THE SCARECROW AND HIS SERVANT -- Philip Pullman

Alfred A. Knopf -- hc
New York -- ©2004 -- 229pp
ISBN: 0-375-81531-7
illustrated by Peter Bailey
jacket illustration by Kevin Hawkes

After being struck by lightning, a scarecrow, with a turnip for a head, comes alive and proceeds on many fabulous adventures, with an orphaned boy, Jack, as his servant.

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This really is a wonderful fairy tale. It has all the good qualities of a classic fairy tale -- imaginative, journeys, adventures, colorful characters, and bad-guys who are obviously bad.

The young boy, Jack, has sense enough to know that everything is quite odd -- what with his master being a turnip-headed scarecrow -- but has the youthful imagination to go along with it.

If there is a down-side to this book, it's that it did get to be a little long. Perhaps one too many adventures for the scarecrow. Did he really need to become a Captain in an army? Did it serve any purpose to the rest of the story, or was it just a further adventure. If anything, I thought the army portion of the story was the least effective, particularly when both the scarecrow and the boy had had negative experiences with soldiers earlier in the book.

Still, not many authors are writing wonderful tales of this sort, and it definitely adds to my respect for Pullman, the author.

A fun romp, worth the read.