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Eating Things On Sticks
A hilarious tale of a vacation on a remote British island where the week’s highlight is the annual fair with its Eating Things on Sticks competition!
Harry is in trouble. He’s burned down the family kitchen so now has to spend a week of his summer holidays with his uncle Tristram who is heading off to stay with a new girlfriend — Morning Glory — on a tiny British island. Harry doesn’t expect it to be a lot of fun — with just a wacky competition at the end of the week to look forward to.
He certainly didn’t expect to discover all the beards.
Or the angel on the mountain.
Or the helicopters circling overhead all week.
And he definitely didn’t think it would be so wet… .
Harry is in trouble. He’s burned down the family kitchen so now has to spend a week of his summer holidays with his uncle Tristram who is heading off to stay with a new girlfriend — Morning Glory — on a tiny British island. Harry doesn’t expect it to be a lot of fun — with just a wacky competition at the end of the week to look forward to.
He certainly didn’t expect to discover all the beards.
Or the angel on the mountain.
Or the helicopters circling overhead all week.
And he definitely didn’t think it would be so wet… .
208 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2009
2 people are currently reading
44 people want to read
About the author
Anne Fine
392 books289 followersThough readers often find themselves inadvertently laughing aloud as they read Anne Fine's novels, as she herself admits, "a lot of my work, even for fairly young readers, raises serious social issues. Growing up is a long and confusing business. I try to show that the battle through the chaos is worthwhile and can, at times, be seen as very funny." In 1994, this unique combination of humour and realism inspired the hit movie MRS. DOUBTFIRE, based on Anne's novel MADAME DOUBTFIRE and starring the late comedic genius Robin Williams.
Anne is best known in her home country, England, as a writer principally for children, but over the years she has also written eight novels for adult readers. Seven of these she describes as black - or sour - comedies, and the first, THE KILLJOY, simply as "dead black". These novels have proved great favourites with reading groups, causing readers to squirm with mingled horror and delight as she peels away the layers in all too familiar family relationships, exposing the tangled threads and conflicts beneath. (It's perhaps not surprising that Anne has openly expressed astonishment at the fact that murder in the domestic setting is not even more common.)
Anne has written more than sixty books for children and young people. Amongst numerous other awards, she is twice winner of both the Carnegie Medal, Britain's most prestigious children's book award, and the Whitbread Award. Twice chosen as Children's Author of the Year in the British Book Awards, Anne Fine was also the first novelist to be honoured as Children's Laureate in the United Kingdom. In 2003, Anne became a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and was awarded an OBE. Her work has been translated into forty five languages.
Anne Fine lives in the north of England and has two grown up daughters.
Anne is best known in her home country, England, as a writer principally for children, but over the years she has also written eight novels for adult readers. Seven of these she describes as black - or sour - comedies, and the first, THE KILLJOY, simply as "dead black". These novels have proved great favourites with reading groups, causing readers to squirm with mingled horror and delight as she peels away the layers in all too familiar family relationships, exposing the tangled threads and conflicts beneath. (It's perhaps not surprising that Anne has openly expressed astonishment at the fact that murder in the domestic setting is not even more common.)
Anne has written more than sixty books for children and young people. Amongst numerous other awards, she is twice winner of both the Carnegie Medal, Britain's most prestigious children's book award, and the Whitbread Award. Twice chosen as Children's Author of the Year in the British Book Awards, Anne Fine was also the first novelist to be honoured as Children's Laureate in the United Kingdom. In 2003, Anne became a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and was awarded an OBE. Her work has been translated into forty five languages.
Anne Fine lives in the north of England and has two grown up daughters.
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Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
September 13, 2024
Maybe I was expecting the kind of nuanced depth and personal relatability that I encountered and oh so very much adored in Anne Fine's Madame Doubtfire (1987) and even more so in her delightful Carnegie Medal winning Goggle-eyes (1989) and Flour Babies (1992), but honestly speaking and being brutally and painfully honest here, I have found Fine's 2009 Eating Things on Sticks completely annoying, woefully tedious and as such also a complete and utterly frustrating waste of my reading time (in particular for my inner child). And furthermore, although all of the online reviews I have encountered regarding Eating Things on Sticks seem to claim that one does not actually need to have read the first book of this two novel series, that one does not need to be familiar with Fine's 2003 Christmas themed The More the Merrier in order understand why in Eating Things on Sticks main protagonist Harry manages to successfully blackmail his uncle and thus cause the storyline for Eating Things on Sticks of Harry spending his holidays with Tristram instead of with his aunt to quasi take off so to speak, sorry, but this is in my opinion obviously not really all that true. For how in Eating Things on Sticks Harry forces Uncle Tristram into letting him spend his vacation with him instead of with his despised Aunt Susan and pampered cousin Titania is clearly based on something that occurred in the first book, in The More the Merrier (regarding what happened to the family cat Pusskins) and which indeed kind of massively annoys me (since Anne Fine does not actually tell us as readers said backstory in Eating Things on Sticks but seems to just assume that potential readers are already aware of the latter and which of course we only would be if we had in fact also read and were thus also familiar with The More the Merrier).
