Available:*
Library | Audience | Home Location | Material Type | Shelf Number | Status |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Searching... Carnegie | Kid/Juvenile | Fiction | Kids book | MONTG | Searching... Unknown |
Searching... Collier | Kid/Juvenile | Fiction | Kids book | MONTG | Searching... Unknown |
Searching... Heights | Kid/Juvenile | Fiction | Kids book | MONTG | Searching... Unknown |
Searching... Kendall | Kid/Juvenile | Fiction | Kids book | MONTG | Searching... Unknown |
Searching... McGovern-Stella Link | Kid/Juvenile | Fiction | Kids book | MONTG | Searching... Unknown |
Bound With These Titles
On Order
Summary
Summary
In the vein of The Borrowers and The Indian in the Cupboard, this is an imaginative, irresistible, and incredible exploration into what happens when one boy discovers a kingdom of tiny people.
The day before summer vacation, Max's closest friend at boarding school disappears, leaving behind his amazing model collection and a handful of sand on his bedroom floor. Like Max, the eccentric janitor Mr. Darrow is a genius at building tiny models. Eight weeks later, Max finds that the sand has magically transformed into a whole desert kingdom--filled with millions of tiny people!
Max wears hearing aids, and they allow him to hear the ant-sized people. There's a boy named Luke who's about to become king. But when Max appears, he plunges their world into chaos. Luckily, Luke has two strong allies: Ivy, a fearless girl, and Luke's trusty steed--a flea.
While Max and his new friend Sasha fight to protect the Floor from their evil headmaster, Luke must fight to save it from being destroyed by all-out war.
Author Notes
Ross Montgomery has worked as a pig farmer, a postman, and a primary school teacher, so writing books was the next logical step. He spent his childhood reading everything he could get his hands on, from Jacqueline Wilson to comic books, and it taught him pretty much everything that's worth knowing. If you looked through his pockets, you'd find empty potato chip packets, lists of things to do, and a bottle of that stuff you put on your nails to stop biting them. He lives in London with his girlfriend, a cat named Fun Bobby, and a cactus on every available surface. His previous books include Alex, the Dog and the Unopenable Door and The Tornado Chasers, and Perijee & Me, available from Wendy Lamb Books. Visit him online at rossmontgomery.co.uk and on Twitter at @mossmontmomery.
Reviews (4)
School Library Journal Review
Gr 4-6-When their boarding school's janitor disappears, Max and his friend must sneak around their nasty headmaster to save the colony of tiny people developing a sort of early European medieval society in the janitor's rooms. The book alternates between Max's story and that of the tiny people, whose world moves faster than Max's and features three warring groups, each with their own hair color, led by their own silly royalty and tepidly reminiscent of Terry Pratchett's Carpet People. Max is a hard-of-hearing White British boy with no family and low self-esteem who occasionally trades upon his deafness to his advantage. Chapters are well formed and the action forward-moving, but the simplistic characters don't develop any depth as the story progresses, the dialogue is flat, and some readers may have a hard time suspending disbelief with the half-baked faux-science surrounding the tiny people. The bit with the over-the-top villainous headmaster is likely to be funny to some readers. Then there's the tiny people's trite travails and some gender-stereotype humor surrounding a group of marauding "Sparkle Pony"-obsessed five-year-old girls. VERDICT Recommended as a strictly additional purchase where there is demand for lighthearted books featuring deaf protagonists.-Rhona Campbell, Georgetown Day School, Washington, DC © Copyright 2018. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Horn Book Review
Lonely deaf boy Max spends most of his time making miniature models with boarding school custodian Mr. Darrow. When Darrow disappears, Max discovers an entire minuscule civilization in the man's quarters--and Max's hearing aids allow him to hear that world's warring populace. Despite Montgomery's snappy humor and clever world-building, this high-concept tale stumbles into middle-grade-fantasy clichis: orphaned hero, evil headmaster, magic serum, etc. (c) Copyright 2019. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Kirkus Review
Max, a white boy who is the only deaf student and hearing-aid user in his English boarding school, loves building models, but his world changes when his brilliant mentor, Mr. Darrow, the school janitor, inexplicably disappears. When Max investigates Darrow's room, he discovers a minuscule civilization known as the Floor, populated by millions of tiny, sentient people. By using Mr. Darrow's special goggles, lip-reading, and a special setting on his hearing aids, Max can communicate with the warring populace, who have divided themselves up by hair and eye color (skin color is not mentioned) into separate factions: Blues, Reds, and Greens. With the help of Sasha, Max's white American roommate; Sasha's Sparkle Pony-obsessed little sister; Luke, a young Blue prince; and a Red girl named Ivy, Max helps unite the factions, saves the micro world from the evil headmaster, and discovers what happened to Mr. Darrow. Running parallel to Max's story is one that centers on Luke, in which Max is the Giant. In the author's note, Montgomery details his research into the experiences of deaf children. Max's feelings of social isolation due to his deafness are honest, and his growing friendship with Sasha is heartwarming. It is surprising that Max uses no technology beyond hearing aids to navigate the hearing world, but some of this can be understood as more of the headmaster's incompetence and neglect. While some of the details are inconsistently presented, much of the worldbuilding is deliciously clever.A fast-paced and enjoyable adventure that encourages readers to appreciate the small things in life. (Fantasy. 8-12) Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
A lonely, hearing-impaired boarding-school student is gobsmacked to discover an entire tiny civilization occupying the custodian's rooms. The color-coded mini-folk have split into three hostile nations that are on the verge of open war; assisted by a specially altered hearing aid, Max struggles to convince the squabbling people to put aside their differences and move to a safer home before evil Headmaster Pitt vacuums them all up. Both the cover illustration and the author play fast and loose with scale, as the mites in their hundreds of thousands are small enough to gather in separate cities and yet somehow large enough for Max to see details. Still, Montgomery unwinds a suspenseful plot, and along the way gives Max some surprisingly effective allies, from seemingly popular (but equally lonely) classmate Sasha to tiny Luke, newly minted young king of the diminutive Blues (and a bit of an idiot). In the end, Max gets to choose whether to join Luke or stay with Sasha, and readers are likely to have different views on his decision.--Peters, John Copyright 2018 Booklist