THE THIEVING COLLECTORS OF FINE CHILDREN'S BOOKS

In this metafictional romp, a boy is trapped inside his favorite book.

In the near future, the ubiquitous alternative reality goggles invented by one Edmund R. Pribble have rendered children’s literature obsolete—except to 10-year-old Oliver Nelson, who copes with poverty and grief by hiding in a nigh-abandoned library and stealing his favorite volumes. But when Mr. and Mrs. Pribble discover that the last extant copy of an obscure book resides only in Oliver’s memory, they use the goggles to force him into the story, intending to steal it from his mind. This kicks off a delightfully gruesome over-the-top race to derail the original plot while still aiding the deliberately shallow, clichéd protagonists as they complete their ridiculously derivative, trope-laden quest, eventually dragging the snarky Had-He-But-Known–style narrator, miscellaneous background characters, and even possibly the Author himself into the effort. While the main actors in the endangered narrative completely lack personality, archetypically nice Oliver and the cartoonishly evil Pribbles are all likable in their ways. Short chapters with deadpan titles and manufactured cliffhangers add to the fun, but an unexpected twist ending and an affecting (if self-styled “mildly sappy”) epilogue highlight the complex relationship between authors and readers and the power of stories to change lives. All major characters are White; there is diversity of skin tone in both the real and fictional worlds.

Exactly the sort of thing you’ll like if you like this sort of thing.