Ratings35
Average rating3.9
Beloved and bestselling author Sir Terry Pratchett's Dodger, a Printz Honor Book, combines high comedy with deep wisdom in a tale of one remarkable boy's rise in a fantasy-infused Victorian London.
Seventeen-year-old Dodger is content as a sewer scavenger. But he enters a new world when he rescues a young girl from a beating, and her fate impacts some of the most powerful people in England.
From Dodger's encounter with the mad barber Sweeney Todd, to his meetings with the great writer Charles Dickens and the calculating politician Benjamin Disraeli, history and fantasy intertwine in a breathtaking account of adventure and mystery.
source: https://www.harpercollins.com/9780062201959/dodger/
Featured Series
1 primary bookDodger is a 1-book series first released in 2012 with contributions by Terry Pratchett.
Reviews with the most likes.
It started out very slow for me but I eventually loved the historical fantasy of Dodger's adventures and the humorous and clever story. I particularly enjoyed Stephen Briggs' various accents for each character, as he made them all specific and unique.
Fabulously fun twist on Victorian England from the creative Terry Pratchett. The main character is lively and colorful and surrounded by an entire cast of fascination.
The historical facts are not exactly on point, but they are close enough to keep things interesting and astute readers in their toes.
I would recommend this to anyone over the age of 12 who likes fantasy, humorous novels, and historical fiction.
This is a rather charming fantasy about life in early-Victorian London, in which the young Dodger of the title comes from the humblest of beginnings and goes up in the world.
The scenario is all based on quite interesting factual research and there's no magic in it, but I call it a fantasy because Terry Pratchett is a softie, and various characters in this book, including the hero, are too full of human goodness to be credible. You have to suspend disbelief in that respect.
The book is vaguely similar to his past City Watch books, set in the fictional city of Ankh-Morpork; but this one has a new scenario and a new set of characters.
Cautiously recommended if you're attracted by the idea of a book with a grittily realistic scenario populated by characters that would seem more at home in a fairytale. And yes, of course there is a happy ending.