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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
4 of 7 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Showing astounding knowledge of childhoods ups and downs, Arnold suceeds in writing a witty, and insightful book. Arnold's friendly, funny voice is one you instantly trust and like, and her eye for detail adds further to the thoroughly enjoyable experience.
As a book that can be read, and enjoyed, by both children and adults alike, The Invisible Friend certainly helps Arnold to set off into the litarary world on the right foot. For this well written effort, Arnold is to be congratulated.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
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14 reviews
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
An Out of Body Friendship
12 July 2005
Format:Hardcover
3 and ½ stars. Louise Arnold's Golden and Grey finds its way to being a rollicking read after an leisurely stroll through exposition. Tom Golden is a boy being relentlessly bullied at his new school. His despair is so great that he comes to the attention of an innocuous young ghost named Grey Arthur, who is searching for his ghostly role in life. Grey Arthur becomes Golden's Invisible Friend and guardian, and eventually introduces Tom to the rest of the ghostly universe. When Tom's ability to see ghosts is taken advantage of, it is up to Arthur and his ghosts to save the day.
Avoiding Potter syndrome when you write a book dealing with ghosts is practically impossible. Arnold has stamped her impression on the nature of ghosts (they don't say "ooooo", they're not dead people, etc.), but she does include a ghostly newspaper (the Daily Tell-Tale), phantoms that suck in light, and a boy who is able to see spirits. Though perhaps unconsciously derivative, the force of Arnold's imagination is able to suppress most parallels in readers' minds.
The warmth of the story comes in the relationship between the two boys, and Arnold's descriptions of bullying and isolation. Tom seems destined to make a fool of himself, which Arnold knows means social death in schoolroom politics. She is also particularly astute on certain small details, like Tom's mother's disgusting leftovers, his father's experimental socks, and the repetitive routine of mornings before school. A stray cliché now and again ("cold fear" and things reaching out like "greedy hands") could have been edited out.
Golden and Grey's pace picks up measurably as the ghosts band together to use their talents against Tom's enemy. The "bad guy" is frighteningly real in a modern context, as is the reaction of Tom's parents to his situation. Descriptions of Tom's plight will have both generations of readers feeling taut inside. This kind of dramatic pull is hard to create, and Arnold deserves credit for achieving it. I look forward to reading her next book, which can hopefully avoid the problems of comparisons with Potter.
Avoiding Potter syndrome when you write a book dealing with ghosts is practically impossible. Arnold has stamped her impression on the nature of ghosts (they don't say "ooooo", they're not dead people, etc.), but she does include a ghostly newspaper (the Daily Tell-Tale), phantoms that suck in light, and a boy who is able to see spirits. Though perhaps unconsciously derivative, the force of Arnold's imagination is able to suppress most parallels in readers' minds.
The warmth of the story comes in the relationship between the two boys, and Arnold's descriptions of bullying and isolation. Tom seems destined to make a fool of himself, which Arnold knows means social death in schoolroom politics. She is also particularly astute on certain small details, like Tom's mother's disgusting leftovers, his father's experimental socks, and the repetitive routine of mornings before school. A stray cliché now and again ("cold fear" and things reaching out like "greedy hands") could have been edited out.
Golden and Grey's pace picks up measurably as the ghosts band together to use their talents against Tom's enemy. The "bad guy" is frighteningly real in a modern context, as is the reaction of Tom's parents to his situation. Descriptions of Tom's plight will have both generations of readers feeling taut inside. This kind of dramatic pull is hard to create, and Arnold deserves credit for achieving it. I look forward to reading her next book, which can hopefully avoid the problems of comparisons with Potter.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Utterly charming!
6 July 2005
Format:Hardcover
Louise Arnold's first book is a delightful, charming story. Her main characters are adorable, without ever resorting to cutesy-ness. Comparisons to Harry Potter are inevitable, given that Ms. Arnold previewed this story in an "Are You The Next J.K Rowling?" contest, but this story is completely original and stands firmly on its own two feet.
And now I finally know where all those lost socks went!
And now I finally know where all those lost socks went!
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
The next great children's author
25 Aug 2005
Format:Hardcover
Rather than harping on about "The next J.K. Rowling" like it's the end of the line for all children's authors, I think Louise Arnold breaks the mould and firmly places herself as a innovative and exciting new children's author. J.K. Rowling has the idiocity of childish love sussed, Phillip Pullman has fantasty wrapped around his fist like a barb-wire glove and Lemony Snickett makes morbid and dark the new fun and light. Louise Arnold gives us something new, and something better. A good sense of humour, an insight into childhood (and the simple traumas coming with it) and all wrapped up in the real world (plus ghosts... who aren't dead people, by the way).
Golden & Grey is a quirky, intelligent and explosively imaginative tale about a young boy who, after an accident, can see ghosts. The ghost he is lucky enough to see is Grey Arthur, a lost creature who never knew what he was until he incorrectly attached himself to Tom Golden, believing he was his invisible friend. As irony has it, after Tom's accident his invisible friend becomes visible to no-one but him. This relationship between the two friends is marvellously played out, but it is the peripheral characters that really make the novel shine.
Too much detail at this stage would be foolish and spoil the fun, but Golden and Grey is full of warm and funny chracters, sinister madmen and a whole new world which you'll be dying to find out more about way after you put the book down.
This book will appeal to all, and really reminds me of the struggles of growing up (minus the ghosts). Bullies, stupid parents and blind-trust - three things everyone can surely relate to.
I recommend this book to anyone and hope to see more from this promising and highly-amusing author.
Golden & Grey is a quirky, intelligent and explosively imaginative tale about a young boy who, after an accident, can see ghosts. The ghost he is lucky enough to see is Grey Arthur, a lost creature who never knew what he was until he incorrectly attached himself to Tom Golden, believing he was his invisible friend. As irony has it, after Tom's accident his invisible friend becomes visible to no-one but him. This relationship between the two friends is marvellously played out, but it is the peripheral characters that really make the novel shine.
Too much detail at this stage would be foolish and spoil the fun, but Golden and Grey is full of warm and funny chracters, sinister madmen and a whole new world which you'll be dying to find out more about way after you put the book down.
This book will appeal to all, and really reminds me of the struggles of growing up (minus the ghosts). Bullies, stupid parents and blind-trust - three things everyone can surely relate to.
I recommend this book to anyone and hope to see more from this promising and highly-amusing author.
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