Five Alien Elves

The Hamlet Chronicles #3

by Gregory Maguire

The town of Hamlet has a very unusual Christmas when aliens crash land in their space ship, escalating the competition between rival clubs, the Copycats and the Tattletales.

Hardcover

First published January 1, 1998

About the author

Gregory Maguire is an American author, whose novels are revisionist retellings of children's stories (such as L. Frank Baum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz into Wicked). He received his Ph.D. in English and American Literature from Tufts University, and his B.A. from the State University of New York at Albany. He was a professor and co-director at the Simmons College Center for the Study of Children's Literature from 1979-1985. In 1987 he co-founded Children's Literature New England (a non-profit educational charity).

Maguire has served as artist-in-residence at the Blue Mountain Center, the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, and the Hambidge Center. He lives in Concord, Massachusetts.

Reviews

[Kyrie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Aliens crash in Hamlet, Vermont, and get the wrong idea about Christmas from a brief clip of a Christmas movie they see. They set out to liberate the planet from the evil overlord of Santa Claus, kidnapping the mayor by mistake. Miss Earth and her students have to rescue him and set things straight.

It's very light, pretty silly, and kinda funny.

[Stephanie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Silly. Just wanted to see and read for others when asked by children for a Christmas Chapter book.

[Jen (The Jenerator) · Rating 3 out of 5]

I finally got to finish this series. I really did enjoy it. Different and fun and fast reads :)

[Kevin Magpoc · Rating 1 out of 5]

I read this having very much enjoyed the Wicked series, mostly out of curiosity in reading Maguire's writing "at a different level." I had my hopes up though I'm not sure what I even expected of this. It's not that Gregory Maguire needs an epic storyline to be entertaining, since I quite liked his short story "Matchless." The only particular clever bit I remember was one of the students being named "Carly Garfunkel." Everything else about it, I just found...mediocre. Not poorly written, just not special enough to warrant recommending to a child, at least any more than any other randomly chosen book of the same length and grade level. It makes me want to use the phrase "phoning it in" to describe why he seemed to expend considerably less effort in writing this book than he did for his past and future non-children's books.

[Linda · Rating 3 out of 5]

Five Aliens crash land on earth at Christmas. Their understanding of what is happening on earth differs with reality (of course). They think Santa Claus is a tyrant with elf-slaves. Miss Earth's class helps aliens understand about fun, toys, Santa and "earthlings." Cute story by the author of "Wicked"

[Drucinda · Rating 4 out of 5]

Yes, Gregory Maguire ! This talented author of Wicked also writes for all ages.
One in a series for ages 8-12. Funny, silly humor the younger set will enjoy.The children and their teacher are the main characters in these books set in a small town in Vermont.They manage to find adventure & mystery everywhere - and together they save the day!

[Paula Hebert · Rating 3 out of 5]

another childrens book from gregory maguire, part of the hamlet chronicles, hamlet being a tiny town with a group of children who have adventures. a nice book for kids to enjoy.