Rating: 
Summary: A child's parable parading as an adult novelette
Review: I read this while waiting for a hair cut appointment. Yes, it was simple and sweet, but not much more. I was expecting substance, but instead treated to a predictable outcome, albeit via an original voice. Ashmol's search for his sister's imaginary friends, to redeem his family's reputation and recapture some semblance of happiness, is succesful in an ironic way. The most enjoyable component of this book is its setting. An opal mining town in another country served as the perfect backdrop to frame this lttle tale.
Rating: 
Summary: Magic Book for all
Review: In times when all the magic seems to be on outer space or imaginary lands this book show us how the magic worlds can be around the corner. A book of adults for young childrens or a children book for adults. Doesn't matter. It is a book for read and dream.
Rating: 
Summary: overrated and only one step above cute
Review: It seems that the positive review of this book in the NY Times Book Review started a stampede towards it. Me too, but in the end I found it a decently written shrug but certainly not much more than that.
Rating:
Summary: A sweet little story
Review: It will take you no more than a few hours to read, but will stay with you for a long time. Charming, at turns amusing, and ultimately heartbreaking, it is a story only the coldest fish in the sea coiuld not love.
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Summary: A Little Treasure of a Book
Review: Kellyanne Williamson has two very special friends, Pobby and Dingan. Pobby, the boy, likes to dance in lightning storms, has a limp and can walk through walls. Dingan is the pretty and smart one who likes to read books over your shoulder, play rigaragaroo, has an opal in her bellybutton and is a pacifist. They both like Kellyanne better than anyone else and they're both imaginary. One day while Kellyanne is at school, her dad takes Pobby and Dingan with him to work in the opal mines of Lightning Ridge, Australia. When he comes home that evening, Kellyanne asks innocently, where Pobby and Dingan are. How could he forget to bring them home? And though they rush back to the mines, calling and searching, Pobby and Dingan are gone. Kellyanne is convinced that they're dead and lost forever. By the next day, poor grief-stricken Kellyanne has fallen ill. She can't eat, is running a fever and over time begins to fade away. Ashmol, her older brother, now takes it upon himself to find Pobby and Dingan and enlists the help of the entire town, because he realizes that Kellyanne is dying of a broken heart and will never get well until they are found..... Ben Rice's first novel is a small, spare, very gentle story about the power of believing in the sometimes unbelievable. His eloquent, expressive writing and beautifully drawn characters bring this story to life, and you'll begin to see and believe in Pobby and Dingan yourself. A very charming, very poignant novel full of insight, humor, wisdom and the triumph of the human spirit, Pobby and Dingan is a book that shouldn't be missed.
Rating: 
Summary: Ozzie Tale Relies on Childlike Faith for Charming Fiction
Review: Plainly written, the less-than-one-hundred page narrative "Pobby and Dingan" ends before it begins, but manages to capture local color. Set in Australia's opal mining camps, subtle slang phrases seep irrevocably into one's mental sphere where dusty images of all that is typically Down-under loom large. A trip to your local Outback Steakhouse or yet again watching Helen Morse and Bryan Brown lisp the King's English in "A Town Like Alice" seems suddenly a richly authentic experience. An easy and earnest read, this unpretentious novella can be experienced in a single sitting. Although relying heavily upon the reader's acceptance of the ethereal without rational basis, it is decidedly charming in its own rite. The faith of a child holds true without proof or definition. And perhaps the world would be a better place if each held his own eccentricities for no other reason than the desire to believe in something greater than ourselves. Read "Pobby and Dingan" to rediscover the power of individual belief with communal hope through all things Australian. Further writing from Rice is eagerly anticipated, particularly continuing in this post-modern method.
Rating:
Summary: Ben Rice's first novel Pobby & Dingan
Review: Pobby & Dingan, British author Ben Rice's first novel, captures the life of a poor, young family in South Wales, the opal mining capital of Australia. Rex Williamson is a moderately unsuccessful opal miner in Lightning Ridge, struggling to keep his family of wife and two children on its feet. Times are difficult in the Williamson household, and arguments are frequently breaking out on everything from family life to main characters Pobby, and Dingan, daughter Kellyanne's two best, although imaginary, friends. When her father takes Pobby and Dingan with him to his opal claim one day, and returns empty handed with neither opals nor friends, Kellyanne is extremely upset. The family is up in arms, arguing that Pobby and Dingan are 'not real', and that Kellyanne must grow up. This attitude remains until Kellyanne becomes deathly ill, mourning the loss of her two best friends.
