Pobby and Dingan

Rating:
Summary: a sparkling gem
Review: "Pobby and Dingan" is this century's "Miracle on 34th Street," a moving little fable that will have opals streaming from your eyes by the time you reach the 94th page.

Rating:
Summary: abrams review of the dingan
Review: ...BR>Opal is everything for this family living in lighting ridge Australia. Pobby and Dingan are two invisible friends of Kellyanne an eight-year-old living with her bother Ashmole and parents in a small mining town of eight thousand. Ashmole Williamson is the twelve-year-old narrator.
Ashmole is skeptical on the existence of his sister's friends; he jokingly makes fun of Pobby and Dingan. " I walked over to where Pobby was supposed to be sitting and punched the air and kicked the air in the head to show that Pobby was a figment of her imaginings." The real story begins when Kellyanne's father Rex Williamson brings Pobby and Dingan out to his mining claim. He forgets about them and leaves them out at the claim. Kellyanne gets really upset. Rex Kellyanne and Ashmole go to the claim to find them but they cannot. The search is greatly impaired be the fact that Kellyanne is the only one who can see them. The day's pass and Kellyanne slips into a sort of depression and gets really sick. Ashmole observing his sister sees that the only way that Kellyanne will get better is if someone finds Pobby and Dingan. Ben Rice, who lives in London, does a good job writing from a twelve-year-old boys perspective. For this being his first book, he is able to bring across real sincerity to the story of lighting ridge. Even though you can tell that this is Ben Rice's first book, it's a good story aimed at a slightly younger age group. Ashmole organizes a search, he goes around lighting ridge telling people to go and look for Pobby and Dingan, "then, just as I was going down opal street, I saw that there was a bunch of people crouched down on the road side looking under bushes and cars and over fences and everything." The book is really about a boy who has a change in mind when his sister gets sick. He does everything in his ability to help her. He even believes in the unbelievable, it goes to show you what love can really do.

Rating:
Summary: abrams review of the dingan
Review: ...Opal is everything for this family living in lighting ridge Australia. Pobby and Dingan are two invisible friends of Kellyanne an eight-year-old living with her bother Ashmole and parents in a small mining town of eight thousand. Ashmole Williamson is the twelve-year-old narrator.
Ashmole is skeptical on the existence of his sister's friends; he jokingly makes fun of Pobby and Dingan. " I walked over to where Pobby was supposed to be sitting and punched the air and kicked the air in the head to show that Pobby was a figment of her imaginings." The real story begins when Kellyanne's father Rex Williamson brings Pobby and Dingan out to his mining claim. He forgets about them and leaves them out at the claim. Kellyanne gets really upset. Rex Kellyanne and Ashmole go to the claim to find them but they cannot. The search is greatly impaired be the fact that Kellyanne is the only one who can see them. The day's pass and Kellyanne slips into a sort of depression and gets really sick. Ashmole observing his sister sees that the only way that Kellyanne will get better is if someone finds Pobby and Dingan. Ben Rice, who lives in London, does a good job writing from a twelve-year-old boys perspective. For this being his first book, he is able to bring across real sincerity to the story of lighting ridge. Even though you can tell that this is Ben Rice's first book, it's a good story aimed at a slightly younger age group. Ashmole organizes a search, he goes around lighting ridge telling people to go and look for Pobby and Dingan, "then, just as I was going down opal street, I saw that there was a bunch of people crouched down on the road side looking under bushes and cars and over fences and everything." The book is really about a boy who has a change in mind when his sister gets sick. He does everything in his ability to help her. He even believes in the unbelievable, it goes to show you what love can really do.

Rating:
Summary: Pobby and Dingan
Review: A wonderful book! Although character descriptions lack depth and are left to the reader's imagination, this is *exactly* what the book is about......imaginary friends! I enjoyed the author's direct style, and had my curiosity peaked trying to discern the meaning of Australian terms by applied use. A book for everyone, including children.

Rating:
Summary: A wonderful story full of imagination.
Review: Ashmol is a teenager living in a small mining town in Austrailia. He lives with his mother, younger sister, Kellyanne, and his dad who mines opals. He doesn't have many friends there, and neither does his sister. In fact, Kellyanne only has two friends. Pobby and Dingan. And the thing is, the only person who can see them is Kellyanne. The adults in the town think that Kellyanne is cute, so they usually pretend that Pobby and Dingan are real. If Kellyanne comes into their shop, they'll give her three of whatever they sell, instead of one. The only people who really don't humor her are her father and Ashmol. One day, her father decides to pretend with her, and takes Kellyanne, Pobby, Dingan, and Ashmol out to his mining feild. That's when the trouble starts. Pobby and Dingan get lost. At first it isn't that bad, but after a while Pobby and Dingan still aren't found. Kellyanne gets sick, and it doesn't look like she'll get any better, unless they come back. This book shows how odd people can be, and it shows you that even though you can't see something, it doesn't mean it isn't real. I recommend this for anyone. It's great.

