What kids wouldn't want their own ever-expanding treehouse, with a bowling alley, a limitless marshmallow-launcher, a swimming pool, a watermelon-smashing room, and a rocket-powered carrot-launcher?!?! The Treehouse series originated in Australia and has become a best-seller in the United States, Britain, the Netherlands, Norway and South Korea. The 91-Story Treehouse which hits shelves in the US this week.
The 91-Story TreehouseI'm happy to welcome Andy Griffiths here to share about his vision and purpose creating this best-selling, crowd-pleasing series.
by Andy Griffiths
illustrated by Terry Denton
Macmillan, 2018
Your local library / Amazon
ages 7-10
"The Treehouse series is a comic-adventure-fantasy which employs lavish illustration & graphic nonsense on every page in order to tell a very silly but involving and complex story with a minimum of words.
This gives us an unusually broad and passionate readership of emerging, reluctant and highly competent readers from 5 - 13 years old and we are especially proud that the series has equal appeal for both boys and girls.
Each book in the series (and they can be read in any order) features a brilliant always-on-task writer called Andy—that’s me—and Terry, the irresponsible and easily distracted illustrator living in an ever-expanding fantasy treehouse while trying write a book for our bad-tempered & demanding publisher Jean Feiwel—I mean Mr Big Nose—who, if he doesn’t get his book on time gets so mad his nose explodes—but the problem is we can’t write the book because Terry keeps getting distracted by all the crazy stuff going on in the treehouse and then our intrepid and ever-resourceful neighbour Jill comes over and helps us sort it all out and then we write the book about all the crazy stuff that happened while we were trying to write the book and then we send it to Mr Big Nose just in time to prevent his nose from exploding."
I've seen kids gobble these stories up. They love the silliness, the abundant illustrations, and the rampant imagination. Take a look at The 13-Story Treehouse preview from Google Books:
The New York Times compares Andy Griffiths to Roald Dahl, which I think is apt.
"Mr. Griffiths’ work is both witty and fantastical, with a dark edge not dissimilar to Roald Dahl. In person, however, he is humble and thoughtful, if tightly coiled, with the taut, sinewy body of a long-distance runner and zany green eyes."I'd argue that the visual nature, drawing on cartoons and comics, makes these stories even more appealing to today's kids.
Why 91 stories in this treehouse, you might wonder? Griffiths began with 13 levels in the first book back in 2011, and has added another 13 levels every year since. So you get the secret numerical code hidden in the titles: 13-26-39-52-65-78-91. Next March will bring The 104-Story Treehouse, which will bring the US completely up to date with Australia.
Griffiths concludes with a nod to humor and to his true purpose:
If you’re wondering, our secret agenda—aside from evoking the exhilarating joy and freedom of imaginative play and converting non-readers into passionate book-lovers—is to teach children the sadly neglected 13 times table."Here's what I wrote in 2014 when Andy visited our school:
My favorite part? I love how Andy gives total permission to laugh at anything -- whether it's stinky underwear or stuffing your face with marshmallows. He tells plenty of poop jokes, because he knows his audience (hello, have you listened to 8 year old boys?), but he also gets us laughing at our greatest fears.Andy visits with an Australia classroom and gets them excited about writing their own stories:
He's got some great tips for young writers here. Also check out his website FAQs to learn more about his process.
Many thanks, Andy, for all your creative storytelling and for working so hard to keep us all laughing. If you make a purchase using the Amazon links on this site, a small portion goes to Great Kid Books. Thank you for your support.
©2018 Mary Ann Scheuer, Great Kid Books
