Awful End

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Awful End (published in the US as A House Called Awful End) is a 2002 children's novel by Philip Ardagh and the first book of the Eddie Dickens trilogy.

It was shortlisted for the 2002 Stockton Children's Book of the Year Award.^[1] The German translation by Harry Rowohlt won the Deutscher Jugendliteraturpreis in 2003.

[edit] Plot summary

When both of Eddie's parents catch a disease that makes them turn yellow, go a bit crinkly around the edges, and smell of old hot-water bottles, it's agreed he should go away and stay with relatives at their house. Alas, the house is not the loveliest of places. In fact, it is named Awful End. And, the relatives are Mad Uncle Jack and Even Madder Aunt Maud.

Along the way to Awful End, Eddie will be hypnotized by a handkerchief, threatened by a bearded stranger, mistaken for a poor little orphan boy at St. Horrid's Home for Grateful Orphans, and granted an audience with The Empress of All China (who isn't really the Empress of All China - but that's another story).