And while the premise of Eating Things on Sticks is (at least at first glance) promising enough textually speaking, with Harry having accidentally burned down his family's kitchen and thus spending his holidays with his uncle on some small and isolated British island (with Tristram and his hippie New Age girlfriend Morning Glory) while the burned out kitchen is being rebuilt and remodelled, well, that premise alone is just not enough for me to consider more than a one star rating of Eating Things on Sticks, because nothing textually favourable really ever manages to narrationally materialise for me regarding Eating Things on Sticks. For indeed, the above mentioned missing or rather insufficiently alluded to backstory, Anne Fine's unnuanced, stereotypical (and mostly just annoying and totally one-dimensional) characters, her choppily anecdotal episodes (and with the kidnapping and beard contest scenarios just feeling artificial, tacked on and ridiculous) and not to mention that the competitive eating scenario at the island fair (the eating things on sticks of the book title) simply feels like an afterthought and not what I was at all expecting from a book titled Eating Things on Sticks (as I of course assumed that most of Fine's featured text would deal with both training and then participating in a competitive eating contest), no, I just have not at all even remotely enjoyed Eating Things on Sticks, I was at best massively bored with Anne Fine's presented story (and am also not going to bother with the first novel either, as I seriously doubt that The More the Merrier will be all that much better than Eating Things on Sticks, and while a one star rating might seem a trifle harsh, well, considering I have basically enjoyed pretty well nothing about Eating Things on Sticks, I do think that my dismal rating is entirely and totally justified).
And while the premise of Eating Things on Sticks is (at least at first glance) promising enough textually speaking, with Harry having accidentally burned down his family's kitchen and thus spending his holidays with his uncle on some small and isolated British island (with Tristram and his hippie New Age girlfriend Morning Glory) while the burned out kitchen is being rebuilt and remodelled, well, that premise alone is just not enough for me to consider more than a one star rating of Eating Things on Sticks, because nothing textually favourable really ever manages to narrationally materialise for me regarding Eating Things on Sticks. For indeed, the above mentioned missing or rather insufficiently alluded to backstory, Anne Fine's unnuanced, stereotypical (and mostly just annoying and totally one-dimensional) characters, her choppily anecdotal episodes (and with the kidnapping and beard contest scenarios just feeling artificial, tacked on and ridiculous) and not to mention that the competitive eating scenario at the island fair (the eating things on sticks of the book title) simply feels like an afterthought and not what I was at all expecting from a book titled Eating Things on Sticks (as I of course assumed that most of Fine's featured text would deal with both training and then participating in a competitive eating contest), no, I just have not at all even remotely enjoyed Eating Things on Sticks, I was at best massively bored with Anne Fine's presented story (and am also not going to bother with the first novel either, as I seriously doubt that The More the Merrier will be all that much better than Eating Things on Sticks, and while a one star rating might seem a trifle harsh, well, considering I have basically enjoyed pretty well nothing about Eating Things on Sticks, I do think that my dismal rating is entirely and totally justified).
January 30, 2021
Well this is fun! Harry is a disaster magnet, and we know exactly how he is going to grow up, because his Uncle Tristram is the adult version. Yes, it’s a bit daft in places – but I loved the quirky humour and the fact that as the reader, I was well aware of what was going on when Harry didn’t. That can get annoying quite quickly, but the clever pacing and the entertaining characterisation that tripped into the kind of Roald Dahl-like caricature, kept me grinning throughout. It didn’t hurt that there isn’t the darker edge of cruelty that I always find in Dahl’s writing – or that Tom Lawrence’s narration is spot on.
The island isn’t identified, but sounds very much like one of the rainsoaked, windblasted small isles that are dotted around the seas off the Scottish mainland. Harry’s insouciant description of the inhabitants, his take on Morning Glory’s behaviour, the weather and the food on offer had me chuckling throughout and there were times when I sat down to focus better on listening to this little gem. If you have a child between the ages of nine and twelve, particularly a boy, I think he would thoroughly enjoy this one – and if the youngster in your life doesn’t appreciate it, then do yourself a favour and tuck into this one yourself. I loved it.
