This book is on fire, and to top it all off, The Globe & Mail‘s first-fiction editor, Jim Bartley, just put it on his “Top Five Debut Novels of 2009″ list. You can read his review of the book by clicking here and it’s one of the most convincing reviews I’ve read. Here’s a snippet, “[When] an Australian tree frog [is] brought into Phin’s classroom as a teaching accessory. Phin sees only an imprisoned creature of the open forest, forced to live in a glass case with a fake tree branch. He laments the fact to his mother, who notes that frogs are intellectually inferior to humans and probably don’t much care where they are. Phin’s response: ‘If aliens came down to Earth and were one million times smarter than humans, would it be all right to capture all the humans with nets and put them in solitary cages and feed them once in a while and watch them bang their heads against the glass until they died?’ How does one approach this sort of uncompromising logic from a nine-year-old? Phin’s mom trucks him off to a psychologist.”
The Quill & Quire describe the precocial Phin Walsh as “a preteen insomniac watching the world around him disintegrate and feeling helpless to stop it.” That same review also points out the message beneath the humour, “But there’s much more to Amphibian that tubthumping for the environment. Phin is a symbol of our times – a child so overwhelmed by information that his childhood is being stolen from him … Gunn adeptly uses the guilelessness of childhood to highlight some real issues.”
The Coast’s Sue Carter Flinn said, “Sometimes you start reading a book and fall in love by page two. That’s what happened when I tore through Carla Gunn’s novel Amphibian … although the loss of innocence is heartbreaking, Amphibian is also hilarious … it’s a sparkling, memorable debut.”
Atlantic Books Today’s megan Venner, “Amphibian is a richly told reminder to people of all ages of the simplicity and wisdom of a nine-year-old boy. Encompassing many of the ageless human frailties from anxiety to loneliness to victimization in Phineas William Walsh, Carla Gunn has masterfully created a relatable and readable young hero. In Amphibian, we see the world through the eyes of this young eco-warrior.”
NOW Magazine’s Zoe Whitall, “Amphibian is a sweet and smart book for optimists of any age, and Phin the perfect eco hero for intelligent readers everywhere.”
You can read more review snippets at Coach House Books’ website, or a great interview with The National Post.
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