Rating: 
Summary: Xorn of Xorna!! HOORAY for the 13 Clocks!
Review: I first heard this enchantingly wonderful book on cassette tape when i was at art lessons. I would wait impatiently till the next week so I could hear more~ more about the Golux (who resembles only half the things he says he doesn't!) and about Princess Saralinda and the Prince whose name begins with X... and doesn't! This book is full of whimsical wonderful wordplay and contains almost all of my favorite quotes of all time. It isn't very long, but every sentence is filled with some little quips or verbal oddities that, quite literally, made me smile and laugh while reading (a funny sight XD). This book is without question one of my favorites of all time~ a truly wonderful tale that can be read over and over again without ever growing old. Truly classique. I mean, the book that's given me my tagline HAS to be great: "We all have flaws and mine is being evil."
Rating:
Summary: Dazzling
Review: I first ran into "The 13 Clocks" when I was sick as a child. I had the radio on, and heard Boris Karloff reading it. I've loved it for 50 years."The Duke wore a velvet patch over one eye; the other glittered at you through a monacle. When he was young, he had enjoyed turning over rocks and sticks in search of small creatures to maul. One day a mother shrike had mauled him first."
Rating:
Summary: The Thirteen Clocks
Review: I thought that this book was a great book and I would recommend it to anyone who wants to read great fairy tale. A tale with Princes, Princess and an evil Duke. I couldn't put the book down. It was short and sweet. There is a simple plot and characters that are easy to relate to. There were many descriptive sentences that painted detailed pictures in your head. I also enjoyed the pictures in the book and found them very amusing. This book as some surprising twists in it that you would never guess. Again I would highly recommend this book for anyone of all ages that just want to read something that is good and it doesn't take him or her days to read. It is just an awesome book to read. I hope you enjoy it.
Rating:
Summary: On guard, you musty sofa!
Review: In summary form, "The Thirteen Clocks" will almost certainly come across as a clever but fairly conventional fairy tale, populated by amusing variants of the archetypal beautiful princess, wicked Duke, and poor-hero-who-isn't-what-he-seems. This is unfortunate, because while all of these characters are great fun, the real hero of this little book is the English language. Few authors are as skilled as Thurber when it comes to playing with words, and in "The Thirteen Clocks," verbal gems pop out of almost every page. Moreover, when it comes to making up new words for comedic or literary effect, only Lewis Carroll's "Jabberwocky" does it better - you'll not find "guggle" or "zatch" in an anatomy textbook, but in the context of the tale, their meaning is both perfectly clear and perfectly hilarious (also perfectly clean - this is definitely an all-ages book). I'd offer more examples, but that would deprive you of the joy of discovering them for yourself - and not even a Todal in full gleep could make me do that.
Rating:
Summary: An enchanting fairy tale for all ages
Review: It's hard to categorize "The Thirteen Clocks" -- is it a children's fairy tale? a book for grown-ups? Who cares? Readers from 5 to 95 will enjoy this wonderful book; the kids for the story and the adults for Thurber's marvelous way with words. It's a simple little fantasy tale of an abducted princess, a murderous duke, and the prince who comes to her rescue. And it starts off as all fairy tales should, with "Once upon a time..." Thurber brings us the beautiful Princess Saralinda, the Duke of Coffin Castle who was so cold that he managed to stop time one snowy night when all thirteen clocks in the castle stopped at ten minutes to five and never started again, and Prince Zorn of Zorna, who called himself Xingu, the prince whose name begins with X and doesn't, who is the one man who can defeat the duke's evil plans and rescue Saralinda. But Thurber's best invention by far is the Golux, a spaced-out wizard whose spells have a way of backfiring from time to time, who assists Zorn in his quest to save the princess. And there is a deliciously spooky, never-seen monster called the Todal, that "smells of old, unopened rooms and sounds like rabbits screaming", who is the cold duke's infernal weapon, and, ultimately, his nemesis. Thurber's way with words will leave you boggle-eyed. This is the quintessential read-aloud book and the kids love it. On the second or third reading they'll be chanting along with sentences like these: "The brambles and the thorns grew thick and thicker in a ticking thicket of bickering crickets..." And Thurber goes hogwild in making up all kinds of words that somehow managed to portray what he want to get across. When he tells us that the duke slits open his victims from their guggles to their zatches, you may not know exactly what is a guggle and what is a zatch, but you get the idea. And when the Todal gleeps while devouring a victim, we know just what Thurber is talking about. (Try going "gleep" way at the back of your throat and you'll see what I mean.) "The Thirteen Clocks" is full of dark humor and the illustrations by Marc Simont are right in character -- dark, haunting and yet comical at the same time. The book is a great mix of a good story, good characters, good writing, and just plain good fun.
