Week 1- Entry B

By reading my Week1-Entry A, you may be slightly confused as to what this book is all about. The Fourth bear is about a fictitious crime concerning the infamous Gingerbreadman. So far, he has escaped from the secure hospital, St. Cerebellum's. He has already killed multiple people with just his bare hands, and is off to murder more. As silly as this book sounds, it's very good so far. I love the way Jasper Fforde mixes nursery rhyme characters into real life. Many of these characters are considered dangerous because they have a set job to do and nothing can stop them. For instance, the Great Long Red-Legg'd Scissor-man cuts off children's thumbs if they suck on them. He has no other purpose in life, but this because that's what he was created to do. The Nursery Crime Division must stop these fairy tales gone bad. My only problem with this book so far is that I'm unfamiliar with some of the nursery rhyme characters. Punch and Judy are the protagonist’s, Jack Spratt's, neighbors. I've heard these names before, but I don't really know who they are. Doing a little bit of research on handy dandy wikipedia, I have found that they are puppet characters all the way from the sixteenth century. Punch is a psychopath abusive husband who in the book threatens to throw their baby down the stairs. In The Fourth Bear, Punch and Judy are alive but have wooden heads like puppets. They enjoy beating and screaming at one another. I hope more characters come up that I don't know, because I enjoy learning about them.