Trolls (Little Golden Books)

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Melissa (age ten), Amanda (age eight), and Frank (age six)—called Pee Wee by his sisters—know very little about their father’s large, eccentric, Canadian family. They’re familiar enough with their Aunt Lyla, and they know that Uncle Edward drowned at sea on his honeymoon years ago, but that’s about it. They’ve never even seen a picture of their Aunt Sally; the only proof of her existence till now has been the card, featuring a moose with tree lights strung in his antlers, that she sends them every Christmas.

Most of the stories within "The Trolls" went well over my kid's heads (6.5; 8; 10; and 11 year's old respectively). They were waiting for the trolls to appear and didn't like that the story never made them known; and, they didn't like an ending without end. This book was no winner for them.This book is great because it is enjoyable on 2 levels...child and adult. It is a book of great childhood stories....and a meditation on the kinds of acts that change everything instantly incidents that can change relationships for a lifetime. But it's also about hope and healing. The ending ties the present-day frame story to the main one in the past. You thought you were reading an episodic chronicle of family life, and all along it was building to a retelling of Joseph of the varicolored coat and the brothers who left him for dead. From the Vikings to the Moomins, the Brothers Grimm and the Three Billy Goats Gruff, Trolls: An Unnatural History explores the panoply of trolls and their history and their continuing presence today.

However, what I got instead was the undercurrents of the story. The hints of the real and the relational in the story. The sadness of the stories not because of the things that happened but instead because of the things that don't. As an adult I saw the truth of family relationships that broke and the knowledge that there might be no way to mend the relationship. The three Anderson children’s parents are going to France for a week’s vacation. With the usual babysitter out of commission, the kids are left in the care of their Aunt Sally, whom they have never met before. Uncle Lewis told Aunt Sally's family that the reverend had gone through six wives. When he was finished with one, he would take her to the beach and leave her for the trolls. "That," said Aunt Sally, "is what happened to all six wives." Uncle Lewis also told about the neighbor's dog, which fell off the front porch. She was also taken to the beach and left for the trolls. I'm not sure how I feel about this book, which I just found on our shelf, having no idea when or how we acquired it. I'm perhaps rating it a bit high, but I did enjoy it. It's quite funny in parts, quirky thoughout, and full of food for thought.I read this with my 8-year-old son and found it more thought-provoking than the "grown-up" novel I was reading at the time. This book centers on Aunt Sally, a sophisticated kind of Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle, who comes to stay with her 2 nieces and nephew when their parents vacation in France. Every chapter is another fanciful story told by Aunt Sally, involving her family in Canada growing up. The story includes the children's father (the youngest sibling of Aunt Sally in the story). There is a subtle undercurrent of family brokenness....why did Dad never talk about Aunt Sally? Why was Dad hesitant to have Aunt Sally come stay with the children while they were gone? Sex: There’s a hint that the mother of a neighborhood kid, whom Sally cruelly dubs “Fat Little Mean Girl” had a scandalous past, at least by small-town 1960s-70s standards. Likewise, one wonders how exactly FLMG/Marianne herself got Edward Anderson to marry her, the event which led to both of them dying young. Like the activities of the trolls, this is left almost completely blank, and what the reader comes up with to fill it in depends entirely on the worldly knowledge of the reader. There's nothing about the plot here - because, being honest, there's hardly anything you could really call a plot. Trolls on a rescue mission, but in the end it's just colorful, loud with a lot of music, singing and dancing, with music that wanders through the pop culture of the last 50 years and yet makes it its own in a completely new way.