On "The Willoughbys": A Book Review

Title: The Willoughbys
Author: Lois Lowry ( or as the cover delightfully puts it, "A Novel Nefariously Written & Ignominiously Illustrated by the Author")
Genre: Children's Fiction

About the book...
The Willoughbys are your average happy family, just like all the old-fashioned families you always read about...except the children, Tim, Barnaby A and Barnaby B, and Jane, don't like their parents, the parents don't like the children, and the baby left on their doorstep that they should have been happy to find, they leave on someone else's doorstep. Really, they aren't your average, happy, old-fashioned family, so in an attempt to become orphans the children arrange for their parents to find a brochure from the Reprehensible Travel Agency, which they arrange a trip with, and Mr. and Mrs. Willoughby leave the children with a nanny and try sell the house while they're away. Meanwhile, a billionaire by the name of Commander Melanoff lives nearby and having lost his wife and son in an avalanche, has fallen into a state of depression. A discovery of a baby on his doorstep changes things, though.

What I think...
I read this book when it first came out in 2008 and really liked it, so I was curious to see how well it had aged when I recently thought of it. I am happy to say that it was still just as delightful and quirky!

I feel like Lowry is much better know for her more serious books like The Giver and Number the Stars, but she does comedy really well (I still love her Anastasia Krupnik books, which I first read in elementary school). As I've mentioned before, I like parodies and spoofs and Lowry does a fantastic job getting all the elements from the traditional happy family story packed into this story with all sorts of references to the more traditional stories like Mary Poppins and Anne of Green Gables.

This book definitely falls under the same category as Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events or any number of Roald Dahl books, though I would say it has a slightly lighter tone to it. In comparison, things are presented as being more matter of fact (the children are very practical without it being presented as a character trait) and while the plot does revolve around a mutual dislike, nothing really horrendous happens to anyone.  

One really enjoyable element is that Lowry uses a fair number of large or more old-fashioned sounding words throughout the text and has provided a glossary for them at the end. It in itself is quite funny!

To sum it all up...
A wonderful re-read for me and a book I should really be recommending much more often! I might add, there is also a sequel, The Willoughbys Return. ♥