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  The crowd gasped. “Then how do you crack your eggs, giant egg vandal?” a woman who looked like a blacksmith shouted. “Against your silly head?”

  “That wasn’t very nice,” Baru said.

  “These people are feisty,” said Kelly. “But what did you egg-spect?”

  “I crack them down the middle,” Jordan said. “I strike it against a bowl and let the stuff inside drop right out.”

  Silence swept across the village as hundreds of tiny people considered this.

  “Oooh,” a man in a chef’s hat said. “I think that could work.”

  Another archer from Blefescu agreed.

  Before long, all of them were talking to each other about the new revelation. Jordan looked down to see Beardy and Archer shake hands and then, amazingly enough, hug each other.

  “Well, that’s . . .” Jordan began.

  Somewhere, the clock gonged.

  All around her, the colors of Lilliput blended together in a swirl and then everything went black.

  “Many thanks, giants,” echoed a small voice that sounded a lot like Beardy. As they faded away, Jordan could hear tiny fits of cheering.

  Epilogue

  When Jordan opened her eyes, she found herself back in the children’s section of the T. Middleton Nightingale City Library. Standing close by were the rest of the Pages and Javier, all looking as bewildered as she felt.

  “Perfect,” Jordan said. “We’re back.”

  “I’m never going to get used to that,” Kelly said. Then, as an afterthought, she sniffed her T-shirt. “Hey, I don’t smell like monkey!”

  A woman with her toddler glanced over at them with a strange look on her face.

  “Sorry,” Kelly whispered.

  “Monkey, monkey, monkey!” shouted the toddler.

  Cal smiled and looked around the library, happy to be back.

  Baru started chuckling. “We stopped a war from a classic book, my friends,” he said. “This makes me very happy.”

  A thought crossed Jordan’s mind. “Oh, wait,” she said. “Is that going to screw up the book somehow?”

  Javier brushed tiny blades of grass off his shirt and shook his head. “I don’t think it will. Nothing that we did in the book affected Gulliver’s own travels. It was more like we did clean-up after he left Lilliput.”

  That made sense to Jordan. If they would’ve run into Gulliver and changed something he did in the original book, things might’ve gotten messed up. As it stood, they fixed a few things.

  “At least Glum got her monkey back and the little people might actually find something better than eggs to argue about,” Jordan said.

  “And just like the other times,” Cal said, “we’re back a minute later. See?”

  Cal held up his phone. The time showed 12:01 p.m., exactly one minute after the clock had gonged twelve times to signal the change.

  While Jordan was happy they were all back and had survived yet another wild literary adventure, she was also a little disappointed.

  “What’s the matter, Jordan?” Kelly asked.

  “All of that happened and only a minute went by,” Jordan said. “Four o’clock seems like a long way away. I could really use a nap.”

  Javier laughed. “I’m sorry,” he said. “Despite all we did for the characters in Gulliver’s Travels, the library still needs us to do our work here.”

  “Yeah,” Jordan mumbled. “I guess so.”

  “Look on the bright side,” Javier said. “At least now you have a new timepiece to let you know when it’s time to go home.” He gestured toward Jordan’s right hand.

  At first Jordan didn’t know what he was talking about. She opened her fist and saw that she still carried the silver oracle.

  Inside the Midnight Mind of . . .

  Jonathan Swift

  When the Midnight clock chimes, the library transforms. Each of these transformations takes the library “inside the mind of a book or writer.” Slipping inside Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift, the Pages encounter the same Boiled Egg War that Dr. Lemuel Gulliver stepped into during his famous first voyage. There were several other references from the classic text that the Pages encountered during their adventure.

  Lilliput & Blefescu

  According to a map in Gulliver’s Travels, these islands lie somewhere in the Indian Ocean. The people are only six inches tall, but their names are long! The Lilliputian emperor is named Golbasto Momarem Evlame Gurdilo Shefin Mully Ully Gue. Some readers believe that the two islands symbolized Great Britain and France, countries that were bitter rivals during Swift’s lifetime.

  Man-Mountain

  Quinbus Flestrin was Gulliver’s nickname in Lilliput. It meant Man-Mountain. Flimnap, the royal treasurer of Lilliput, did not like Man-Mountain because it cost so much to feed him. Each day Gulliver ate as much as 1,724 Lilliputians would eat. He could put forty of their roast chickens on the end of his normal-sized knife!

  Glumdalclitch and the Monkey

  When Gulliver first visited Brobdingnag, the land of the giants, Glumdalclitch was nine years old and forty feet tall. She was kind and careful with the tiny guest. But she could not control the mischievous monkey. It once grabbed Gulliver and climbed up onto the palace roof 500 feet above the ground.

