Unreal (book)
Unreal is the first in a series of collections of short stories by Australian author Paul Jennings. It was first released in 1985.
The stories
Without a Shirt
A boy has a speech impediment that forces him to say "Without a shirt" each time he finishes a sentence. When he is forced to move to a new house due to his dog repeatedly digging, he eventually finds some bones that may be linked to his speech impediment.
The Strap-Box Flyer
A man sells a glue that will stick anything, but stops working after four hours. After getting many to buy it, he leaves town, then meets a man who has invented a box that can make people fly.
Skeleton on the Dunny
A boy is forced to live with his aunt due to his parents' deaths, but the only toilet at his aunt's house is in an outhouse. Even worse, that outhouse is haunted by the ghost of a man who was dead after looking after the house when the aunt was on a holiday.
Lucky Lips
A boy who has never been kissed obtains a lipstick that will make nearby girls kiss him. However, it also works on female non-humans.
Cow Dung Custard
A boy has a father who grows vegetables that are tremendous because of all the dung he uses to grow them. The worst batches are one that cannot be smelled, but attracts flies, and one that smells so bad that it gets him in trouble with the neighbours, but also kills flies.
Lighthouse Blues
A boy comes to an island to help an old lighthouse keeper. However, every Friday night, music plays, and the boy suspects it has something to do with the lighthouse keeper's ancestors.
Smart Ice-Cream
An ice-cream seller has special ice-creams that have effects such as making people happier, shortening peoples' noses, removing pimples, and making people smarter. A smart boy who is always top of the class gets jealous, because he never gets any of the ice-cream and also because one of his classmates becomes as good as him, so he ruins the ice-cream business by destroying all the ice-cream except the one that makes people smarter. He then proceeds to eat that one, only to find out that it actually makes people dumber and as a result, his brain malfunctions.
Wunderpants
A boy is given underpants that, despite their look that would cause him to be teased by the school bully, give him superhuman strength. But when he takes a break during a cross-country race (he is first by a wide margin), those underpants start to shrink, and the bully eventually comes to steal the rest of his clothes. He ends up going home in the nude, causing him to be grounded, but he eventually enters a mouse race in which the winner gets 50 dollars.
Reception
- Amazon.com's average review score on the book is 4 out of 5.(Reviews on the book)
- Review on Paul Jennings's site
- More reviews
External links
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