Rating:
Summary: Can you believe in something you can't see?
Review: Ashmol Williamson has had it with his younger sister, Kellyanne. She insists that her imagionary friends, Pobby and Dingan are real, and Ashmol thinks she is a fruit loop. What's worse, his parents ans others sometimes indulge this nonsense. One day their dad forgets to bring Pobby and Dingan home after a day in the family's opal mine. Poor Kellyanne is heartbroken, and soon sick with grief. Ashmol has to find a way to mend his sister's broken heart. What follows is a tender story of love and acceptance and the magic that we sometimes glimpse in our lives. A wonderful story.

Rating:
Summary: a little gem
Review: Ashmol Williamson lives with his family in the harsh climate of Lightning Ridge, Queensland, the capital of opal mining in Australia. He is a bit of a loner as would his sister, Kellyanne be, if she didn't have Pobby and Dingan. They're her imaginary friends. It is quite normal for the town to include Kellyanne's friends in conversations, infact Dingan even came third in a competition! Kellyanne is often seen with three lollipops, holding hands with her two imaginary friends.

Then one day they go missing. Kellyanne is distraught. Before her family's eyes she begins to fade away, unable to eat.

Ashmol figures that he needs to do something to help Kellyanne and organises a search party to try to save Kellyanne from disappearing before their eyes.

This is an absolutely beautiful story, funny, heartbreaking, small in size but perfectly written. This book can't fail to move you in some way.

Rating:
Summary: Buy Pobby and Dingan
Review: Ben Rice is a recent graduate of the prestigious MA in Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia in England (a program that also boasts Ian McEwan, Kazuo Ishiguro and others), and his debut book fully confirms the quality of writers routinely churned out by the program. The tone of Pobby and Dingan lies very comfortably in a zone between realistic fiction and fable without swaying too far in either direction, an accomplishment that makes this novella an absorbing and well paced read. I very heartily recommend it as a gift for every single person in your family. It's the kind of book you'll read more than once because it takes no effort to become acquainted with it, and once familiar, many passages demand repeated reading for their simple elegance. Ben Rice has assembled a good cast of main characters and built a simple but absorbing narrative around it, involving several cameo appearances by quirky, well-imagined people who leave their imprint on both the story and your mind. You will not be disappointed by couple of well-spent hours reading Pobby and Dingan.

Rating:
Summary: Truth in the imaginary
Review: Ben Rice's charming and poignant novel has only one potential drawback, it's length, which may confuse would-be readers. Get past it! This story is just the right size, and beautifully captures the remote minimg town of Lightning Ridge in New South Wales, the opal capital of Australia. The town is inhabited by among others, the imaginary friends of Kellyanne Williamson. The story is narrated by Kellyanne's older brother, Ashmol through whose view and voice we meet the rest of the Williamsons and many of their fellow residents. The novel will serve to remind us very sweetly and gently that the inaginary is very real indeed.

Rating:
Summary: A MOVING STORY OF LOVE, FAITH AND GROWTH
Review: Ben Rice's literary debut is an auspicious one -- in this slim volume, he tells a story with universal implications, simply and without a word to spare, through the eyes of a boy living in a rough mining town in Australia.

The narrator is Ashmol Williamson. His father is an opal miner with a reputation for drinking a bit too much -- his mother is desperately homesick for her native England, her family, and the comforts which are merely memories in her present habitation. Ashmol's sister, Kellyanne, is the focus of the story. Kellyanne has two friends -- Pobby and Dingan -- that only she can see. When they go missing -- after her father ostensibly takes them to work with him one day -- her world begins to crumble. Pobby and Dingan -- whom her brother sees as the irritating fantasy of a kid sister who refuses to grow up -- suddenly figure very large in the lives of not just the Williamson family, but of just about everyone in Lightning Ridge, where they live. For Kellyanne begins to grieve for them to such an extent that she begins to literally waste away, growing weaker with each passing day. Ashmol may consider them to be imaginary, and his sister to be a 'fruit loop', but his love for her convinces him that the only way to save her is to enlist as many people as possible to hunt for them.

The story is engagingly told through Ashmol, with the language we would expect from a young boy -- but with increasingly growing and sensitive insight. He comes to understand how important Pobby and Dingan are to Kellyanne. Ashmol -- and the people of Lightning Ridge -- learn some important lessons about faith and belief in this story.

The characters here are memorable -- many of them, as you might expect from the setting, very eccentric -- and all of them are very, very human. Rice has drawn them well and given them the exceptional gift of authentic voices -- but never submitting to the temptation of overplaying them. His writing is spare -- and that is a great asset in a story such as this. He never allows it to get in the way. I can't imagine this book being nearly as effective if it had been much longer.

This is one of the most enjoyable and rewarding books I've read in the past year. I'm anxious to see what Mr. Rice produces next.