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The Mennyms | 
| Author: Sylvia Waugh
Publisher: Greenwillow Books
Category: Book
List Price: $16.00
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Rating:  18 reviews
Sales Rank: 1470769
Media: School & Library Binding
Edition: 1st American Edition
Reading Level: Ages 9-12
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 212
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.1
Dimensions (in): 9 x 6 x 1.3
ISBN: 0688130704
EAN: 9780688130701
ASIN: 0688130704
Publication Date: April 1994
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Condition: Ex-lib copy with protective wrap and usual markings
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Comments: Publisher: GreenwillowDate of Publication: 1994Binding: Hard CoverEdition: First American EditionCondition: Good-/GoodDescription: 0688130704 Dj in Plastic Ex-Library B 52 Usual library markings DELIVERY CONFIRMATION INCLUDED IN U.S.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 13 more reviews...
Brilliant April 2, 2008
There are some books that have a peculiar charm because you read them as a child. You can reread them a dozen times and never get tired of the story. Other people hear you rave and raise one eyebrow, wondering if they're missing something. "The Mennyms" is such a book.
The Mennym family has lived in Brocklehurst Grove as long as anyone can remember. There's Grandma, Granny Tulip, Joshua and Vanessa, and their five children, Appleby, Soobie, Poopie and Wimpie (twins) and baby Googles. (I wrote their names from memory, see?) Also Ms Quigley, who pretends to reside on Trafalgar Street, but really lives in the hall cupboard.
The Mennyms are not peculiar. They're just a family of life-size rag dolls who have, by years of practice, learned to live alongside humans without attracting notice. They are quite good at being invisible, until one day, a letter arrives in the mail slot. A letter from their landlord's nephew, who just inherited their house and would very much like to visit.
I could go on and on about this book. It's lovely. Absolutely lovely. I mean, look at their names! Poopie and Wimpie? How can you not love this family? Their pretends--drinking "tea" every afternoon from empty cups, hauling out a cardboard turkey each Thanksgiving, lying on their beds each night with their button eyes staring up at the ceiling--their pretends only endear them more.
Although "The Mennyms" is the first in a series of five, the first can stand alone, and I personally prefer it alone. (Waugh gets into some weird stuff in her later books, but perhaps it's just because the first book was the only one I read for years and years.)
There is so much in this book--clever, clever wit, intrigue, ingenuity, characters that grab your heart and twist it. Remember "You've Got Mail?" Remember Kathleen's voice when she tells Joe about "Pride and Prejudice:" "Ahh. Read it. You'll love it." That's me right now, about "The Mennyms."
a treat for readers of all ages September 16, 2005
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
The five books in "The Mennyms" series are almost as monumental as "The Borrowers" series. The concept is similar in that you have a family of "people" who are out-of-the-ordinary enough that they need to keep themselves hidden from the greater human population or risk being exibited as freaks, or worse yet, examined in a labratory. It almost doesn't matter how the "people" are "different", what matters is what the author does with the situation, how believably they can weave together a previously unknown point of view, like that of teeny tiny people living behind the baseboards, or life-sized rag dolls who come to life. The writers who can pull this off smoothly, without showing us too much of the puppeteer who is pulling the strings are few and far between. Sylvia Waugh does a near-masterful job.
I know there are plenty of adults out there who relish a really well-done kid's-book series. Something that tickles your fancy and finds you appreciating the creative author's adult mind-at-play. The Mennyms let's you know right off the bat that you are THERE, relishing away!! These books can be read aloud to kids and enjoyed simultaneously and equally (if not more so) by the adult reader.
I learned about these books while reading "Ascending Peculiarity", a book of interviews done by various people with writer and artist Edward Gorey throughout his life. In one interview, the interviewer asked Mr. Gorey, who was a wildly and widely well-read person, what his top recommendations were for reading. He gave a very short list, and "The Mennyms" series was on it. So that got me going. I checked the books out at my library and I had my fun relishing, and recommend the same to one and all, of all ages.
