Book Review – Brave Ollie Possum by Ethan Nicolle

Brave Ollie Possum

Synopsis:

Ollie Mackerelli is determined to face his fear of the dark once and for all, but he gets more than he bargained for when his therapist turns out to be an actual monster. To make it even worse, Ollie is transformed from a boy to a possum and locked in a cage.

With no way to call for help, Ollie must learn to be brave (with the help of some furry friends) or he will be the main course.

Adventurous, imaginative, and fantastically illustrated, Brave Ollie Possum is the debut children’s story from author and screenwriter Ethan Nicolle. (Taken from GoodReads page)

Review

My further excursion into finding YA novels with good messages AND being well written. I’ve enjoyed Ethan Nicolle as a person and commentator and animator. This is my first reading of his solo writing.

Taking place in an already surreal universe the great illustrations already make it feel like a novelization of a cartoon you haven’t watched yet but is very easy to picture in your head. I can’t be 100% certain but I believe Nicolle wrote this to be a bedtime read for parents and children (8 to 12 year-olds) to do together something like Narnia was for Lewis and his kids. So if you’re intimated by the length of the book, close to 400 pages, that might explain the length but also the reward of the animations help with that. Nicolle definitely has the passion and talent for writing good kid’s books as they contain elements of danger and the possibility of death; something a lot of books just ignore because you definitely can’t scare kids. Yet, this is the point of the book. What are kids supposed to do who fear? The main character isn’t “the chosen one” or the Mary Sue do-no-wrong. Again, within this animated, surreal universe the characters are relatable enough – even the animal characters.

Ollie is, of course, the main character you root for but there are a couple of animal characters that really stand out. Yet, in the book with a good number of animal characters not too many stand out and that’s unfortunate. There are many times the evil Glorch is focused on and the manner of speech is fun to read. However, what this book suffers from is what may intimate people into picking it up – the length. The book stays with characters for long enough and doesn’t switch at the peak of rising action but the changes are numerous and much of the coverage of the Glorch is a bit laborious. Observance of time seems to get lost too. Maybe that’s a product of reading a few chapters a night but there’s a 24-hour timeclock put on the plot but it feels like the events take at least a full day or two. There is a lot of plot points that take multiple chapters that could really be condensed or combined. For example, there were many chapters dedicated to cooking a meal that felt like a very large part of the book.

The goal which is to teach about fear and bravery is well done and the plot helps to make those points without being cheesy. The initial actions to kickstart the lesson though feel like they need to fail or not come so easily at first but the main character just has to do them because the action puts a time crunch on it and a need to advance the plot. The father-son relationship, which I’m always a sucker for, is right up my alley and the conclusion of it is great.

Overall, I would recommend this book but if the length is intimidating I would check out the audiobook. It does have the good humor Ethan Nicolle is known for and yes, even some bear material – it’s not un-bear-able. Some pacing and focus issues make the book longer than it needs to be. Yet, the story is a fun, cartoon world like The Secret of NIMH.

Final Grade

B-