Rating: 
Summary: a little gem
Review: Ashmol Williamson lives with his family in the harsh climate of Lightning Ridge, Queensland, the capital of opal mining in Australia. He is a bit of a loner as would his sister, Kellyanne be, if she didn't have Pobby and Dingan. They're her imaginary friends. It is quite normal for the town to include Kellyanne's friends in conversations, infact Dingan even came third in a competition! Kellyanne is often seen with three lollipops, holding hands with her two imaginary friends.Then one day they go missing. Kellyanne is distraught. Before her family's eyes she begins to fade away, unable to eat. Ashmol figures that he needs to do something to help Kellyanne and organises a search party to try to save Kellyanne from disappearing before their eyes. This is an absolutely beautiful story, funny, heartbreaking, small in size but perfectly written. This book can't fail to move you in some way.
Rating: 
Summary: a "grown-up" storybook
Review: How can you search for imaginary friends when you can't see them? I think that Kellyanne would tell you that you just have to believe. But it ends up being her unbelieving brother Ashmol that gets the town to believe when Pobby and Dingan get lost at the mines. Pobby and Dingan is a sweet surprise, a fun story book that you might read with your older kids or a gift for a friend who has gotten ....... into the corporate world without air. It's short, it's imaginative and unpredictable even given it's length. I loved that the book was set in austrailia and utilizes aussie terms like pom and fairdenkum and that I could listen to the accent between the pages. It's a story book, nothing more nothing less. I wouldn't anxiously await a next book by Ben Rice, but, fairdenkum, this one was a super surprise.
Rating: 
Summary: A short story at best
Review: I enjoy author's first novels because, when they're good, it makes you feel like you're part of the great discovery from the start. I had heard good things about this book so I was hopeful that might be the case with Ben Rice. Unfortunately, it didn't happen. At 93 pages, it's really more of a short story than a novel and I think it's overpriced with a retail price of [price]. But more than that, the story itself left much to be desired. I like authors that are willing to take chances and try different things but obviously it all comes down to execution. There were a lot of quirky characters - both real and imagined - but no real character exploration. Events happen but you aren't given any real insight as to why the characters behave the way they do. Motivations and explanations are completely left out. It may have been more enjoyable if it had been fleshed out more instead of forcing the reader to accept everything on its face. In all, there isn't much substance and the story is unsatisfying and rather weird.
Rating:
Summary: Story and Voice
Review: I grabbed this book off the YA rack of the library for a sick-home-from-school teenager. She read a few pages, observed, "This is not a children's book," and didn't move until she'd finished it. An older kid came in, picked up the book, and sat immobile until done reading. Before going to bed, I noticed that the book had migrated to the top of the refrigerator. I opened it, and was transfixed--read the whole thing standing in the dim kitchen for an hour and a half. It's the voice--a tough young boy who muscles aside resentment and sibling rivalry to help his family in a crisis. And the story--a good structured story that teeters on a gritty realistic brink above a mine shaft of myth. Look forward to more from Ben Rice.
Rating:
Summary: A child's parable parading as an adult novelette
Review: Pobby & Dingan, British author Ben Rice�s first novel, captures the life of a poor, young family in South Wales, the opal mining capital of Australia. Rex Williamson is a moderately unsuccessful opal miner in Lightning Ridge, struggling to keep his family of wife and two children on its feet. Times are difficult in the Williamson household, and arguments are frequently breaking out on everything from family life to main characters Pobby, and Dingan, daughter Kellyanne�s two best, although imaginary, friends. When her father takes Pobby and Dingan with him to his opal claim one day, and returns empty handed with neither opals nor friends, Kellyanne is extremely upset. The family is up in arms, arguing that Pobby and Dingan are �not real�, and that Kellyanne must grow up. This attitude remains until Kellyanne becomes deathly ill, mourning the loss of her two best friends.
She refuses to eat, and demands that her brother, Ashmol (also narrating the book), return her two friends, whom he cannot even see. Ashmol, realizing that finding her friends is the only way to cure his sister of her illness, sets out on a journey through his small town, asking people to look for two imaginary friends of his sister�s. The town receives this well, and plays a big part in bringing the family closer together. �A girl called Venus turned up with her Alsation saying her dog had sniffed out the imaginary friends. Even the little boy with the Eric-the-ninja-platypus came along, claiming that his own imaginary friends had found my sister�s friends.�
Ben Rice has created a moving, motivational story, realizing everything about the way a child�s mind works, and demonstrating family life in a poor area of Australia. You can�t help to wonder about the life of the author, and how distant he is from any character in the book. Being his first novel, you also wonder his inspirations, which combine both the styles of Harper Lee and J.D. Salinger.
