This is an odd little book. What we have is a series of adventures told from the perspective of a young boy, each of which involves the almost supernatural, Grandma Matchie, an ornery old cuss. And she's supported by some very odd folk – with all the grotesquing of physical and behavioural characteristics you would expect from a young child.

There's more here that brings to mind a child's outlook on the world. The writing itself also contributes to this. For the style is in some ways reminiscent of a child's thought processes and stage of development. Where the narrator does not know a word one is made up to fit the instance, and these "new" words are very well crafted, their meaning is clear – but their main benefit to the story is the insight into the thoughts of the young child telling the tale.

As a book it's a kind of cross between Baron Munchausen , Alice in Wonderland and Mark Twain. Baron Munchausen for the extraordinary larger than life central character, although told in reverse, as the extraordinary being is the third person subject, this is not being told from the point of view of the Munchausen. Alice in Wonderland for the child perspective and whimsy. And Mark Twain for the writing style and one or two of the characters, the "One Armed Trapper" being a particular Twain-like character.

I can honestly say I've not read anything quite like this book before. It's a hard one to classify, except in that it feels very much like an American version of Lewis Carroll's brand of child-friendly - although aimed at the former children that make up adult fantasy fans - whimsical fancy. And in being a novella the length is perfect, any longer and the nonsensical nature of this tale would have begun to grate on the nerves, the author knew precisely when to stop.

Synposis
So they're telling me I need to talk about what I talked about in all these pages which had my bestest cover ever with green crayon and blue crayon because they're the only ones Glora Feeb hasn't eaten yet and bits of bark and moss and a dragonfly water beetle which is what they are before they crawl out and unwrap their wings, but it's only the shell because the dragonflies climb out through a hole in the beetle's back and then they dry up, which is what I'm going to do when I dry up too, climb out through the hole, I mean. And that's what was on the cover using LePage's glue, the white stuff that tastes like toothpaste without the mint or chili pepper if it's my sister's toothpaste when she's not looking because she's too busy staring at her new phone all the time, probably because it doesn't work, it's got no cord! But that cover's gone I don't know where maybe to the Smithsonian and I'd tied strings through the holes to keep all those pages in order, especially since I forgot to number them, only it's not real string it's five lb test monofilament fishing line that says 8 lb on the box but it's old and Grandma Matchie says fishing line that's old doesn't weigh as much as when it's new, not that I can tell the difference can you? Besides it's not like pages weigh a lot or fight back much. Anyway the pages I'm supposed to talk about got numbers now because grown-ups are obsessed with putting things in order but I'm not good at taking orders which is where all the trouble started so I'll stop now. the end.