Frozen Billy -- Anne Fine

This is a creepy one.

Clarrie and Will are just waiting for the day when their father (who is in Australia looking for work) will earn enough money to send for them.  Until then, they go to school, their mother works in a shop and their ventriloquist uncle regularly stops by for dinner with his stage dummy, Frozen Billy.

Then their grandmother dies and their mother travels to Ireland for the funeral.  While in Ireland, she is wrongfully arrested and imprisoned.  Clarrie immediately quits school and finds a job.

Uncle Len moves in with the kids for the duration.  His temper and his drinking, which had both been kept in check by his sister-in-law's presence, get steadily worse as his ventriloquist act gets less and less attention at the music hall. 

Life seems to be heading nowhere good -- and fast -- when Will comes up with an idea:  He will join Uncle Len's act.  He'll take to the stage and play the part of Frozen Billy's twin brother.  Money will come pouring in and Everything Will Be Good.

Exhaustion, resentment and paranoia follow. 

Okay.  Ventriloquist's dummies scare me more than clowns, which is really saying something.  (Did you ever see Magic?  I saw it way too young and it scarred me for life.  AND the dummy wasn't even possessed or anything!) 

Even the first description of Frozen Billy was enough to give me the shivers:

I hated Frozen Billy.  I hated everything about him.  I hated him even more than Will did, if that's possible.  I hated his painted, staring, wooden eyes and the way his eyelids clicked when Uncle Len pulled the string inside his back to make them blink.  I hated his long thin legs, like dangling rods.  I hated his bright red wooden mouth, clacked shut or gaping open as square and wide as the opening in a mailbox.

See?  Yeech. 

It's an Anne Fine book.  As anyone who's ever read Anne Fine knows, she does family turmoil really, really well.  And she does it dark.* 

I'd say it's a good one for ages 8-12, kids who like historical fiction and/or British family stories AND who like it when the story enters the Realm of Psychological Horror.

*(The movie adaptation of Alias Madame Doubtfire IS NOTHING like the book.)

Comments

[colleen]

Hated Magic! I can't even watch it when it comes on tv. Did you ever see the episode of Buffy with the dummy? It nearly cured me of my dummy fear...nearly. I don't even think I could read this book though. Man - can you imagine writing a book like this???? Talk about nightmares!

[Kelly]

Yikes, it does sound scary. I also was traumatized by Magic and hate clowns.

[Naru]

if i've never been scared by a book in my life doess that mean i have no imagination or that im hard to scare?

[Courtney]

I am so intrigued but ever since I was a kid and caught that episode of Goosebumps (and then read the book), Night of the Living Dummy--ack. Slappy was too much for my young mind. And his voice! His voice was horrible!

But clowns win in a which is scarier for me contest. Have you ever seen The Clown at Midnight? It's a really bad horror movie (and puzzingly enough Christopher Plummer and Margot Kidder signed on for it) but I swear that clown makes ventriliquist dummies seem as harmless and unscary as Winnie the Pooh. Which I guess you might find helpful to know if you ever want to downgrade your fear of ventriliquist dummies and intensify your fear of clowns a hundred fold! Yep.

[nrkii]

Clowns and ventriloquist dummies are both scary as hell. I had a good friend who lived nextdoor when I was a child, and her parents had a huge clown picture in their living room (no idea why, except perhaps to keep us out). If we were alone in the house, we were terrified to venture down the hall. I think of that picture and I am still frightened.

[Leila]

I'm so glad I'm not the only one who was scared by Magic -- Frozen Billy made me think of it specifically (as opposed to all of the other dummy movies) because the dummy ISN'T alive. It's even worse somehow, maybe because everyone's anger and resentment and fear and BLAME is directed at an inanimate object.

I love that Buffy episode -- and I love it that ventriloquist dummies give Buffy 'the wiggins'.

Courtney, did you ever see the 70s movie with Elliot Gould where Chistopher Plummer played an evil bank robber dressed up as Santa? He was way creepy in that one.

[Courtney]

I haven't, but now I really must!! You had me at, "Christopher Plummer played an evil bank robber dressed up as Santa." Now that is inspired. Heh.