Russell Hoban

Frances decides she likes to eat only bread and jam at every meal--until to her surprise--her parents grant her wish.

A wind-up toy mouse and his child, broken and then mended, set out to find the animals and doll house with which they were in the toy shop. Along the way, they make enemies with a dump rat and have many adventures.

When things change around the house after her baby sister is born, Frances decides to run away--but not too far.

Thelma usually outsmarts Frances until Frances decides to teach her a lesson about friendship.

Thelma usually outsmarts Frances until Frances decides to teach her a lesson about friendship.

Frances has trouble going to sleep because of frightening sounds and objects that may be going to get her.

"A hero with Huck Finn's heart and charm, lighting by El Greco and jokes by Punch and Judy. . . . Riddley Walker is haunting and fiercely imagined and—this matters most—intensely ponderable." —Benjamin DeMott, The New York Times Book Review

"This is what literature is meant to be." —Anthony Burgess

"Russell Hoban has brought off an extraordinary feat of imagination and style. . . . The conviction and consistency

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John's obsession with drawing monsters takes him to a doctor, where a startling discovery is made about the degree of reality of John's drawings.