Mort: the 10 000 year old boy

Mort: the 10 000 year old boy by Martin Chatterton (Random House Australia)

PB RRP $14.95

ISBN 9781742753157

Reviewed by Vicki Stanton

What a cracking read? Kids are bound to love this adventure with Mort and his family who by some strange quirk of nature age only one year for every 1 000 lived. This book has everything – mad scientists, cloned geniuses (Da Vinci, Oppenheimer, H.G. Wells to name but a few) and cloned madmen (Genghis Khan), a mutant vampire Goldilocks, a sabre-toothed tiger, a time machine and one very unflustered truancy officer!

Mort flies along at breakneck speed with a new twist around every corner. Chatterton makes this totally outrageous story very believable. His black-and-white illustrations which pepper the story add to its humour. The ending very obviously leads into the sequel but rather than feel cheated, as I have done on other occasions when that technique has been used, I’m merely hanging out for the next instalment where Mort, Khan and others have been transported back to 1941 and landed in the clutches of Nazi soldiers.

Included in the back is a brief run-down on some of the historical figures that Mort and sister Agnetha had cloned for those that need the heads-up.

I highly recommend Mort for younger independent readers who enjoy action, adventure and a good laugh.