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Double-Yuck Magic
Unable to have a dog in her family's new apartment--an apartment in which weird things are going on--twelve-year-old Mathilda tries to figure out how to get a dog with the "Mad Inventor's Handbook" she has found
- GenresFantasy
144 pages, Paperback
First published November 1, 1991
7 people want to read
About the author
Kathleen Duey
157 books362 followersKathleen Duey grew up in Colorado. She loved riding her horses, hiking, being in the mountains. Reading was always important to her. Writing became a fascination early in her life. In the fourth grade, Kathleen began writing stories and told everyone who would listen that she was going to be an author. Then she did nothing about it until she was 35 years old. Writing was her passion and her dream-come-true.
from: fantasticfiction.co.uk
Kathleen died of cardiac arrest at her home in Fallbrook, California. She was 69. She had struggled with dementia in her latter years which prevented her from completing her Skin Hunger trilogy.
https://web.archive.org/web/202101052...
from: fantasticfiction.co.uk
Kathleen died of cardiac arrest at her home in Fallbrook, California. She was 69. She had struggled with dementia in her latter years which prevented her from completing her Skin Hunger trilogy.
https://web.archive.org/web/202101052...
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
September 14, 2023
I had a bunch of ideas for what to read today and I wanted to tackle a back burner item. I’ve been trying to read stuff from some of the ghostwriters from Ghosts of Fear Street and Spinetinglers. This is the latter and it’s an interesting case. This is a standalone from Kathleen Duey who was one of the most common Spinetinglers writers.
I’ve read 3 from her and have notable what her style is like. Those tended to have some solid characters bits and worked well with little details but struggled with the stories. It often takes forever for things to happen and it seems like the strengths would come at the expense of the storytelling.
She clearly had plenty of talent, but tended to drop the ball in the plot, Wear and Scare showing this off the most. She has gone on to do plenty, notably YA fantasy type stuff. That makes sense as that’s where this kind of writing belongs and I can see her skills getting better as she went. So I wanted to do one from her. However, we’re going backwards to 1991 so that did defeat the purpose of going this lol.
Her stuff from later tends to be long so I wanted something not long. Still, going outside of horror should give us a better idea of her work. ANYWAY, this is about Mathilda Jamesone. Yes, really. She dislikes that name so she makes people call her Matt. We’ve finally found the best/worst male name for a girl. She fancies herself an inventer which has gotten her into trouble before.
Her family is moving into a new apartment and she is going to this new private school. Things actually seem good early on, even with this weird kid Eddie she meets. But this apartment won’t allow dogs due to the super grumpy landlord, Mr. Norris. She’s always wanted a dog but the places they lived don’t allow them and she is getting sick of it.
Her mom is big on rummaging through old stuff she finds and one day Matt goes through the stuff and finds a book called The Mad Inventor’s Handbook. Basically it gives tons of invention ideas but it also claims to have some spells. To cut to the chase, Matt wants to test it out by basically creating a dog for her to have, based on one from a book. She is able to bring it life but of course this comes with plenty of trouble.
So the short version is I enjoyed this a fair bit, but man you can tell this is one of her works. Sometimes these other works by Ghosts/Spinetinglers writers won’t have the exact style on display in those but oh man this does. Everything I’ve seen from her is on full display here. It works better here but you do get the drawbacks.
It can take a while to wind up the plot. It’s 140 pages and takes maybe 70 for magic to truly happen instead of being teased. We spend plenty of time getting this big spell/invention ready. We get the little things as we build up the character dynamics and all that. That can make the plot slow so I do wish it was more compact.
We get fun once magic hits but given where it goes, this could have been quicker/more compact. The writing is a bit off early by leaning into short sentences in clunky ways. It gets better as it goes and it does describe things well Matt seems like she could be bad at first but she ends up likable. Her trouble maker aspect is more on accident although it doesn’t bite her in the butt and make her a lesson or anything. Spoilers, she gets to play god (or dog in this case) and things turn out okay in the end. She doesn’t do anything truly bad though and is able to stay under control when faced with jerks as she knows it will just make things worse if she blows up.
When the dog is made, something else happens and they have to deal with that. We get dog bonding that is rather cute but we can’t quite focus on that due to the other thing. Still it’s cute. The grumpy landlord actually gets sort of an arc where he laxes on the dog rule. The characters aren’t deep but they have solid dynamics, from this neighbor lady to Eddie. Neighbor lady knows about the magic stuff but we don’t know her full deal. Not everything is explained but it;’s simple enough to work fine.
We get a solid wrap up with an emotionally satisfying ending. There’s no big lesson I guess but we having everyone be happy in the wrapup does end it on a nice note. It gives this the feeling of being a nice story instead of just being a bunch of stuff. Kathleen’s style works for this stand alone story where you kind of know off the bat it’ll be more about hanging out. I do wish we got more magic antics the whole time but what it does works better here than in some others.
The title comes from how Matt says “double yuck” a couple times. I guess it’s a catchphrase. This seems to maybe set up for a sequel, it has “can’t wait for more adventure with them” feel. But no sequel existed, shame.
