Marvelous Middle Grade Monday: Elliot & the Goblin War

Happy New Year! I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday and is looking forward to a new year filled with health, happiness, and success (whatever that means to you)!

Middle Grade Author Shannon Whitney Messenger began Marvelous Middle Grade Mondays a while back. If you love middle grade literature, check out her blog for a list of other sites featuring MG books.

Today I’ll talk about Elliot & the Goblin War by Jennifer Nielsen. 

From Goodreads: As of today, there are only seven children who have ever read this book and lived to tell about it. Ninety five children successfully read the first chapter, but upon beginning Chapter Two, they started blabbering in some language known only as “flibberish,” which makes it very hard to tell their parents why they can’t finish their homework. The only thing known for sure about those who read the final chapters of this book is that something in Chapter Fifteen seems to make body parts fall off. Read it now, if you dare. But don’t say you haven’t been warned, for this is the story that unfolds the mysteries of the Underworld.

From Vicki: The blurb above comes from the foreword of the book and its tone is faithful to the narrative tone of the entire book. But since the above doesn’t actually tell you what the story is about, allow me to summarize. Elliot is a human boy who once saved a Brownie from Goblins and now the Brownies want him to help them stop the war with the Goblins. The Goblins, on the other hand, don’t want to end the war, but they would be happy to end Elliot.

Elliot has a bunch of siblings (one of whom cooks for them and always burns dinner), lives in a crooked house, and is bullied by a human named Tubs. Now, I don’t know any children in the same circumstances, but anyone can relate to Elliot’s journey. You will root for him to figure out how to do the best he can for the Brownies without losing his life.

I unequivocally loved this book. The story moves at a quick pace and the voice had me on page one. I kept laughing out loud on the elliptical at my local gym.

A-Read is looking forward to reading this one, too, as soon as he finishes Savvy. He especially wants to read about the character named Fudd Fartwick. Which illustrates some of Jennifer Nielsen’s brilliance. She gets the sense of humor of 8-year-old boys and delivers the kind of situations, character names, and character traits that young boys will appreciate.

Elliot and the Pixie Plot (Book 2 of the Underworld Chronicles) was published in May by Sourcebooks and is now on my to-read list.