Pobby and Dingan will draw you in from the first page to the last page, teaching you about life, death, and opal mining. By the end, you will be asking for more of Ben Rice�s bed-timesque �stories for grown-ups.�
Rating:
Summary: Probably the best novella I've ever read ...
Review: Pobby and Dingan is a book that sticks with you for a long time. Many others have given plot details, sometimes too much detail, so I'm going to avoid anything after the very beginning of the story. A father loses his daughter's imaginary friends, so his son, the narrator, is forced to go in search of them. It sounds simple, and it is just so. But it is also so much more: the book speaks loudly about faith, love, children's perceptions, and the way that people doubt and hurt others. I've given this book to other people, and they've given it to others. We put it on our summer reading list at school, and, in all of that, I've yet to hear a negative comment. There is only one warning I'd issue about this book: once you start it, you may not be able to find any place to stop ... even the second or third time you read it. I only wish that Ben Rice were more prolific a writer.
Rating:
Summary: imaginative
Review: Pobby and Dingan, Ben Rice. In his first novel, Ben Rice tells a story full of imagination of Ashmol's family. The twelve year old Ashmol Williamson lives in an Opal mining town, Lightning Ridge, with his parents and his younger sister and her two imaginary friends: Pobby and Dingan. Ashmol gets frustrated by how stubbornly Kellyanne insists on her friends being real. She would even go as far as to take her invisible friends to school and set places for them at dinner (only Kellyanne could see them.) One day Pobby and Dingan get lost in the Williamson's opal mine. While looking for Pobby and Dingan Ashmol's dad is accused of ratting on someone else's claim (poaching). "Ratting, you see, is the same thing as murder at Lightning Ridge-only a bit worse.EKelllyanne gets sick and it seems that the only cure is to find Pobby and Digan. Ashmol must overcome his feeling of ridicule to save his family's honor and his sister's life and embark on a mission to find Pobby and Dingan and clear his father's name. Ben Rice tells an excellent story in the voice of the Australian twelve year old, which sucks you right into lightning Ridge. He makes us reconsider reality and the power of the young mind, but leaves the wanting to know how the family will turn out in the end.
Rating:
Summary: Entertaning and Vived Novel
Review: The novel Pobby and Dingan is a refreshing though short read. It takes place in the "small" town of Lightning Ridge, an eccentric opal mining town in the Australian outback. The novel is narrated by a vividly portrayed young boy by the name of Ashmol Williamson and consists of his adventures and growth in terms of his views of his life and of his sister and her imaginary friends Pobby and Dingan. The narrator is the son of a failing opal miner who drives to the field every day and brings back nothing but dreams and a mother who wishes she was back in England, while she goes of to her work behind a cash register to keep the family going for another day (it would be nice if her character was fleshed out a bit more). This is the back drop of Ben Rices first novel Pobby and Dingan. Rice tells it in a nice interesting Australian accent of the outback opal miner (although he could be just BS-ing it). However the book does have it's flaws, the narrators voice can get irksome after a while, the book spends too much time dealing with imaginary people (even if that is what it is about), and it's steady progression to a less realistic outlook rubbed me wrong. On the whole I found it an entertaining one sitting read, for the book is quite excessively short, there isn't much there. It might have even benefited from being published as a part of a collection of storys rather than being published on its own. The book is an important though odd section of a boy's childhood, which is entertaining, vivid, tragic and full of fantasy.
Rating:
Summary: Pobby and Dingan
Review: This book is EXCELLENT! It's rare that you come across a truely enjoyable read from cover to cover. Even though the book is short, it is a very satisfying read. It's well written. It flows naturally from beginning to end. The story is sweet and original. I highly recommend it.
If you are thinking about getting it, and you must be, since you're reading this review. GET IT!
Rating:
Summary: An Odd Book
Review: This book is very short (less than 100 pages) and leaves you with an odd feeling afterwards. It's in general an odd sort of book with its quirky characters and plot. Despite all this, it well explores the concept of faith and belief in that which cannot be seen.
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