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Home > Categories > Books > Young Adult > Russell Brand's Trickster Tales - The Pied Piper of Hamelin review
With this first picture book in Russell Brand's Trickster Tales series, the famed comedian, actor, and bestselling author delivers a hilarious retelling of an old fairytale favorite that will appeal to adults and children alike.
Once upon a time, long ago, in a time that seemed, to those present, exactly like now except their teeth weren't so clean and more things were wooden, there was a town called Hamelin. The people of Hamelin were a pompous bunch who loved themselves and their town so much that if it were possible they would have spent all day zipped up in a space suit smelling their own farts. But space suits hadn't been invented yet so they couldn't.
Then one day without warning a gang of rats bowled into the town and began causing a right rumpus...
So begins Russell Brand's wildly funny and surprisingly wise retelling of the classic tale The Pied Piper of Hamelin. Whether you're a kid or a grown-up kid, you'll be chuckling the whole way through this zany story that bypasses Brand's more adult humor for the outrageous, the madcap, and the just plain silly.
Maybe you've heard about the Pied Piper before, with his strange music and those pompous townspeople and pesky rats. Or maybe you haven't. But one thing is for sure: you've never heard it quite like this.
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Review by: shellcruise (Shelley)
Dated: 10th of March, 2015
Looking at the cover I did not expect to enjoy this book. The pictures are not as sharp as I like and seemed like it was going to be dark and scary. However, I was pleasantly surprised with how much I did enjoy it.
The pictures are perfect for the story and they complement each other beautifully. The book is done in a great way with pages changing colours from pink to blue to the boring white. The writing is all over the place with large font, zany font and small tiny font. It is wacky and it all works beautifully together. The story is well writen and I especially loved when there is a hard word there is an explanation to what that word actually means which helped me out a lot.
The story is as it is meant to be nasty rats run riot in a lovely self eccentric town. A man says he will remove the rats for a price and then once he has delivered on his word the town folk back down and show there true colours so he gets his revenge on the town. I knew of the story but had forgotten most of it so was nice to reread.
I was amazed to find out it is actually based on a true story. Happened in Germany and the children where never found. All disappeared but one, depending what story you read - a lame child as could not keep up, a blind child as could not see or a deaf child as could not hear. So was nice to see Russell Brand sticking mostly to the truth.
A good book. I read alone but conterplating reading to my younger girls going to let my husband try out first.
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