Pretends and for-reals February 4, 2005
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
The problem with this book is that it's hard to convince other readers that it's the real deal. The premise sounds like that of a fairly generic kid's book: the story of a family of live (human-size) rag dolls. But that's like saying that _The Metamorphosis_ is about a man who turns into a beetle. It's actually a shrewd & often disquieting study of the tensions & loves that bind together a family; it also offers an exceedingly ambivalent portrait of fantasy--the pathos of the dolls who engage in "pretends" (whether harmless--Joshua's comforting pretense that he's drinking from an empty mug of coffee--or much more harmful, such as the monstrous prank played by Appleby in this novel). & it has a curiously delicate approach to religious themes: on the one hand, each book in the series has a moment that quietly implies an act of divine benevolence--& yet Soobie (the most philosophical of the dolls) is an agnostic who in any case doubts that God, if he exists, cares about dolls like he does abotu humans. So Soobie's an unbeliever quietly asking God to help him in his unbelief (& yet his prayers _are_ answered). The book gives me a stsrong sense of how family life (however loving) can become a terrible burden in the absence of outside relationships (to friends, boyfriends, neighbours, &c). This is the dolls' real problem: that they are stuck with their own company, that their world is circumscribed by their own family.
This is all to make the book sound terribly heavy--which it isn't, though if you're expecting whimsy & colourful fantasy this certainly isn't the book for you. It's great storytelling, though with more of an emphasis on the strangeness of daily routine (& the little lies & deceptions that go into it--encapsulated in the habitual, thoughtlessly inconsiderate treatment of Miss Quigley, forced to wait in a closet for ages until it's time to "pretend" that she's visiting from a house on Trethewick St.) than on elaborate plot. This may be a "grown-up" book, but many young readers are very grown-up, of course.
One final note: I was surprised to see that the mysterious doll in the attic is named "Nuova Pilbeam". She's the only doll with a first name, & there's a reason for this: it's an allusion to the teenage British actress Nova Pilbeam, who was the kidnapped daughter in Hitchcock's _The Man Who Knew Too Much_ (the 1934 version).
 Never has a title seemed so much like a palindrome & wasn't September 22, 2004
4 out of 5 found this review helpful
You know, when I read Neil Gaiman's fantasy novel, "Coraline", I was under the distinct impression that the idea of people walking around with buttons for eyes was a new thought on his part. Then I picked up "The Mennyms" by Sylvia Waugh and found that I had, yet again, rushed to a wrong conclusion. Written originally in Britain in 1993, the book has been compared to "The Borrowers" in terms of its storyline and characters. But where "The Borrowers" was a tale of tiny people who just wanted to be left alone, the Mennyms are a family of living breathing rag dolls. I should add, life sized rag dolls. But lest you start thinking that this is some namby-pamby book in which a bunch of magical dolls have wonderful adventures, allow me to put your mind at ease (or not, depending on what kind of person you are). This book has more spunk and sizzle than a can of Jolt Cola and reading this book will do anything but bore you.
It begins, as so many good novels do, with a letter. The Mennyms, created by an elderly lady years ago, have been living quite peacefully in their house on Brocklehurst Grove. Their house has been leased to them from the distant Chesney Loftus and they have quite successfully hidden themselves away from the outside world for roughly 40 years. Then a letter arrives. Chesney, it seems, has died. The house and all its worldly possessions has fallen into the hands of his nephew, a Mr. Albert Pond. And unlike his uncle, Mr. Pond is very anxious to meet his distant tenants. Faced with the possibility that they will all soon be discovered, Pond's letter sets off a chain of events. In time, the Mennyms may have to change some of the solid routines they've been going through for 40 odd years. Drastically.
In spite of being life sized dolls, the Mennym family isn't cutesy in the least. These dolls bicker, fight, throw tantrums, and occasionally storm out of room in a huff. They're also loving and tender when it suits them, but don't expect them to be saints. Trapped in bodies that will never age or die, they have established their family roles brilliantly. The teens are alternately stubborn or moody as best suits their personalities. The parents wise or willfully ignorant as suits theirs. Yet by the end of the book they've not only overcome their own personal prejudices (even ragdolls have a kind of class system in place) but also some long standing grudges. Good children's books feature characters that grow and change through the course of the action. "The Mennyms" isn't afraid of doing that one bit. More's the better.
Not to give anything away, but the surprise twist that pops up in roughly the middle of the book is a doozy. One I definitely didn't see coming. I love any kid's book that can throw its adult readers for a loop. This one succeeds brilliantly. Though I figured that teenaged Appleby was up to something, it never occurred to me what exactly that "something" might be. Keep your eyes peeled when you read this one. The clues are all presented there for you. If you prefer just a good story over a mystery, however, "The Mennyms" still delivers. A fun concept and enjoyable book. I doubt any kid reading it wouldn't want to meet a Mennym of their very own. An outstanding selection.
Dolls alive! April 24, 2004
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
When a family of live dolls face a tough challenge after years of contentment, they are forced into action. But, when time starts ticking, and nothing is happening, The Mennyms must face the fact, that there is a traitor in their family.
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