She refuses to eat, and demands that her brother, Ashmol (also narrating the book), return her two friends, whom he cannot even see. Ashmol, realizing that finding her friends is the only way to cure his sister of her illness, sets out on a journey through his small town, asking people to look for two imaginary friends of his sister's. The town receives this well, and plays a big part in bringing the family closer together. 'A girl called Venus turned up with her Alsation saying her dog had sniffed out the imaginary friends. Even the little boy with the Eric-the-ninja-platypus came along, claiming that his own imaginary friends had found my sister's friends.'
Ben Rice has created a moving, motivational story, realizing everything about the way a child's mind works, and demonstrating family life in a poor area of Australia. You can't help to wonder about the life of the author, and how distant he is from any character in the book. Being his first novel, you also wonder his inspirations, which combine both the styles of Harper Lee and J.D. Salinger.
Pobby and Dingan will draw you in from the first page to the last page, teaching you about life, death, and opal mining. By the end, you will be asking for more of Ben Rice's bed-timesque 'stories for grown-ups.'
Rating:
Summary: A child's parable parading as an adult novelette
Review: Pobby & Dingan, British author Ben Rice�s first novel, captures the life of a poor, young family in South Wales, the opal mining capital of Australia. Rex Williamson is a moderately unsuccessful opal miner in Lightning Ridge, struggling to keep his family of wife and two children on its feet. Times are difficult in the Williamson household, and arguments are frequently breaking out on everything from family life to main characters Pobby, and Dingan, daughter Kellyanne�s two best, although imaginary, friends. When her father takes Pobby and Dingan with him to his opal claim one day, and returns empty handed with neither opals nor friends, Kellyanne is extremely upset. The family is up in arms, arguing that Pobby and Dingan are �not real�, and that Kellyanne must grow up. This attitude remains until Kellyanne becomes deathly ill, mourning the loss of her two best friends.
She refuses to eat, and demands that her brother, Ashmol (also narrating the book), return her two friends, whom he cannot even see. Ashmol, realizing that finding her friends is the only way to cure his sister of her illness, sets out on a journey through his small town, asking people to look for two imaginary friends of his sister�s. The town receives this well, and plays a big part in bringing the family closer together. �A girl called Venus turned up with her Alsation saying her dog had sniffed out the imaginary friends. Even the little boy with the Eric-the-ninja-platypus came along, claiming that his own imaginary friends had found my sister�s friends.�
Ben Rice has created a moving, motivational story, realizing everything about the way a child�s mind works, and demonstrating family life in a poor area of Australia. You can�t help to wonder about the life of the author, and how distant he is from any character in the book. Being his first novel, you also wonder his inspirations, which combine both the styles of Harper Lee and J.D. Salinger.
Pobby and Dingan will draw you in from the first page to the last page, teaching you about life, death, and opal mining. By the end, you will be asking for more of Ben Rice�s bed-timesque �stories for grown-ups.�
Rating:
Summary: Childs Mind
Review: Pobby and Dingan by Ben Rice, is a imanginative book about a little girl with her family in a opal mining town in austrailia. She has an older brother, Ashmol, he is about 12 years old. A father named Rex. Who is the miner in the family and hasn't found much opal since they have been in Lighning Ridge. Pobby and Dingan are friends that only Kellyanne can see ot hear. One day, during school, when Rex has them, he loses them. That evening Kellyanne asks her father where pobby and dingan are. Not being able to see them Kellyanne assumes that her father left them in the mines. After a long search that night they give up. Kellyanne who is grief stricken believe that they are dead, and falls into illness. Not being able to eat and running a high fever she starts to deterierate. Ashmol takes it as his own respocibility to find them and make his sister well again. He thinks that by showing her that Pobby and Dingan are still alive, she will get well again. Knowing little things that his sister has told him about them, he inlists the help of the townspeople and fellow miners to find Pobby and Dingan.
Being Ben Rices book, he has engraved his name forever. Starting his carrier with a bang. He is sure to go on writing. He creates a major challenge for himself when he decided to write this book, because he is writing from the perspective of a preteen austrailian boy. This book is well written and a major page turner. I just picked it up and couldn' t put it down. I think that this is an excellent way to start his name. I surly look foward to Ben Rices next book. I hope to follow and read his other books.
Rating:
Summary: Probably the best novella I've ever read ...
Review: Pobby and Dingan is a book that sticks with you for a long time. Many others have given plot details, sometimes too much detail, so I'm going to avoid anything after the very beginning of the story.A father loses his daughter's imaginary friends, so his son, the narrator, is forced to go in search of them. It sounds simple, and it is just so. But it is also so much more: the book speaks loudly about faith, love, children's perceptions, and the way that people doubt and hurt others. I've given this book to other people, and they've given it to others. We put it on our summer reading list at school, and, in all of that, I've yet to hear a negative comment. There is only one warning I'd issue about this book: once you start it, you may not be able to find any place to stop ... even the second or third time you read it. I only wish that Ben Rice were more prolific a writer.
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