Mort: the 10,000 year-old boy

by Martin Ed Chatterton

Time flies when you're having fun, even if you're Mortimer DeVere, the 10000year old boy!

237 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2012

About the author

Martin Ed Chatterton was born in Liverpool, England, and attended art college in London. He has worked successfully in the publishing and design industry for thirty years. He is the author of more than thirty-five books and the illustrator of lots more. He lives sometimes in Australia and sometimes in the UK.

www.edchatterton.com

Reviews

[Adele Broadbent · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mort is building a new machine in his secret laboratory. But his sister knows about it and has for ages. She is usually happy ignoring her little brother and looking after her cloned writers. She has a collection all of her own – Shakespeare, HG Wells, Chaucer, Agatha Christie, Dr Seuss, and Beatrix Potter. They are her ‘pets’. But she is concerned that H G Wells is missing.

But H G Wells is helping Mort, Openheimer and Leonardo DaVinci build a machine. And they are keen to try it out. There is an eclipse in a few hours – the perfect time to use it....

But Mort is facing another bigger problem. Someone is coming from the education department to see why he hasn't attended school.

[Rebecca · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had read a review somewhere that said throughout his 10,000 years, Mort had encountered many famous people, Leonardo da Vinci, HG Wells, Enid Blyton and Ghengis Khan to name a few. That makes sense I thought, 10,000 years is a long time to live and you're bound to cross paths with a few big names. This however is not the case. Mort didn't meet these people during the course of his life, he cloned them! He and his sister Agnetha have cloned famous dead people. Mort has stuck to scientific types like Leo (Da Vinci) and Oppenheimer, while Agnetha has 'collected' authors like Agatha Christie, Enid Blyton and William Shakespeare.

Agnetha keeps her collection in their own specifically designed environments, Roald Dahl even has an exact copy of the garden shed in which he used to write, the only thing they don't know is that they are enclosed by an electrified fence.

Mort uses his collection of scientists to help with is own inventions. With the exception of Ghengis Khan who lives his life with an electrified collar so that he doesn't step out of line.
If all of this doesn't sound crazy enough, then there's also a sabre tooth tiger called Smiley!

So...imagine the chaos that ensues when the truant officers come to the island, and in attempt to scare them off, Mort causes Ghengis to lose his collar, Smiley gets loose, and Goldilocks has escaped...oh and she is also a vampire!

This book was a real surprise, a pleasant one. It was so crazy that I couldn't wait to see what would happen next. By the way the book ended I think it would be fair to say that this isn't the last we will see of Mort.

[Gaby · Rating 4 out of 5]

Martin Chatterton is hilarious in person and Mort is very funny too.
I enjoyed the inclusion of a range of famous people from Enid Blyton to Ghengis Khan. It is lovely to think that kids may be learning about these characters through this fictional story.
Mort is a lot of fun, full of action and the story ends with you wanting to follow Mort into his next adventure.

[Mrs Child · Rating 3 out of 5]

Middle primary read. Great bringing in so many notable characters throughout story.