Toby Alone

Okay, maybe that's an exaggeration, but I definitely recommended this book to everyone I know - young and old. The world Fombelle invents is marvelous, intriguing, and complete. The characters are lively and quirky, with the kind of hilarious extremes of evil and good that made Roald Dahl so much fun to read. But Fombelle's story goes beyond black and white good guys and bad guys. There is depth to the emotion and to all of the characters - both main and secondary. This is a two book series - you can't stop with book 1. Oh, and the hardcover version has a beautiful map of the tree where the characters live on the inside of the jacket. This delightful feature is partly what made me buy the book!

Toby Alone is set in and around an enormous oak tree inhabited by a community of tiny and technologically unsophisticated people. The minuscule thirteen year old protagonist, Toby Lolness, is an escaped prisoner with a large and very tempting bounty on his head. While he repeatedly eludes capture, we learn, through a series of well-integrated flashbacks, how Toby came to be a fugitive. Six years ago, Toby's father, a brilliant scientist, conducted a series of investigations and experiments designed to prove that the tree is a single, living organism. One byproduct of his experimentation was the invention of an engine that uses the tree's sap as fuel. Although Sim shared his findings with the public, his fellow citizens failed to understand the importance of conserving their home, and immediately besieged him with plans for money-making labor-saving devices. Because drilling the tree for sap will kill it, Toby's father refused to explain how the engine works, and his brave and principled stand led to his nuclear family's downfall. And that's just the beginning of this fast paced, thought-provoking and entertaining book. Timothée de Fombelle is an excellent writer who tells a plot driven, compelling story without sacrificing character development and motivation. Toby is a sympathetic, considerate and stalwart youth who is willing to risk everything for those he loves. Other major characters are similarly valiant and admirable, though quirky or flawed, while bit players who appear for only a few pages are blessed with back stories that are interesting, believable and sometimes heartbreaking. The author also shows that some of the amoral characters who make reprehensible choices have a touch of humanity, like the the brutal father who belatedly discovers his love for his son; the horrid thug who is heartbroken at the passing of his sidekick; and the sadistic jailer who adores his cruel daughter. While the author explores powerful themes that may be disturbing for sensitive or precocious readers, he more than compensates for these dark moments with lengthy passages showing the reader how brave and caring individuals can overcome serious adversity through honesty, loyalty, and thoughtful action. His careful plotting and deft touch keep the book's grimmer themes from becoming overwhelming, while his obvious love of nature is tempered by brief, unsentimental glimpses of its realities. I greatly enjoyed this book, and eagerly await the publication of its sequel, Toby and the Secrets of the Tree (Toby Alone). This book is a keeper, and I will be buying additional copies for the tweens and teens in my life.

Life is difficult when you're 13 years old. Life is even tougher when you're 13 and one-and-a-half millimeters tall. And life possibly could not get any worse when you're 13, one-and-a-half millimeters tall, and on the run with a secret that people would kill for --- even if it means killing an innocent child. Toby Lolness, however, takes it all in stride as he plots to save his parents and clear the family name from the misunderstanding that started the whole mess. Toby and his parents, the brilliant scientist Sim and the lovely Maya, were exiled to the lower branches of the great oak Tree years ago after Sim discovered an amazing fact about the home of their great civilization --- it's alive! With his family looking on, Sim demonstrates to the grand council how the Tree's sap works and how harming it will kill their only home. This alarming news is not met with open arms by one particular member of the council, Joe Mitch, who is making a gold mine with his deep digging operation at the center of the tree and who hopes to harvest the sap for his own benefit. When Sim refuses to share the secret of the power of the sap, Mitch leads the effort to banish Sim, Maya and Toby from the summit of the Tree. At first Toby is apprehensive about the lower branches. His family is starting from scratch, it is close to the grasslands and the mysterious (if not dangerous) grass people, and Toby is without a friend his own age. Slowly but surely, Toby begins to adapt to his surroundings. He has an uncanny sense of direction among the rugged wilderness and has befriended the beautiful Elisha Lee, a girl his own age with whom he spends much of his time. Over the years Toby grows up healthy and happy, even if he is short. A letter proclaiming the death of Toby's grandmother propels the family back up north for the first time since they were banished. Even though many years have passed, Mitch hasn't forgotten --- or forgiven --- the Lolness family for refusing to share the secret of the tree's sap. Sim and Maya are captured, but Toby escapes and is indeed alone as he flees his pursuers, attempts to return to Elisha and his home among the lower branches, and figure out a way to free his parents. Numerous dangers wait at each turn as Toby battles both the people of the tree and the elements of nature. Timothee de Fombelle seamlessly weaves flashbacks among the main action to provide much of the back story to the world Toby and the people of the Tree inhabit. It is easy to spot the environmental allegory in the story, but it does not come off as preachy by any means. Instead, it lets the readers see what happens when a society becomes greedy and turns a blind eye to protecting its home. A fold-out map in the cover and many clever illustrations add an extra element to the book. Although Toby is small, his story is not, and readers will not be disappointed with the swift storytelling and the big hearts of many of its main characters. TOBY ALONE is just the start of

I bought this book a few weeks ago for my son's birthday and although he hasn't finished it he loves it. It seems to be quick moving and catches the reader's interest early on. Can't wait to finish it.

I read the two books in French two years ago and have been offering them to all the 12-year-olds I know. So far, it's been an immense success. Tobie is a dark tale that can be read on two levels. Literally, you will discover a world encapsuled in a tree where people living in the grasses and the roots are considered inferior to people living in the branches and few people even know anything beyond their microcosm. Tobie is a skinny 13-year-old boy whose world collapses all of a sudden when his scientific father discovers there's another world besides their own (the branches). All microsystems are tightly interrelated and influence each other. This discovery puts Tobie's parents in jail under death penalty and Tobie, guardian of a precious stone entrusted by his dad, becomes the No. 1 public enemy of the biggest developer in the tree. Both books narrate Tobie's tale of survival as he gains further knowledge of the tree and evolves from hunted to hunter. Yes there are scenes of violence (pretty graphic) and I would not recommend this book for anybody under 10 or 11 years of age. Maybe 12 better? As a general rule I've found French books for children to be darker than American books and this one is no exception. However this is precisely what I liked. It is not sugar-coated and tweens' lives are no picnics. Tobie Alone (and its sequel) are a beautiful tale about growing up, love and friendship. Adults would read this book as a parable on urban sprawl and careless development. I did not find the book predictable, which was what kept me reading until the very last page. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. Just a cautionary word though: I have not read it in English and I hope it flows as well as in French.