Explore our new BookBrowse Community Forum!

Summary and Reviews of Dreadful Acts by Philip Ardagh

Dreadful Acts by Philip Ardagh

Dreadful Acts

Eddie Dickens Trilogy, #2

by Philip Ardagh
  • Critics' Consensus:
  • Readers' Rating:
  • First Published:
  • Apr 1, 2003, 128 pages
  • Paperback:
  • May 2004, 144 pages
  • Rate this book

  • Buy This Book

About This Book

Book Summary

All the old favorite faces in this series are here--including Mad Uncle Jack and Malcolm the stuffed stoat--along with some very worrying-looking new ones. Beware! Ages 9+.

In this eagerly awaited sequel to A House Called Awful End, Eddie Dickens narrowly avoids being blown up, trampled by horses, hit by a hot-air balloon, and arrested--only to find himself falling head-over-heels for a girl with a face like a camel's and into the hands of a murderous gang of escaped convicts.

All the old favorite faces are here--including Mad Uncle Jack and Malcolm the stuffed stoat--along with some very worrying-looking new ones. Beware!



A Message To My American Readers
Because I like you


Greetings, once again, from across the Atlantic. The book you have in your hand, or someone else's hand if you're reading over his or her shoulder, is called Dreadful Acts and is the sequel to A House Called Awful End. Both are set in England sometime during the reign of Queen Victoria (who sat on the throne for more than sixty-three years, so let's hope she had a cushion), which is why some of the events or people might seem rather odd to American eyes. Then again, that might have something to do with my storytelling.


You don't need to have read A House Called Awful End for this book to make sense; it's a story in its own right . . . and I'm not sure that Awful End made a great deal of sense, anyway. I do hope you enjoy reading Dreadful Acts. I had great fun writing it!

Philip Ardagh, 2003

EPISODE I
Here We Go Again
In which a hssss becomes a BOOOOM!

Eddie Dickens woke up with a shock. An electric eel had just landed on him from the top pocket of his great-uncle's overcoat. And one thing that can be guaranteed to be shocking is electricity.


Eddie sat up. "What's happening, Mad Uncle Jack?" he asked, for that was the name he called the thinnest of thin gentlemen -- with the beakiest of beaky noses -- who was leaning over his bed.


"Come quickly, boy!" his great-uncle instructed, his top hat brushing against the gas tap of the lamp on the wall. The eel might have had electricity, but this house -- Awful End -- didn't.


Eddie didn't need to be asked twice. The quickest way to escape the eel was to leap from his bed, so leap from his bed he did.


Eddie and his parents lived at Awful End with his great-uncle and great-aunt (Mad Aunt Maud). If you want to find out how they all came to live together, following a series of awfully exciting ...

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Reviews

Media Reviews

Newsday
These are among the rare books that will reward slow readers as richly as book-gobblers, because moving word to word and savoring the absurdity of each phrase will give as much pleasure as galloping through the story.

Times Record News
If you adored Philip Ardagh's witty, hilarious and somewhat bizarre short novel for adolescents and somewhat older readers titled, A House Called Awful End, then you must go out and buy, beg, or borrow the second installment, called Dreadful Acts.

Booklist - Shelle Rosenfeld
Gr. 4-7. The second book in the Eddie Dickens trilogy finds the 12-year-old encountering yet another series of odd events and characters. Black-and-white drawings with a touch of the macabre add further period flavor and farce. This will be great for series fans, but it will also stand alone.

School Library Journal - Ashley Larsen
Grade 4-6. Fans of Monty Python's style of humor will appreciate the constant verbal wit, slapstick, and random plot twists. Others will find the narration grating and hard to follow.

Reader Reviews

Thomas

I loved the second Eddie Dickens book because it was funny and good.
It was funny because a man called Barking is barking mad! The descriptions are very funny too - One of the people has the face of a camel! It is good because it is organized - it ...   Read More
No one

DReadful Acts
This book is great for kids, Very funny and it twists the way we think of books. My only criticism is that the book is very short and would take no more than a week to read. I think that books should stick with for some time. Over all this book is ...   Read More
Eliza Cruz

Dreadful acts
It was a good book. I learned a lot from it!

Write your own review!

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Read-Alikes

Read-Alikes Full readalike results are for members only

If you liked Dreadful Acts, try these:

  • The Anybodies jacket

    The Anybodies

    by N.E. Bode

    Published 2005

    About this book

    This book promises suspense! Intrigue! Mystery! Fairies fall out of books! Birds turn into dogs! Nuns turn into lampposts! So I have no idea why you're still lingering here. . . . Start reading! (Ages 9+)

  • Molly Moon Stops The World jacket

    Molly Moon Stops The World

    by Georgia Byng

    Published 2005

    About this book

    More by this author

    You are about to embark on an incredible journey to Hollywood with the dazzling young hypnotist Molly Moon, but be warned: this trip is very dangerous, evil lurks on every page!

We have 4 read-alikes for Dreadful Acts, but non-members are limited to two results. To see the complete list of this book's read-alikes, you need to be a member.
More books by Philip Ardagh
Search read-alikes
How we choose read-alikes
Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Top Picks

  • Book Jacket: Graveyard Shift
    Graveyard Shift
    by M. L. Rio
    Following the success of her debut novel, If We Were Villains, M. L. Rio's latest book is the quasi-...
  • Book Jacket: The Sisters K
    The Sisters K
    by Maureen Sun
    The Kim sisters—Minah, Sarah, and Esther—have just learned their father is dying of ...
  • Book Jacket: Linguaphile
    Linguaphile
    by Julie Sedivy
    From an infant's first attempts to connect with the world around them to the final words shared with...
  • Book Jacket
    The Rest of You
    by Maame Blue
    At the start of Maame Blue's The Rest of You, Whitney Appiah, a Ghanaian Londoner, is ringing in her...

Members Recommend

  • Book Jacket

    Pony Confidential
    by Christina Lynch

    In this whimsical mystery, a grumpy pony must clear his beloved human's name from a murder accusation.

Who Said...

Beware the man of one book

Click Here to find out who said this, as well as discovering other famous literary quotes!

Wordplay

Solve this clue:

F the M

and be entered to win..