Product Description

When a boy swaps his dad for two goldfish he does not really think through the consequences! Afterall, he is not the only person who can swap stuff. When the boy is told by his mother that he has to get his father back it is not so easily done. It seems that the father has a pretty high value as he has been traded by one child to the next leaving a trail that the son has to follow. Where will it all end?

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #38860 in Books
• Published on: 2004-10-04
• Original language: German
• Binding: Hardcover
• 64 pages

Review
'One of the most stylish picture books for 5+ ... a strange, cathartic, visually original book about a scary prediction that comes true, and is also classy and cool' Sunday Times Books of the Year 'A truly imaginative tale matched by a visual treat of painting, collage and drawing' Independent on Sunday 'A wonderfully bizarre idea to swap your Dad for two goldfish! And wonderfully conveyed here in brilliant words and bright innovative illustrations! For all the family to enjoy!' Carousel Christmas Supplement "I admired the astringent dialogue, the mood of the illustrations...this is a book to make distracted fathers insecure - when they put their papers down" The Observer

About the Author
Neil Gaiman is the best-selling, multi-prize-winning author of many books for adults, among them novels and graphic novels. He is also a screenplay writer and the author of Coraline and Wolves in the Walls for the children's audience. Neil is British and lives in America. Dave McKean is a long-time collaborator of Neil's and has worked with him on many titles, including Wolves in the Walls. Dave is also a film-maker and he lives in Sevenoaks in Kent.

Customer Reviews

read it to your kids
My son was given this book when he was five, and together we have read it with great relish. It is a hilarious story of sibling bickering, playground swapsies, and emotional family bonds. We still enjoy reading it now that he is seven. The story is magical, and the illustrations are out of this world. If you don't have a kid of your own to buy it for, buy it for someone else's kid, but make sure you read it before you give it to them.

Sweet and Funny
This is another kids book by the winning team of Neil Gaiman and David McKean who did the excellent; The Wolves in the Walls. This is less dark than The Wolves, and has more of a gentle humour which follows a traditional fairy tale pattern, that of the kind of knock on effect. The boy swaps his father for two goldfish, but when forced by his mother to go and get him back, he has to chase about town as other children swap on the dad before the boy gets there.

I love the fact that the mother is cross but only mildly, rather as if the boy had tracked mud on the carpet, and the fact that the father is completely unaware that he is being swapped, being too engrossed in the paper. It's lovely. The boy's bickering relationship with his sister is also beautifully drawn.

Beautiful
Its beautiful, irreverent,simple and funny. WHat more could you wish? Well, it seems I see the beauty of it more than my children do, but perhaps they're to young yet (2 and 5). Buy it for yourself then, or for someone at ten. And what you can't see here online is the good quality of the paper, which is nice, when you're sitting with the book.