Product Description

A diehard heavy-metal fan, Jim Hedgehog buys a cassette, Lonesome Tower, from the mysterious Mr. Strange, and the unusual tune takes Jim on an odyssey to a haunted castle with a real lonesome tower.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #3573369 in Books
• Published on: 1992-03-23
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 39 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Jim Hedgehog, an avid heavy-metal fan, buys an audiocassette from Mr. Strange, a stoat wearing sunglasses and a polka-dotted tie. Entitled Lonesome Tower , the tape plays a song that "sounded like a hundred tomcats and a thousand bees in the middle of a hurricane." Mr. Strange also sells Jim a recorder and an instructional book. After Jim's mother gives him a lively lesson on reading music, he masters the one song in the book. This tune eventually leads Jim to the Lonesome Tower, where he helps a shackled, wild-haired woman recover her lost song. With its occasionally advanced wordplay, Hoban's offbeat tale will be beyond most readers in the intended age group. They will more readily appreciate Lewin's witty pictures, which depict the contrast between young Jim's innocence and the zaniness of the realm of the Lonesome Tower. Ages 6-9.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From School Library Journal
Grade 1-4-- Jim Hedgehog, heavy-metal fan extraordinaire, stumbles on a new and unusual cassette at an open-air flea market. ``It sounded like a hundred tomcats and a thousand bees in the middle of a hurricane.'' Mr. Strange, a stoat : in dark glasses, sells it to him along with a recorder and a book of tunes. Fans of Roald Dahl and Hoban's Monsters (Scholastic, 1990) will appreciate the sophisticated humor, while graduates of his ``Frances'' (HarperCollins) books will recognize the familiar parent-child banter. Jim complains to his mother, ```Harry Slime is lead guitarist for Giant Squid . . . and he can't read music.''' She explains, ```Maybe he's an orphan, but you've got me.''' Lewin's spiky watercolor cartoons create a slightly spooky atmosphere and marvelously reinforce the book's sly humor. Slow and reluctant readers will enjoy the zany plot, as will dyed-in-the-wool Hoban fans. --Ruth Smith, formerly at Chicago Public Library
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Kirkus Reviews
Plump little Jim ``liked his music loud and he liked it heavy,'' but he doesn't know how to read music--an inconvenient fact discovered by his mother after Mr. Strange (a stoat) sells them a recorder cheap. Mom gives Jim a succinct lesson in ``do re mi'' and the staff's lines and spaces (``Fat Alligators Cautiously Eat Grapefruit'') despite Jim's punning parries; then the recorder leads Jim to an inn where he gets word of a noisy music-maker in a nearby tower, a fearsome place where he finds ``Itsa Thing,'' a blond singer hung about with chains, lamenting a lost song she didn't know how to write down--a skill Jim can now share. All this is a curious descendant of Hoban's cozily endearing Frances stories. The little badger's songs were surprisingly similar to the lyrics recorded here; and where Frances embodied everyday friendly conflicts, Jim's fixation on heavy metal sometimes seems almost as universal. The story is less earthshaking than the music described, but Hoban is still a master of satirical legerdemain; his wordplay and cleverly interwoven innuendos make a magical music of their own. Lewin's winsome, freely limned hedgehogs are as comical--and nearly as deft--as the drawings of Hoban's sometime British illustrator, Quentin Blake. Far-out, but funny, truly original, and sure to appeal to the right audience. (Fiction. 7-10) -- Copyright ©1992, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Customer Reviews

Funney Book
Jim Hedgehog is a heavy metal fan, but his mum likes mellower kinds of music, so when Jim buys a tape with the latest heavy metal music on it, his mum buys him a recorder and teaches him to play it.