[LISTENED TO: August 2014] The Unluckiest Boy in the World
My kids enjoy just about any audio book, but I try to find ones that seem funny (and age appropriate for both of them). For reasons I’m unclear about, it seems like most of the audio books that are age appropriate are British or Australian–either they release more audio books, or that’s just what my library orders. So we wind up listening to a lot of British readers (I think my kids can tell a British accent now).
I didn’t know anything about this book (or its author) but the title sounded great and the age was appropriate. We listened to it on our trip to Michigan, and it was a perfect length to fit near the end of our arrival. Boy did we like this book. There are so many funny unexpected moments. And the story has a great sense of companionship and closeness among outcasts. And of course, really bad things happen in inappropriate places, which is quite funny.
I’m really glad I got this book, and I’d be interested to see what else Norriss has written.
So just who is the unluckiest boy in the world? Nicholas Frith is an average boy eleven year old English boy–not really lucky but not really unlucky either. Indeed, nothing interesting ever happens to him. Although he does have an interesting parental setup (which is complicated and best left for the story to reveal, but suffice it to say that his dad is in the United States, but not because he was trying to get away from Nicholas or his mum.
As the book opens, Nicholas and his mum are on a vacation in Spain. They don’t speak Spanish and while the taxi driver/tour guide is nice, neither he nor his mom is really sure what’s going on. At some point he leaves the taxi to go pee. As it turns out though, he winds up peeing on the ancient grave of a very bad man, Toribio de Cobrales. Of course, there is a curse on this grave (it really should have been better protected, no?)–anyone who defiles it in any way will have nothing but bad luck thrown at him for the rest of his life. Nicholas is really sorry, he didn’t realize any of that, but it doesn’t matter. As soon as he defiles the grave the curse comes at them, with thunderclaps and earthquakes and all manner of trouble falling on them in the next few minutes. (more…)
I Just Read About That... 