Rating:
Summary: An enchanting fairy tale for all ages
Review: It's hard to categorize "The Thirteen Clocks" -- is it a children's fairy tale? a book for grown-ups? Who cares? Readers from 5 to 95 will enjoy this wonderful book; the kids for the story and the adults for Thurber's marvelous way with words. It's a simple little fantasy tale of an abducted princess, a murderous duke, and the prince who comes to her rescue. And it starts off as all fairy tales should, with "Once upon a time..." Thurber brings us the beautiful Princess Saralinda, the Duke of Coffin Castle who was so cold that he managed to stop time one snowy night when all thirteen clocks in the castle stopped at ten minutes to five and never started again, and Prince Zorn of Zorna, who called himself Xingu, the prince whose name begins with X and doesn't, who is the one man who can defeat the duke's evil plans and rescue Saralinda. But Thurber's best invention by far is the Golux, a spaced-out wizard whose spells have a way of backfiring from time to time, who assists Zorn in his quest to save the princess. And there is a deliciously spooky, never-seen monster called the Todal, that "smells of old, unopened rooms and sounds like rabbits screaming", who is the cold duke's infernal weapon, and, ultimately, his nemesis. Thurber's way with words will leave you boggle-eyed. This is the quintessential read-aloud book and the kids love it. On the second or third reading they'll be chanting along with sentences like these: "The brambles and the thorns grew thick and thicker in a ticking thicket of bickering crickets..." And Thurber goes hogwild in making up all kinds of words that somehow managed to portray what he want to get across. When he tells us that the duke slits open his victims from their guggles to their zatches, you may not know exactly what is a guggle and what is a zatch, but you get the idea. And when the Todal gleeps while devouring a victim, we know just what Thurber is talking about. (Try going "gleep" way at the back of your throat and you'll see what I mean.) "The Thirteen Clocks" is full of dark humor and the illustrations by Marc Simont are right in character -- dark, haunting and yet comical at the same time. The book is a great mix of a good story, good characters, good writing, and just plain good fun.
Rating: 
Summary: Puzzling
Review: There is so much darkness in it, even with Thurber's quixotic humor. While I liked it, I'm not exactly sure what it is supposed to mean, but I do think it is supposed to mean something. It contains goodness and cruelty, romanticism and sinister characters. I think it may be a parable, but to what end? I liked his take on the matter of time, and I love Thurber's writing. My copy has wonderful illustrations.
Rating:
Summary: Puzzling
Review: There is so much darkness in it, even with Thurber's quixotic humor. While I liked it, I'm not exactly sure what it is supposed to mean, but I do think it is supposed to mean something. It contains goodness and cruelty, romanticism and sinister characters. I think it may be a parable, but to what end? I liked his take on the matter of time, and I love Thurber's writing. My copy has wonderful illustrations.
Rating:
Summary: Magical, Whimsical Fairy Tale
Review: This is a cute, very short fantasy book full of a weird mix of prose and poetry. The back of my old paperback proclaims "Everyone has always wanted to love a princess/Everyone has always wanted to be a prince/Everyone has always wanted the wicked duke to be punished/Everyone has always wanted to live happily ever after." While I've never wanted to love a princess or be a prince, I am always entranced by the characters. It follows a mysterious young man who wishes to marry the beautiful Princess Saralinda. But Saralinda is kept in a castle without time, by a sinister Duke who claims to be her uncle. The young man (whom we find is a prince himself, Zorn of Zorna) is given an impossible task, and his only ally is the bizarre Golux, "the only Golux in the world, and not a mere Device." Together they venture through a shadowy world of jewel-weeping women, things without heads, and mediocre witches... The storyline and plotting are straightforward, without detours or side-quests. Characters go from point A to point B without wandering off to do things. Zorn and Saralinda are a fairly ordinary prince and princess, and the Duke rolls and revels in his sheer badness; it's the Golux who really makes this tale. The son of a mediocre witch and an alcoholic wizard, he is quirky and sometimes gets things wrong. The prose is sprinkled through with poetry, as often a sentence will fall into rhyme, without benefit of stanzas. Thurber's description of things is casual: he doesn't dwell forever on weird things, but treats them as part of the experience. This is a wonderful book, well worth the hunt it will take to find it.
Rating:
Summary: Children & Adults will enjoy!
Review: This is one of the few books that both children & adults can enjoy. Other reviews have gone into more detail on what this book is about, but for me, the key point is this: too many kids' books are uninteresting to adults, and vice versa, but this is one that you will enjoy reading to your child or having your child read to you!
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