[.ca] Rare Beasts: Audio Book (ISBN 0439924979)

From Amazon.com:
Young twins Edgar and Ellen make the Grinch look positively benevolent. Living alone in a spooky house in the town of Nod's Limbs (their parents are on an extended around-the-world holiday), the bug-eyed, matted-haired, disturbingly pale siblings amuse themselves by plotting dreadful schemes to torture the townspeople. Inspired by a TV show about the value of exotic animals, they decide to steal all the local pets, decorate them with old Christmas ornaments (Grinchy enough for ye?), and sell them at market price. If they became very rich from the proceeds, they could spray the soccer fields with fizzy cola from a hang glider, or erect a giant windmill to blow manure all over town, or buy a whole carnival and not let anyone else enjoy the games and rides! As they skulk around Nod's Limbs with giant sacks, they find it surprisingly easy to snatch puppies, kittens, bunnies, hamsters, and even a Burmese python. Let the basement transformation to Uggprons and Snifflepops begin! They lull themselves to sleep that night with the sound of weeping children mourning the loss of their beloved pets, "a steady, groaning noise rising up from the world outside." It seems that fans of the comic-goth genre (Lemony Snicket's Series of Unfortunate Events and Holly Black's Spiderwick Chronicles) have another series in which to wallow, this time where the child protagonists are not victims but predators. Rick Carton's funny, artful pen-and-ink illustrations perfectly capture the Addams family feel of the story, from the pleading eyes of the neighborhood pets in the darkness of the "exotic animal emporium" cart to the tiny Turkle boys crawling through sewer pipes in the desperate search for their pet. (Ages 8 and older) --Karin Snelson

fun:
Stocking-footed mischievous twins cutting up in a town of goody two shoes--if the great Poe himself were alive and sober and had kids today, this is the book he'd be telling bedtime stories from. Charles Ogden and Rick Carton: you guys should make movies too!

Rare Beasts is a very good book!!!:
Rare beasts is a funny and good book for ages 8 and above. It starts out with Edgar and Ellen, two pale, bug-eyed, black haired twins in striped pajamas. They live in a gloomy 9 story mansion (also along with two attics, a basement, and subbasement), along with Pet, a creature of pure hair an eyeball, and their caretaker Heimertz, who never talks and always has a huge creepy grin on his face. Through the long boring summer Edgar and Ellen play hide and seek in their ratty mansion. Eventually they get bored. They also LOVE pranks. But their is a problem: they don't have enough money to play big pranks on the poor residents of Nod's Limbs. Edgar and Ellen are inspired by a nature programme about the value of exotic creatures. Edgar and Ellen steal puppies, kittens, bunnies, hamsters, and a python named Mr. Poo Poo. They then decorate the pets with paint, glitter, and ornaments to disguise the animals as exotic pets! They roam through town trying to sell the poor creatures to a number of people. In the end the pets are retured to their owners. Edgar and Ellen didn't make any money and on top of it they are soaked in mud. At the very last chapter we all find out somthing very ironic. This is that the rarest of all creatures in the world is Edgar and Ellen's Pet, that was under their noses the WHOLE time!

Full of fun, spunk, and a great vocabulary!:
What a refreshing change: a children's book that doesn't talk down to children using narrow, vapid vocabulary. This book was a fun, tongue-in-cheek adventure that was actually well written. Encouraging independent thinking and a bit of spunk, Edgar and Ellen will delight readers who welcome characters that don't fit the mold.

the future looks bright and twinkly:
I couldn't put it down. It is very light weight, wonderfully illustrated and full of great fun. My 10 yr old buddy Ardon loved it too (he is planning on being pet for Halloween with an illuminated plastic egg for an eyeball).

Great story!:
I really enjoyed the first Edgar and Ellen book. It follows a pair of twins whose parents are off on an extended vacation and leave the twins to their mischief and an empty 13-story mansion! The twins dress up the towns' pets and peddle them as "rare beasts" for exorbitantly high prices (thus the title.) It's great watching the twins think up their plans and put them into action. Some people argue that these diabolical twins set a bad example, but they are intelligent and creative, and don't spend all day sitting in front of the TV! Kids that I babysit for loved hearing about their ridiculous schemes...and, for nervous parents, Edgar and Ellen didn't escape without punishment for stealing everyone's pets. This is a great story that teaches kids without being condescending or preachy. I'm ready to move on to the next books in the series!