The Game of Sunken Places

by M.T. Anderson

Book Overview

An "enormously entertaining"* adventure novel from award-winner M. T. Anderson. When Brian and Gregory receive an invitation to stay at a distant relative's strange mansion...well, they should know... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0439713323
• ISBN13: 9780439713320
• Release Date: January 2004
• Publisher: Scholastic Press
• Length: 260 Pages
• Weight: 0.90 lbs.

Customer Reviews

The best book in the universe!!

I'm 11 and I really enjoyed this book. It's a really good book for kids and adults. Anyone who's interested in science fiction mystery with some humor will love this book. There's really nothing I didn't like about it, it's the best thing I've ever read. It's kind of depressing that not many people know about it. Read it! This summer! Or else!

Intriguing, witty and clever

Ever since he wrote Feed I've been a fan of his writing abilities and was glad that he wrote a book for a younger audience. Two boys, best friends take a week vacation to an uncle's house-yes, a rich, eccentric and incredibly old-fashioned uncle. The boys are trapped in a mysterious game, one is which they do not no the rules, the objective, the other players, and worse of all the potential deadly consequences to winning, losing, or even not playing. Shrouded in mystery, it seems everyone in the uncle's house, including the staff knows of the game and are all under an oath of secrecy. The more you find out about "The Game" the more questions you have and the less certain you are about the possible purpose and outcomes of the game. Fascinating, and even in the end, not all the questions are answered (deliberately-for example I STILL am not sure why it's called the Game of Sunken Places) and that leaves the door open to reexamine the game at a later point in time.

A non-stop page turner

When I first got this book I wasn't sure what to expect. The opening flap suggested a Chronicles of Narnia kind of feel, but what I got was totally different. The book starts out when the main character, Gregory and his friend Brian are invited to stay at Gregory's Uncle's old house in the country. There they discover a lost civilization, a mysterious game, and many extrodinary adventures and creatures. For me, this book was not only a captivating read but had me laughing so hard I was on the ground in tears. This bok was well written, but some of the words may be a bit difficult to understand (and there are no dictionary quotes like in "A Series of Unfortunate Events"). I highly reccomend this book for anyone who loves fantasy, particularly if you enjoy lost countries and mythical beings made to fit into our own world without flaw.

Hilarious, and full of quirky, creepy surprises

"The woods were silent, other than the screaming." Right from this first sentence of THE GAME OF SUNKEN PLACES, readers get a good idea of the creepy fun they're in for in M. T. Anderson's masterful new fantasy novel. In addition to being genuinely scary, Anderson's novel also manages to be wickedly clever and laugh-out-loud funny at the same time. If you just look at the book's jacket, you'd think THE GAME OF SUNKEN PLACES was one of those old-time adventure novels. And, in many ways, you'd be right. The story does feel very old-fashioned, even though it's set in the present day. Part of the book's nostalgic feel comes from the plot. There's the eccentric (borderline insane) uncle living in a ramshackle mansion in the woods of Vermont, for one thing. Gregory and his best friend Brian travel by train to stay with Gregory's uncle during their autumn school vacation. Uncle Max meets them with a horse and carriage, brings them to the isolated mansion, and takes away all their modern-day possessions, leaving them with nothing to wear but old-fashioned nightgowns and knickerbockers. The two friends find themselves in an attic nursery, filled with toys from the past, including the mysterious "Game of Sunken Places" board game. As soon as Brian and Gregory turn over the hourglass timer that starts the game, they get the feeling that this is no simple game of Parcheesi. Instead, the game board, which represents the dark woods outside the mansion, is filled with sinister characters like the ogre Snarth, the mysterious opponent Jack Stimple, and the bitter elf Wee Sniggleping, who spends all his time convincing Brian and Gregory that he's not like one of those cheerful Keebler Elves. The boys meet these real-life characters as they navigate the game board, answering riddles and solving puzzles along the way, and the plot has as many twists and turns as the game board itself does. The action-packed plot is reason enough to pick up THE GAME OF SUNKEN PLACES; what sets this novel apart, though, is the details. From Gregory's wisecracks --- many of which make no sense but are nonetheless hilarious --- to bizarre descriptions of Hummel figurines ("Little German children, wearing lederhosen, kissed while carpets of fungus crawled and devoured them"), the book is filled with quirky, sometimes creepy surprises that may have readers falling off the edge of their seats with laughter. --- Reviewed by Norah Piehl