The Beastly Arms - Softcover

Jennings, Patrick

3.65

130 ratings by Goodreads

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0439165903 ISBN 13: 9780439165907

Publisher: Scholastic Paperbacks, 2003

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An accessible middle-grade novel from popular author Patrick Jennings now in paperback. 11-year-old Nickel moves with his mother into a mysterious apartment building called The Beastly Arms.

11-year-old Nickel and his mother need to find a new apartment. When their search takes them to an unfamiliar part of the city, Nickel is drawn to a strange building at the end of an alley - a building called the Beastly Arms.

Even though the rent in dirt cheap and the apartment is beautiful, Nickel's mom thinks the Beastly Arms is creepy. So does his best friend, Inez. Even his pet kangaroo rat, Miriam, seems worried. But Nickel, an avid photographer who has a gift for seeing what others don't, senses that the Beastly Arms houses a secret that only he can unearth...

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Review:

Mr. Beastly has a secret, there's no doubt about it. Or at least that's the conclusion sixth grader Nick Dill reaches after he and his mom stumble across this strange man's little building--the Beastly Arms--while apartment-hunting.

Like his mom, who teaches photography at City College, Nick always seems to be looking at the world through a camera lens. Everyone looks like an animal: His best friend, Inez, is a spider monkey; his teacher, Mr. Kirkaby, reminds him of a gray fox; and Sixto, the guy at the newsstand with big circles under his eyes and the same white vest over a black T-shirt every day, is a panda. But Nick just can't figure out what sort of animal Mr. Beastly looks like--or why he has such a fondness for Miriam, the kangaroo rat who travels around in Nick's shirt pocket.

For better or worse, Nick is about to find out a whole lot more about the mysterious Mr. Beastly, and not just because of the interview assignment that Mr. Kirkaby gives Nick and his class. As it turns out, Mr. Beastly has a very attractive vacancy in the Beastly Arms--and Nick and his mom have no idea what they're getting into. But, as Mr. Beastly himself says, sometimes you just have to follow your gut. (Ages 10 and older) --Paul Hughes

From School Library Journal:

Gr 5-6-In this offbeat novel, an easily distracted 11-year-old discovers just how apt the name of his new inner-city apartment house is. Perhaps it's the building's barnyard smell or the way landlord Julius Beastly alternates between unshaven stumblebum and nattily attired salesman, but Nickel knows there's something fishy going on-or, to be more precise, gamy. To Nickel, everyone resembles some kind of animal, as do the clouds that he photographs obsessively. And, as his head is usually in those clouds, if it weren't for his alert, boundlessly energetic friend Inez's elbow-jogging, he would constantly be running into mailboxes or standing lost in contemplation of dust motes in sunbeams. Still, camera in hand and pet kangaroo rat in pocket, Nickel sets out alone in the dead of night to explore the Beastly Arms's upper floors. He makes astonishing discoveries, prompting Mr. Beastly to admit the truth. It seems that almost all of the building's 73 rooms are filled with wildlife-bats, foxes, opossums, rodents, owls, and more-all rescued from building projects and other urban hazards over the past 40 years. Now Beastly is old and tired, willing to turn their caretakership over to a kindred spirit. In the end, what stands out here is not the premise (its booktalkability notwithstanding), but the protagonist. Nickel is about as different from Joey Pigza as it is possible to be, but like Jack Gantos, Jennings reveals a similarly vivid, winning blend of strength and vulnerability inside the head of his bright, creative, dreamy child.-John Peters, New York Public Library

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