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Critics' Opinion:
Readers' Opinion:
First Published:
Mar 2008, 176 pages
Paperback:
Mar 2010, 176 pages
Book Reviewed by:
Jo Perry
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A hilarious novel which parodies "old-fashioned" children's books, including the requisite uncaring and self-centered parents, estimable orphans, and a questionable nanny...
Abandoned by their ill-humored parents to the care of an odious nanny, Tim, the twins, Barnaby A and Barnaby B, and their sister, Jane, attempt to fulfill their roles as good old-fashioned children. Following the models set in lauded tales from "A Christmas Carol" to "Mary Poppins", the four Willoughbys hope to attain their proscribed happy ending too, or at least a satisfyingly maudlin one.
However, it is an unquestionably ruthless act that sets in motion the transformations that lead to their salvation and to happy endings for not only the four children, but their nanny, an abandoned baby, a candy magnate, and his long-lost son too.
Replete with a tongue-in-cheek glossary and bibliography, this hilarious and decidedly old-fashioned parody pays playful homage to classic works of children's literature.
1.
THE OLD-FASHIONED FAMILY AND THE BEASTLY BABY
Once upon a time there was a family named
Willoughby: an old-fashioned type of family, with
four children.
The eldest was a boy named Timothy; he was
twelve. Barnaby and Barnaby were ten-year-old
twins. No one could tell them apart, and it was even
more confusing because they had the same name; so
they were known as Barnaby A and Barnaby B. Most
people, including their parents, shortened this to A
and B, and many were unaware that the twins even
had names.
There was also a girl, a timid, pretty little thing
with eyeglasses and bangs. She was the youngest, just
six and a half, and her name was Jane.
They lived in a tall, thin house in an ordinary city
and they did the kinds of things that children in oldfashioned
stories do.They went to school and to the
seashore. They had birthday parties. Occasionally
they were taken to the circus or the zoo, although
they did not care much for either, excepting the elephants.
Their father...
Lois Lowry's The Willoughbys is the latest faux antique to hit your quaint little bookshop's fusty shelves. To make sure the reader gets the joke, Lowry's blast from the past includes pointedly charming retro pen and ink illustrations; wavy old-fashioned fonts, and alliterative, adverb-laden diction ("A Novel Nefariously Written & Ignominiously Illustrated by the Author") ... To be truly delectable, The Willoughbys must work for children who haven't read Toby Tyler, Or, Ten Weeks with the Circus; Ragged Dick; Pollyanna; Heidi; or The Bobbsey Twins and Baby May. It does. Despite Lowry's satiric distancing and its jokes and puns, when the Willoughbys, homeless and hungry in more ways than one, finally discover that they're valuable, worthy of nourishment, and capable of bringing joy to grown-ups, we applaud...continued
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(Reviewed by Jo Perry).
Chocolate as a drink was a favorite of Montezuma, Emperor of the Aztecs. Hernando Cortez brought the drink back to Spain in 1529. It remained a favorite of the Spanish royalty for many years before being consumed widely throughout Europe.
It was not until three centuries later in England that chocolate was first used as a non-liquid confection. The inventor of 'chocolate for eating' is unknown, but in 1847, Joseph Fry & Son -- under the leadership of the original Joseph Fry's great-grandson -- discovered a way to mix some of the melted cacao butter back into defatted, or "Dutched," cocoa powder (along with sugar) to create a paste that could be pressed into a mold. John Cadbury added a similar product to his range in 1849.
By today's ...
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