In this profoundly allegorical cutting-edge novella, a sizzling Western set on a farm filled with living toys, readers meet a young straw man who must lay his life on the line to defend his master's home, who loves a basil-eyed girl, and who searches for manhood through the fiery confusion of adolescence. If you enjoy reading "Straw House," check out Daniel Nayeri's three other whimsical riffs on classic genres, all available in the collection Straw House, Wood House, Brick House, Blow.
Review
[The] novellas riff on influences as varied as The Wizard of Oz , Mad Max, and the sardonic Death of Pratchett's Discworld...Strong and assured, these stories seamlessly merge different styles, teasing out and playing with readers' assumptions about how westerns, fantasy and fairy tales work...provocative and deeply satisfying.* * --Kirkus Reviews
"With characters deft and real, with language quick and clever, with insight deep and full, these stories lead the reader to wonder, Is this possible? Whatever is going to happen next? And then, incredibly, it is possible, and it happens. Dare to read this."
--National Book Award nominee and two-time Newbery honoree** Gary D. Schmidt**
"I'm so impressed by the ingenuity of the project as a whole, and Brick House / Wish Police
is sheer genius. I can't remember the last time I've read such a clever and successful plotline."
-- Newbery medalist** Linda Sue Park**
Nayeri's voice is chameleon-like, easily adapting to the conventions and expectations of each genre without losing a bit of its edge or its wit....Straw House is a delightful amalgam of the high and the low, the silly and the sublime. --BookPage
Four stylistically brilliant novellas offer readers a range of exquisite reading experiences in this collection... Nayeri's storytelling finesse is on full display here, as he creates characters and spins plots out of breathtakingly vivid wordsmithery; each story features language uniquely suited to its ambience and desired emotional effects, whether it be through clever wordplay in chapter titles, futuristic technojargon, a deliciously turned phrase, or a particularly apt metaphor. Language lovers as well as those who appreciate the artistry of a perfectly compact novella will consider this collection a treasure.
βBulletin of the Center for Children's Books (starred review)
Overall, provocative and deeply satisfying.
βKirkus Reviews
From the Back Cover
"Whenever we invoke this title -- Straw House, Wood House, Brick House, Blow -- let us breathe this word soon after: virtuosity. In a remarkable collection of four novellas, Daniel Nayeri plays a modern Lewis Carroll, pulling us down rabbit holes where the world is cockeyed -- disturbingly cockeyed -- and anything at all can happen. In one, toys planted by an absent creator are left to fend for themselves when evil arrives; in another, the very air we breathe has been infected with a technology that allows us to create our own reality--or others to create it for us; in another, the narrator Death is moved to play the jerk by powerful love.With characters deft and real, with language quick and clever, with insight deep and full, these stories lead the reader to wonder, Is this possible? Whatever is going to happen next? And then, incredibly, it is possible, and it happens. Dare to read this."
--Two-time Newbery honoree and Printz honoree Gary D. Schmidt