A Book A Week: The Neddiad by Daniel Pinkwater

The Neddiad: How Neddie Took The Train, Went to Hollywood, and Saved Civilization by Daniel Pinkwater (Houghton Mifflin, 2007)

A shoelace tycoon with a parakeet fetish moves his family from Chicago to L.A. on a whim. On a train. His son, Neddie Wentworthstein, has some interesting adventures that begin when he misses the train in Santa Fe and meets an oddball shaman. Melvin the Shaman (as he is sometimes called) gives Neddie a small carved turtle. Neddie later discovers that the turtle is essential to the preservation of civilization. With enemies like Sandor Eucalyptus and Sholmos Bunyip, and allies like Seamus Finn (and his dad, a famous, swashbuckling movie actor), a ghost named Billie, and Yggdrasil Birnbaum, Neddie completes an Oedipean adventure that prevents rapid, sudden devolution and the return of the ice age. 

The Sonars and I read this one out loud, and with prose as fun and lyrical as the memorable names, it’s a great story to read out loud. Even with the fate of civilization threatened, Pinkwater doesn’t let the story get too intense. The wise characters keep the story real, and assure Neddie that when the time comes, not only will he know exactly the right thing to do, but he’ll be successful doing it. Our only vaguely critical comment about the story is the abruptness of the ending. We wander for dozens of chapters through whimsically detailed encounters, but the sudden turn into dreamlike resolution left us hanging in mid-wonder. Sonar X11 said it was like the end of 2001: A Space Odyssey. We sat there for several moments, mouths open, wondering “Wha-aat?”

This mid-twentieth-century setting is a kinder, gentler world in which kids have freer and further reign and navigation in their worlds. Which, all by itself is a great fantasy for kids that often find their lives circumscribed by the minivan route. Plus Neddie and his friends find a mastodon. Who doesn’t love a mastodon in L.A.?