My Curious Uncle Dudley

By Tony Auth

Enhanced by Tony Auth's wry drawings, Barry Yourgrau's middle-grade fantasy of a boy and his magical, moon-touched uncle is at once humorous and poignant, nostalgic and timeless. "Invicius Ponticius Supalicius . . . Magilili . . . Lililiculus?" Duncan Peckle's young life changes forever the day his mysterious relative, Uncle Dudley of the great voyages, arrives in Mt. Geranium in his battered Panama hat and old tweed coat. No sooner do Duncan's parents leave him in his bungling uncle's care than a strange package arrives and the attic guest room is overflowing with the accoutrements of magical research (and one shrunken head). For eleven-year-old Duncan, it's the start of a summer full of marvelous misadventures - from accidentally summoning goblins to reversing invisibility spells, from unleashing a love elixir to zooming around on giant bubbles through the wild night air.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0763619353
• ISBN13: 9780763619350
• Release Date: July 2004
• Publisher: Candlewick Press (MA)
• Length: 211 Pages
• Weight: 0.85 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.7" x 8.0"
• Age Range: 9 to 12 years
• Grade Range: Grades 4 to 7

Customer Reviews

Uncle Dudley Rocks!

I stayed up far too late finishing this book because I enjoyed it so much. Unlike most middle grade books, this one does not wallow in the usual death/disease/divorce/drugs themes. Instead, it presents the relationship between 11-year-old Dundan Peckle and his mysterious rascal of an uncle, a man who has many tales of his adventures around the world. But sometimes the details aren't quite right, and that makes Duncan wonder... Uncle Dudley performs magic but different from that found in Harry Potter. In fact, Uncle Dudley's potions result mostly in chaos, causing friction with his nephew Duncan, who increasingly yearns for his uncle to live up to his exotic stories. There's a lot of gentle humor here and a little slapstick too, especially when Uncle Dudley and Duncan try their hands at flying on bubbles. I highly recommend this book to middle grade readers, especially boys, who should enjoy Duncan's first-person narration.