Whales on Stilts

M.T. Anderson's Thrilling Tales

By: M. T. Anderson

Narrated by: Marc Cashman

Lily Gefelty is just an average twelve-year-old girl. But her dad–a normal-enough seeming guy–just so happens to work for an evil genius who plans to unleash an army of extremely cranky, stilt-walking, laser-beam-eyed whales upon the world. Lucky for Lily, her two best friends are anything but average. Both of them are famous for their adventures. Jasper Dash, Boy Technonaut, invents gadgets; Katie Mulligan spends her spare time fighting off zombies and were-goats. Surely they'll know what to do. And if they don't? then it will be up to Lily–average, everyday Lily–to come up with a plan.

With this crazy comic ride of a novel, M. T. Anderson launches a riotous and wonderfully weird new series for listeners who like their thrilling tales with tongue firmly in cheek.©2005 M.T. Anderson; (P)2006 Random House, Inc. Listening Library, an imprint of the Random House Audio Publishing Group

I loved it, until my son played it on repeat for the 1002nd millionth time.

It’s a quirky interesting book. I enjoyed the way it was written and recorded. Unfortunately my 12 year old loved it possibly more than I did. He played it so often I can repeat passages verbatim. I like the story, but not enough to hear it that often. I just purchased all of the recordings with these characters that I could in the hopes that he might listen to something ANYTHING else. Any parent of a frozen crazed child understands what I’m going through. Those first few bars of the syrupy sweet disneytastic “do you want to build a snowman?” Hit, the hair on the back of your neck snaps to attention as a crazed look fills your eyes and foam develops at the corners of your mouth. For the love of god if you buy this for your kid, invest in a fantastic set of earphones as well. Your sanity depends on it.

Book was great. Which I hadn’t heard it so many times.

As funny as I remember!

I read this in second grade I think and it instantly became my favorite book ever. It may be a little more directed to 5th grade and up maybe but its family friendly regardless. Its has very bizarre and almost Gaiman-esque sense of humor. This book actually made me laugh still. Regardless how old you are just give it a try.

Drink your Gargletine!

Didn't like all the ads

Yes. There are lots of very long, boring ads for other books by the same author or publisher. It was really amazing. They were placed right in the middle of the story in 2-3 places. Just when something is about to happen to the main character the next second the narator is going on and on about 50 other books you could buy. We lowered the sound for about 10-15 minutes while they went on and on. As for the story, my 7 year-old boy liked it but lost interest during the ads. I would not reccomend it.