The Real Boy

The Real Boy: By Anne Ursu

Oscar lives with a magician and helps him by getting the things that he needs from the greenhouse.  He is told to stay in the cellar and not to interact with the people that come to the shop.  One day the magician is gone, and the magician's apprentice tells Oscar that he is going off and that Oscar needs to run the shop.  Oscar has a hard time, but the day gets even worse when the apprentice comes back to the shop dead. Oscar knows that something is going on, and he reads about it in the books he is forbidden to read. When things start to fall apart Oscar must work with the only friend he has, Callie, to solve the mystery of the bad things going on around them.  What he finds, he is not expecting at all.

This was a twist on the story of Pinocchio.  It was great.  I liked how Oscar had no idea that he was not a real boy, and that he figured it out on his own.  Oscar was a very difficult character to understand, because he had such limited experiences in the story, that when he was put into situations with other people, he had a really hard time talking with them and interacting with them.  I believe that kids will connect with Oscar because he feels like he is really different.  This author also wrote Breadcrumbs, which is another great retelling of a fairy tale.

I borrowed this from the public library

ISBN: 978-0-06-201507-5