  Glossary

  afterthought (AF-tur-thawt) —

  an idea occurring later

  commotion (kuh-MOH-shuhn) —

  a confused and noisy disturbance

  hypnotize (HIP-nuh-tize) —

  to put someone into a state in which the person appears to be asleep but is still able to respond to suggestions and questions

  liability (lye-uh-BILL-uh-tee) —

  the state of being legally responsible for something

  literary (LIT-uh-rer-ee) —

  of or relating to books

  pinprick (PIN-prik) —

  a small puncture made by or as if by a pin

  reunion (ree-YOON-yuhn) —

  a meeting or gathering of two or more people who have not seen each other for a long time

  revelation (rev-uh-LAY-shuhn) —

  a very surprising and previously unknown fact that is made known

  satire (SAT-ire) —

  a type of mocking humor intended to show how foolish someone or something is

  tremor (TREM-ur) —

  a shaking movement

  unhand (un-HAND) —

  to let go

  Discussion Questions

  Jordan falls asleep in the library, leading the tiny men to capture her in the world of Gulliver’s Travels. Do you think the story would have gone differently if she had gotten enough sleep the night before? Would they have been able to capture her?

  Jordan helps Beardy and Archer even though they were mean to her. If you were in her shoes, do you think you would try to help them as well?

  The Pages don’t run into Gulliver from Gulliver’s Travels. They wonder if they would have messed things up from his book if they met him. How do you think the story would be different if they had met?

  Writing Prompts

  When Cal finds the silver oracle, it doesn’t look like it’s anything more than an old pocket watch, but it helps Jordan save the day. Write about a time you found something that made a bigger impact than you first expected.

  Glum is grateful to Jordan and the Pages for finding her monkey. Imagine you’re Glum and write a letter thanking Jordan for saving her pet.

  Jordan helps end a debate between the tiny people about how to crack eggs. Write a few sentences about a time you were in the middle of a debate.

  Michael Dahl Presents

  Michael Dahl has written about werewolves, magicians, and superheroes. He loves funny books, scary books, and mysterious books. Every Michael Dahl Presents book is chosen by Michael himself and written by an author he loves. The books are about favorite subjects like monster aliens, haunted houses, farting pigs, or magical powers that go haywire.

  About the Author

&nbsp
; Thomas Kingsley Troupe has been making up stories ever since he was in short pants. As an “adult” he’s the author of a whole lot of books for kids. When he’s not writing, he enjoys movies, biking, taking naps, and hunting ghosts as a member of the Twin Cities Paranormal Society. Raised in “Nordeast” Minneapolis, he now lives in Woodbury, Minnesota, with his awe-inspiring family.

  About the Illustrator

  Xavier Bonet is an illustrator and comic book artist who lives in Barcelona, Spain, with his wife and two children. He loves all retro stuff, video games, scary stories, and Mediterranean food, and cannot spend one hour without a pencil in his hand.

  Michael Dahl Presents is published by Stone Arch Books, A Capstone Imprint

  1710 Roe Crest Drive, North Mankato, Minnesota 56003

  www.mycapstone.com

  © 2019 Stone Arch Books. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in whole or in part, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission of the publisher.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Troupe, Thomas Kingsley, author. | Bonet, Xavier, 1979- illustrator.

  Title: The Gulliver giant / by Thomas Kingsley Troupe ; illustrated by Xavier Bonet.

  Description: North Mankato, Minnesota : Stone Arch Books, [2019] | Series: Michael Dahl presents: Midnight library 4D | Summary: “When library page Jordan Young falls asleep in the children’s section of T. Middleton Nightingale City Library, she misses the initial transformation of the library and wakes up to find herself in the land of Lilliput, where the tiny people are fighting over how to crack an egg and a friendly giant from Brobdingnag is looking for her giant mischievous monkey.”--Provided by publisher.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2018046384 | ISBN 9781496578945 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781496578983 (ebook pdf) | ISBN 9781496590053 (ebook)

  Subjects: LCSH: Swift, Jonathan, 1667-1745. Voyage to Lilliput--Juvenile fiction. | Imaginary places--Juvenile fiction. | Giants--Juvenile fiction. | Public libraries-- Juvenile fiction. | Library pages--Juvenile fiction. | Books and reading--Juvenile fiction. | Adventure stories. | CYAC: Characters in literature--Fiction. | Giants- -Fiction. | Libraries--Fiction. | Library pages--Fiction. | Books and reading-- Fiction. | Adventure and adventurers--Fiction. | LCGFT: Action and adventure fiction.

  Classification: LCC PZ7.T7538 Gu 2019 | DDC 813.6 [Fic] --dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018046384

 

 

  Xavier Bonet, The Gulliver Giant

 

 

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