphan” with lines describing a
father being a bother and a mother being a nag.
What didn’t work as well:
It would be nice to know more about the creations and their
origins, especially Stitch Head. The line between creations and humans isn’t clear
except that the creations were made, not born. Stitch Head doesn’t need to eat,
but he does in this story, and a couple of comments bring up the question of creation
life spans. Stitch Head gets banged around a bit and takes some tumbles but it
doesn’t seem to hurt him too badly. I may be the only one with these questions
and perhaps more clarity can be gained by reading the previous three books in
the series.
The final verdict:
This book is the fourth in the Stitch Head series but it can be
read independently. It’s a charming story of friendship with a creative quest to
bring everything together. Overall, it’s a fun read and I recommend you give it
a shot.
I've always liked the sound of this series, bit creepy and odd. Will need to find the first one.
ReplyDeleteThe series has creepy-looking characters but they're actually very kind.
ReplyDelete