A House Called Awful End: Book One in the Eddie Dickens Trilogy
"When Eddie Dickens was eleven years old, both his parents caught some  awful disease that made them turn yellow, go a bit crinkly around the edges, and  smell of old hot water bottles." So begins author Philip Ardagh's silly story of  an ill-fated boy who, due to his parents' jaundiced condition, is forced to take  part in a quest so preposterous that it could only conclude atA House Called  Awful End. Set in England, back in the days when "postage stamps were a  pretty new idea," Eddie finds himself put in the dubious care of his Mad Uncle  Jack and Mad Aunt Maud, who not only assault him with a stuffed stoat and make  him sleep in his trunk, but carelessly turn him over to the St. Horrid's Home  for Grateful Orphans. There, he stages a breakout, smuggles himself and the  other orphans out in the belly of a cow parade float, and is miraculously  reunited with his newly recovered parents. And if you're thinking that this plot  is utter nonsense, you're absolutely right. Ardagh originally wrote the  ridiculous farce as a series of letters to entertain his nephew in boarding  school and thought it may charm others as well. While adult readers may scratch  their heads in bewilderment as they try to follow this riotously rambling  narrative, children have long been aficionados of the absurd, andAwful  Endwill no doubt appeal hugely to those fans of Lemony Snicket's Series of  Unfortunate Events and Neil Gaiman's wonderfully weirdCoraline. Book one in a  proposed trilogy. (Ages 9 to 12)--Jennifer Hubert