Frankie Pickle and the Closet of Doom: 03/02/10

Frankie Pickle and the Closet of Doom by Eric Wight was on the short list of graphic novels for the 2009 Cybils. Francis Piccolo aka Frankie Pickle is a boy with an over active imagination and a very messy room. He'd rather play than clean his room and his mother had decided she's no longer going to clean it for him.

When Frankie's imagination takes over the book becomes a graphic novel. The rest of the time it's written as an early reader chapter book. The library book blogs I read call this blend of genres a "hybrid." Whatever it's called, it's the easy reader version of what The Invention of Hugo Cabret is.

I preferred the graphic novel parts of Frankie Pickle and the Closet of Doom to the chapter book sections. The "real world" passages are very preachy and frankly how many books about the dangers of a messy room do we need?

Although the book didn't wow me, my son loved the book. He read the book three or four times in the course of a week. Since then I've seen him skimming through it.

Comments (2)

Comment #1: Thursday, March, 4, 2010 at 17:11:06

Nicola

My son loved this too. We've got the second in the series here to read soon.

Comment #2: Friday, March 5, 2010 at 21:48:17

Pussreboots

Thank you for the heads up regarding the second book! I checked GoodReads and I see that there's also a third one in the works. I have noted down both titles and will get them for my son. He loved the first book. He's read it cover to cover about six times.