This was an odd one. The flaws I’ve noted are present here but her strengths come through. It’s far from the tightest/deepest story ever but I liked it. The dynamics are good, it has these fun little moments,with some nice bits. I can see other not getting into as much but it’s cool to see her style on display like this. It works better due to the nature of I get. Either way it’s enjoyable enough despite feeling longer than it is. Seriously, something about maybe it take a while but that could just be more.
Anyway, this has its flaws but it was a nice read overall. I don’t know if I’ll get to other stuff she’s done but it was nice to look at one thing at least. Whew, that’s about it I think. As always, don’t know what is next. Still got the desire for backburner books or random nonsense. It’ll depend on where the wind takes me lol.
See ya then.
I’ve read 3 from her and have notable what her style is like. Those tended to have some solid characters bits and worked well with little details but struggled with the stories. It often takes forever for things to happen and it seems like the strengths would come at the expense of the storytelling.
She clearly had plenty of talent, but tended to drop the ball in the plot, Wear and Scare showing this off the most. She has gone on to do plenty, notably YA fantasy type stuff. That makes sense as that’s where this kind of writing belongs and I can see her skills getting better as she went. So I wanted to do one from her. However, we’re going backwards to 1991 so that did defeat the purpose of going this lol.
Her stuff from later tends to be long so I wanted something not long. Still, going outside of horror should give us a better idea of her work. ANYWAY, this is about Mathilda Jamesone. Yes, really. She dislikes that name so she makes people call her Matt. We’ve finally found the best/worst male name for a girl. She fancies herself an inventer which has gotten her into trouble before.
Her family is moving into a new apartment and she is going to this new private school. Things actually seem good early on, even with this weird kid Eddie she meets. But this apartment won’t allow dogs due to the super grumpy landlord, Mr. Norris. She’s always wanted a dog but the places they lived don’t allow them and she is getting sick of it.
Her mom is big on rummaging through old stuff she finds and one day Matt goes through the stuff and finds a book called The Mad Inventor’s Handbook. Basically it gives tons of invention ideas but it also claims to have some spells. To cut to the chase, Matt wants to test it out by basically creating a dog for her to have, based on one from a book. She is able to bring it life but of course this comes with plenty of trouble.
So the short version is I enjoyed this a fair bit, but man you can tell this is one of her works. Sometimes these other works by Ghosts/Spinetinglers writers won’t have the exact style on display in those but oh man this does. Everything I’ve seen from her is on full display here. It works better here but you do get the drawbacks.
It can take a while to wind up the plot. It’s 140 pages and takes maybe 70 for magic to truly happen instead of being teased. We spend plenty of time getting this big spell/invention ready. We get the little things as we build up the character dynamics and all that. That can make the plot slow so I do wish it was more compact.
We get fun once magic hits but given where it goes, this could have been quicker/more compact. The writing is a bit off early by leaning into short sentences in clunky ways. It gets better as it goes and it does describe things well Matt seems like she could be bad at first but she ends up likable. Her trouble maker aspect is more on accident although it doesn’t bite her in the butt and make her a lesson or anything. Spoilers, she gets to play god (or dog in this case) and things turn out okay in the end. She doesn’t do anything truly bad though and is able to stay under control when faced with jerks as she knows it will just make things worse if she blows up.
When the dog is made, something else happens and they have to deal with that. We get dog bonding that is rather cute but we can’t quite focus on that due to the other thing. Still it’s cute. The grumpy landlord actually gets sort of an arc where he laxes on the dog rule. The characters aren’t deep but they have solid dynamics, from this neighbor lady to Eddie. Neighbor lady knows about the magic stuff but we don’t know her full deal. Not everything is explained but it;’s simple enough to work fine.
We get a solid wrap up with an emotionally satisfying ending. There’s no big lesson I guess but we having everyone be happy in the wrapup does end it on a nice note. It gives this the feeling of being a nice story instead of just being a bunch of stuff. Kathleen’s style works for this stand alone story where you kind of know off the bat it’ll be more about hanging out. I do wish we got more magic antics the whole time but what it does works better here than in some others.
The title comes from how Matt says “double yuck” a couple times. I guess it’s a catchphrase. This seems to maybe set up for a sequel, it has “can’t wait for more adventure with them” feel. But no sequel existed, shame.
This was an odd one. The flaws I’ve noted are present here but her strengths come through. It’s far from the tightest/deepest story ever but I liked it. The dynamics are good, it has these fun little moments,with some nice bits. I can see other not getting into as much but it’s cool to see her style on display like this. It works better due to the nature of I get. Either way it’s enjoyable enough despite feeling longer than it is. Seriously, something about maybe it take a while but that could just be more.
Anyway, this has its flaws but it was a nice read overall. I don’t know if I’ll get to other stuff she’s done but it was nice to look at one thing at least. Whew, that’s about it I think. As always, don’t know what is next. Still got the desire for backburner books or random nonsense. It’ll depend on where the wind takes me lol.
See ya then.
June 20, 2018
Strange story of magic and creating a dog and turning a person into another dog and as they say hijinks ensue. Not terrible but not amazing either, one of those books that are mildly entertaining but not really that special.
December 30, 2024
As a kid, I wished I could make my own little dog with magic, like the main character does. Very nostalgic!
October 8, 2008
This is in no way a great work of literature, but I re-read it many, many times around the age of seven. A fun, action-packed, silly read.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews