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Dinkin Dings And The Frightening Things (2011)

by Guy Bass(Favorite Author)

3.75 of 5 Votes: 2

ISBN

0448454327 (ISBN13: 9780448454320)

languge

English

genre

Horror

publisher

Grosset & Dunlap

series

Dinkin Dings

review 1: More Than Just One NoteDinkin is afraid of everything, because when filtered through Dinkin's wildly creative imagination everything has some potential to cause harm. And then there are all of the imaginary things that have even more harmful potential. The underlying joke is that Dinkin's three best friends are the three things that kids might actually be afraid of - a ghostly visitor, a monster under his bed, and a skeleton in his closet. That's clever, but you worry early on that that might not be enough to carry an entire book, much less a series. (So I guess that's what I was afraid of.)Well, the author does a lot with the premise. Mom and Dad are pretty patient, but still a bit befuddled by Dinkin's fears. Dinkin makes lists of all kinds of things - what he's afraid o... moref, how to protect himself, what to do if there's a zombie apocalypse, and that sort of thing. The lists are funny and add variety to the narrative. The three scary friends have fairly distinct personalities and there is a lot of jokey byplay among and between those characters. Dinkin is the leader of this pack, so he isn't a totally lame and exasperating character. But once you get through all of that you still need some kind of plot to move you through the story. In this one a new neighbor girl has arrived in the neighborhood, and while she looks O.K. Dinkin is pretty darn convinced she's a zombie in disguise. NO SPOILERS, but that ends up being developed enough to get us through to a satisfying ending.When you realize that this book is aimed at a third grade or so crowd, it all makes sense. You have an engaging hero, in a sort of manic/nutsy style. You have monsters. You have some gross stuff. You have enough of a plot. You have some funny lines, and some subtle jokes for slightly more advanced readers. (This also isn't all farts/boogers. The setup is actually pretty sophisticated, and skewed in a way kids can appreciate.)I can see where this book would fit in between early chapter books and more advanced fantasy/horror/adventure. It's not really scary and the story's not complicated, but the vocabulary, the sentence structure, and even the type of humor seem a bit beyond what I think of as chapter books. It seems to me you can't have too many choices for this range of readers, and this series certainly offers itself as one more good option.Please note that I found this book while browsing the local library's Kindle books, and downloaded it for free. I have no connection at all to either the author or the publisher of this book.
review 2: Dinkin is afraid of everything (for example, the supermarket: "vegetables covered in dirt and dirty pesticides; jars of pasta sauce just waiting to leap off the shelf and shatter...") except for his three best friends, the Frightening Things who live under the bed and in the closet. Life is scary enough for Dinkin, and then…new neighbors move in. Oh, Molly might look like an innocent little pony-obsessed girl...but luckily for his family, the neighborhood, and the world, Dinkin knows better. Lovely, detailed black and white illustrations add to the humor (and horror). This is a great, just scary enough read for early-elementary age kids. less

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