The 39-Storey Treehouse (McCreary.98)

The 39-Story Treehouse is written by Andy Griffiths and illustrated by Terry Denton (ISBN 978-1-250-02692-7). The book is set in Australia and is about two young boys and their adventures living in a 39-story treehouse. Ironically, the two characters in the story are named Andy and Terry.

Andy and his friend Terry live in an extraordinary treehouse. It is 39 stories with a new level being built. There are many fun rooms/levels such as a chocolate waterfall, roller coaster, opera house, x-ray room, etc. Andy and Terry like to write books together. Andy is the author and Terry is the illustrator. Their publisher is Mr. Big Nose who calls them when they are starting Chapter 2 of each book they write. He gives them the deadlines for their books. They have written hundreds of books together.

Terry was the creative one of the pair. He was secretly building the 39^thlevel of the treehouse and hadn’t given Andy any clues on what was up there. Terry was creating a book writing machine called the Once Upon a Time machine. Andy and Terry spend a lot of time working on their books. Every now and then, their deadline is tight and they need a little help in getting their book written and illustrated. The Once Upon a Time machine was created to help them finish their book by the deadline created by Mr. Big Nose.

Their most recent book had a short deadline from Mr. Big Nose, so Andy and Terry use the Once Upon a Time machine to help them write their latest book. The machine has many options which allow them to choose the book length, characters, setting, plot, etc. The machine quotes them 8 hours to write the book. In order to start the machine, Terry has to put his big toe in the big toe recognition security feature in order to start the machine. Once the machine is started, Andy and Terry decide to do something fun with the free time the machine has gifted to them.

Andy and Terry play in their treehouse until they are bounced out. When they come back to the treehouse, they try to get in but the Once Upon a Time machine heard them talking that they changed their minds and wanted to finish the book themselves. The machine slapped them away so they couldn’t get close to the treehouse. The machine locked them out. Their friend Jill comes over and invites Andy and Terry to her house for a sleep over. Jill has lots of animals, though, and Andy and Terry don’t get to eat dinner or sleep because the animals eat all the food and sleep in the bed with them. They decide to find Professor Stupido who un-invents things that he doesn’t like. He was sent to the dark side of the moon because he was upsetting people by un-inventing things that he doesn’t like. They asked him to un-invent the Once Upon a Time Machine. After returning to the treehouse, Professor Stupido un-invented the machine. He then went on a rampage un-inventing all the 38 other stories in the treehouse. He then un-invented the treehouse, the earth, and the universe. Andy and Terry came up with a plan for Mr. Stupido to un-invent himself so he would go away. Once Mr. Stupido is gone, Terry offers to re-draw everything that was un-invented.

Terry begins to redraw everything starting with the galaxy, universe and then the planets. He then moves on to drawing everything back the way it was, including all 39 stories of the treehouse. Andy notices that the Once Upon a Time machine was redrawn too. He asks Terry why he would do such a thing after all the trouble they had in getting rid of it. Terry states that he didn’t redraw the machine but that “It must have redrawn itself!” (Griffiths, 2013, p. 318). Andy and Terry notice that there are papers on the machine. They pull the papers out and begin to read the story. The story is a replication of what they had gone through earlier in the book. They then realize that someone has stolen the machine. Terry isn’t worried about it because he knows that the machine cannot be started due to the big toe recognition security feature. The machine ends up exploding in the hands of the bandits who stole it.

The book concludes with Terry and Andy mulling over the moral of the story. Terry had created the Once Upon a Time machine to help save them time and frustration when writing books under a tight deadline. In the end, they realized that the machine caused them more trouble than it would have been if they had just written the book. Taking a shortcut did not help them. They should’ve just taken the time to write and illustrate the book.

This book is appropriate for children ages 8 – 12. The book is planned out well with a good balance of pictures to text. I would not normally choose a novel with as many pictures as this one, as I find them difficult to read. This novel though, had enough text on the pages for me to be able to follow the story. The characters are engaging and keep you turning the pages until the end of the book. I recommend this book for the age group mentioned above.

Works Cited:

Griffiths, A. (2013). The 39-storey treehouse. Feiwel & Friends, Australia.