by James Thurber, illustrated by Marc Simont, 124 pagesA wicked, sadistic Duke keeps his lovely "neice" Saralinda captive in his cold, gloomy castle where it is "always then and never now," the clocks all having stopped at ten minutes to five. Believing he has "murdered time," the Duke amuses himself by assigning Saralinda's many doomed suitors impossible tasks, confident they'll all fail and meet grizzly deaths (which they do). But when a handsome young prince in disguise decides to accept his challenge (and gets some unexpected help from the mysterious Golux), the Duke fears that time may not be as dead as he'd like.
Ooh, I love words! Thurber's wonderfully creepy cadences, sudden rhymes, rampant alliteration, and imaginative imagery and turns of phrase just make my brain happy and give me spooky goosebumps (particularly in the early passages where we are introduced to the Duke and his proclivities *shudder*). This is a dark, funny, twisty fairy tale for grown-ups and older kids who love language and enjoy a good dose of the heebie-jeebies.
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