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Mary Chan
Mystery
Taken at Spruce Grove Public Library author talk
October 26, 2016
Marty Chan loves to write. Before he became a kids’ author, he worked in theatre, radio, and television. Now his passion is inspiring the next generation of lifelong readers and writers. Using a combination of storytelling, improv, humour, and stage magic, he shares his love of words with audiences young and old.
ISBN 9781771870207
The Mystery of the Frozen Brains is adapted from Marty Chan’s successful radio series The Dim Sum Diaries. Set in a French Canadian town in rural Alberta, the novel develops the coming to awareness of a Chinese boy in a community under the myriad of ethnic influences including French, English and Ukrainian. As serious as the novel’s thematic dispatch is, Chan’s buoyant, gifted humour overrides the tone.
Check out the author on GoodReads; Marty Chan (Author of Haunted Hospital) | Goodreads
The Mystery of the Frozen Brains Review
I really wanted to like this book. I mean really wanted to. I actually read The Cyber Bully (#4) first before I wanted to read such a bizarre title. (Which by the way I really liked.) This book had it's high moments but it also really had it's problems. I really liked to subtle touch where the more Marty was picked on the more he wished and felt alienated/alien he was. I couldn't help but laugh every time his mother shouted Aiya!, When his friend Remi ended up having dinner at his house and that awesome interrogation/blackmail Marty pulls off on Father Sasseville. There are some really great moments/highlights within this book and their really well written so what problems do I have with it? I think the biggest problem I have with book is the title. The Mystery Of the Frozen Brains. The heart of the book is truly introduced on the page before chapter thirteen. Giving him four chapters to solve the mystery. The real crime is that the mystery of the frozen brains isn't revealed. (Maybe a title focused on the Aliens would have been better.) I didn't mind the comparisons between Christianity and Aliens. (I get it. It's creative way to support the alien theory.) BUT I thought it was dragged on a little too long in the story. I do wish the teachers were a little more alert to the (at least physical) bulling in the book. I did find the end pretty good. It introduces to the characters well and it made me laugh oft
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