Customer Reviews: Read 38 more reviews...
 Top children's book of all time. December 21, 2008
Without question the best children's book of all time, and high on my list of books to own, regardless of age.
My favorite book, apparently in revival December 20, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
This was the first book I ever remember, and the first book I could read to myself. I have read it out loud to many children, and hope to read it to future grandchildren. My copy, from 1950, sits with Darwin's Origin of Species, Ulysses, and the complete full size edition of the Oxford English Dictionary, and I consider The 13 Clocks to hold its own against these masterpieces. I must have been about 6 when my father first read it to me, and it inspired me to learn to read myself. I named my doll Saralinda, but I have not had the courage to name a pet The Golux because it would be too important, almost a sacrilege.
In this new era, when I see small children using iPhones and plugged into video games, I hope that this new issue of Thurber's masterpiece and the publicity it has garnered will help at least a few parents to unplug the electronics, and just sit down to read out loud to their children. This book can be read to toddlers - the poetry and rhymes are like Seuss. It can be read to older, wiser 8-10 year olds because it is scary and melodious. And I have read parts of it out loud to 50 year olds, especially those with compassion fatigue, as there is no more clear literary example of burnout than Hagga, who went from crying diamonds to crying costume jewelry and rhinestones.
I am glad that others remember Thurber, and that a new generation can now appreciate what I consider to be the best children's book ever written.
One of my top 10 children's books November 29, 2008
A wonderful book that is special for children and their parents - the perfect combination of silly and sweet. Thurber tells us in his preface that he had a great time writing the book and you can feel it. Read this book aloud to your kidlets so you don't miss out on the fun of his word choices.
Very amusing October 17, 2008
The 13 Clocks is an amusing tale with lots of dry wit for grown-ups and charming pictures for kids. The story has a satisfying flow and conclusion where the bad guy pays and the good guy wins.
Wonderful, wordy, poetic -- begs to be read aloud! October 5, 2008
"Once upon a time, in a gloomy castle on a lonely hill, where there were thirteen clocks that wouldn't go, there lived a cold, aggressive Duke, and his neice, the Princess Saralinda."
Well. that first line has just about everything you need to start off a fairy tale, doesn't it? And it only gets better from there.
The New York Review has just reissued Thurber's classic, paired with the illustrations by Marc Simont, with a new introduction by Neil Gaiman.
The 13 Clocks is as full of fairy tale as you can get, with a Princess, the evil Duke, and, of course, a Prince. But there's also a Golux, who seems wise, but who sometimes makes things up and is extremely forgetful, the 13 clocks, an old woman who cries jewels, and the Todal ("The Todal looks like a blop of glup. , , , It makes a sound like rabbits screaming, and smells of old, unopened rooms.")
The story, although it's exciting and scary and thrilling, isn't even the best part. No the best part, as far as I'm concerned is the words that make up the story itself and the poetical way Thurber weaves them together. It's not really poetry, yet, at the same time, it is. This story, like poems, uses those glittery, evocative, slippery wonderful words -- like "brambles and thorns and "bonged the gongs of a throng of frogs, all green and vivid on their lily pads." Words like "gleep" and "made of lip" and "impudence" and "savage clash of swords." -- that together imbue the tale with feeling and delight.
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This is truly a wonderful story and one that simply begs to be read aloud.
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