Reviews
An adult reading of this child's book (ages 8-12) may not yield much to reflect on, but I can't call this book bad since I knew what I was getting into. I'd put it way below say, Bridge to Terabithia and Tesseract as far as universal appeal. Although the intro compares this book to Wizard of Oz, I was reminded more of Pier Anthony's XANTH series, which were published much later. I did notice some references to Buddhist philosophy, allusions to Robert Frost poetry and a somewhat bewildering surface-level introduction to genetics. Other than that, Whangdoodle was colorful and imaginative, but still just a cartoon.
This came recommended to me by several friends and due to the fact that Julie Andrews was the author it was an easy sell. Unfortunately, it was rather bland and surface level for me. There were maybe one or two moments in the whole book that I thought "ahh, that's really interesting..." As a children's book, it is perfectly fine, though I read many "children's books" and enjoy them often much more than this. I don't regret reading it, but would not necessarily recommend it.
Highlights
"I bought it because it's cheery and it makes people look up. Have you noticed how nobody ever looks up?" The man's voice was suddenly irritable. "Nobody looks at chimneys, or trees against the sky, or the tops of builings. Everybody just looks down at the pavement or their shoes. The whole world could pass them by and most people wouldn't notice.”