The title of the story intrigued me and the opening sentence
hooked me in;
Ebenezer Tweezer was a
terrible man with a wonderful life.
We first meet the 511-year-old Ebenezer in a pet shop where
he is about to do a very bad thing. In the shop he also meets a small bony girl
with a backpack that has two stickers; one reads BETHANY and the other BOG OFF.
Their paths are destined to cross.
Like Dorian Grey, Ebenezer appears young and handsome and
floppy fringed but, instead of a hideous portrait in the attic, Ebenezer is
harbouring and humouring the terrible Beast and his insatiable appetite. Each
year the Beast provides him with a potion to keep him looking young, as well as
vomiting out any object that he desires. All Ebenezer has to do is keep the
food coming. This is a story where anything is possible and many terrible and
hilarious antics are revealed. Isabelle Follath’s line drawings quickly
establish the surreal world of the book and work seamlessly alongside the
narrative.
The first terrible thing that we see Ebenezer do involves
Patrick the Parrot and the Beast. I was glad I had been forewarned that Ebenezer
was terrible because I was alarmed at the fate of Patrick and a tad concerned
about Ebenezer’s next task: to find a child sized meal for the Beast to devour.
I gasped at the cruel trick the Beast played upon Bethany. It was so mean! But
the quality and tone of Jack’s writing
made me feel that I was in a safe pair of hands and that this story, as well as
providing lots of laughs, contained real jeopardy but also a lot of heart.
As Claudette the Parrot points out;
‘No-one is perfect,
and everyone has to die. Be sorry for the mistakes you make and remember the
friends who are lost …..If you want to honour Patrick’s memory you can do it by
bringing some joy into the world.’
Bethany and the joy she derives from doing horrible things is
more than a match for Ebenezer and an unlikely friendship forms. As the story
develops we also find out Bethany and Ebenezer’s backstories. They may live in
a cartoonish world but they are not cardboard caricatures and this gives real
heart and feeling to the tale where the Beast is cut down to size, and thanks
to the actions of Claudette the stage is set for another story.
A stunning debut.
ISBN 978-14052-9888-9
Egmont
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