9/10
The island isn’t identified, but sounds very much like one of the rainsoaked, windblasted small isles that are dotted around the seas off the Scottish mainland. Harry’s insouciant description of the inhabitants, his take on Morning Glory’s behaviour, the weather and the food on offer had me chuckling throughout and there were times when I sat down to focus better on listening to this little gem. If you have a child between the ages of nine and twelve, particularly a boy, I think he would thoroughly enjoy this one – and if the youngster in your life doesn’t appreciate it, then do yourself a favour and tuck into this one yourself. I loved it.
9/10
April 21, 2011
What seemed like a fabulous premise (Com’on eating things on sticks!) turned into some thing rather underdeveloped and silly.
Harry’s summer looked ruined after blackmailing Uncle Tristram to take him on holiday to find that they were going to spend it with his uncle’s latest girlfriend, Morning Glory, a nature communing “hippie” living on a secluded island.
Funny moments do crop up between funny sounding words (I do believe they’re attempting some kind of Scottish accent – unclear even to the characters who British), improbably situations, and funny imagery (men with beards of all kinds). But despite all this it was still disappointing.
The book was meant for children… If my niece (13) and nephew (11) might have had fun listening to it a couple of years ago, if it was read aloud, however, I can’t see wading through the British-ims and silliness on their own.
Harry’s summer looked ruined after blackmailing Uncle Tristram to take him on holiday to find that they were going to spend it with his uncle’s latest girlfriend, Morning Glory, a nature communing “hippie” living on a secluded island.
Funny moments do crop up between funny sounding words (I do believe they’re attempting some kind of Scottish accent – unclear even to the characters who British), improbably situations, and funny imagery (men with beards of all kinds). But despite all this it was still disappointing.
The book was meant for children… If my niece (13) and nephew (11) might have had fun listening to it a couple of years ago, if it was read aloud, however, I can’t see wading through the British-ims and silliness on their own.
July 22, 2014
I wanted to like this more!
The hero is a 12 year old boy, Harry goes to an unnamed island with his Uncle Tristam.
Light hearted story, ? suitable for boys? Definately older fiction, but young older fiction.
Print suitable for struggling readers.
The hero is a 12 year old boy, Harry goes to an unnamed island with his Uncle Tristam.
Light hearted story, ? suitable for boys? Definately older fiction, but young older fiction.
Print suitable for struggling readers.
August 28, 2018
It was a fun read at first. Everything was just so mysterious that it kept me wondering what would happen next. Well, the answer is, nothing. I expect too much. Next time, I have to remind myself to imagine less. I gave it 2.5 to be exact. Overall, a quick read but disapointing.
January 17, 2011
the most borring book i ever read. cant keep count of how manny times i put this book down before i finished it. only thing i half enjoyed was the last page. :(
August 11, 2014
I found this book very interesting and it kept me reading it I just couldn't put this book down
November 24, 2018
A trip to a remote island with some strange people. A fun story, but with a slightly dark humour. I liked it. :)
July 12, 2020
Dark, funny, irreverent. Loved it.
August 9, 2020
Đọc thư giãn cũng ok.
December 30, 2015
As a massive fan of Anne fine I was intrigued to see this on the grade five verse and prose syllabus for Lamda.
The book is very light and fluffy telling the tale of a boy whose uncle gets landed with him while his parents redecorate the kitchen that he destroyed.
It is a very quick read with some laugh-out loud funny bits. Definitely for the younger reader or for the young at heart!
The book is very light and fluffy telling the tale of a boy whose uncle gets landed with him while his parents redecorate the kitchen that he destroyed.
It is a very quick read with some laugh-out loud funny bits. Definitely for the younger reader or for the young at heart!
June 3, 2015
Cautionary tale for parents: this is what can happen if your children are bored. Sure we want them to exercise their independence and use their imagination, but those things can be unexpectedly destructive...
September 26, 2011
Funny and heartwarming.
Lots of funny jokes and complicated problems.
It has to be one of my top books!
Lots of funny jokes and complicated problems.
It has to be one of my top books!
Read
November 29, 2012It os full of mischievous trouble but I think it is a hilarious tale
February 9, 2015
This book is funny at times but it can be a little bit boring as well. I loved reading about all of the strange foods that Morning Glory eat!
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews