My Never Ending List

This book has an interesting concept. Each chapter is devoted to three short stories (3-4 pages each). These chapters are themed, for example there are a couple chapters devoted to plants, animals, and humans. As you read each of the three stories in the chapter, you as a reader, are to decide which story out of the three is a fake. In the back of the book, you can research your chapter and find out if your prediction was correct. In the Answer Guide, the author tells you a bit more about the stories and why the one story, out of the three, was a lie. I have mixed feelings about this novel.

 

I read these stories out loud to my husband as we traveled this past weekend. I would read the three stories and then we each would make a prediction on which story we thought was a lie. Sometimes we both choose the same story and other times we each chose a different story, which began a conversation about what made our story a lie. I liked the off-beat stories as I thought they were interesting and enlightening. The illustrations all looked promising and real, yet I knew that one of the stories was a lie and I found myself analyzing the illustrations with great care. There were topics about bridges made out of vines, a headless chicken, how to stop the aging process and x-ray vision, just to name a few. As we read through the chapters, we both were left pondering on a few of them as we both thought there seemed to be two lies and not just one. We really had to analyze these stories and think them through. Again, I loved the topics that were covered as I love learning new and quirky things. What I didn’t like about this novel is that I thought for some readers, they might have a hard time when they realize the true answer. The author had written some great detailed stories and as I read, I was believing that most of this was true. After finding the story that was a lie, I had to rethink about the facts for that story, telling myself that they were lies. I had to rewire my thoughts from my first original telling of the information. I just hope in the future, I don’t tell one of the fake stories to someone and forget that it was fake. I think this would be a great book for kids who are inquisitive about the world around them and for kids who love to learn new interesting ideas. This was a fun, interesting novel and the stories were excellent.