The Adventures of Titch and Mitch: Trolls of Sugar Loaf Wood
Written by Garth Edwards
Illustrated by Max Stasyuk
Titch and Mitch, two adventurous pixies, are back in this collection of stories featuring their magic flying bicycle. All they have to do is yell ‘up, up and away’ and they are pedaling through the air. One day, Titch and Mitch have a party. It begins to rain but, when the storm is over, there is a beautiful rainbow. Encouraged by their friends, Titch and Mitch ride in search of the treasure at the end of the rainbow. Instead of a pot of gold, they encounter a hermit. He shows them treasure of a different kind: books. In another story, Titch and Mitch get into a scary situation when they try to help a gnome trying to escape from trolls. This group of trolls loves sugar bread, the kind found in Sugar Bread mine but they have eaten so much that they are too fat to dig it out for themselves. So they capture Mitch along with any other creature they can find and force them to work in the mine. Titch and his friends manage to rescue Mitch and one of the fairies trapped in the mine. In another story, the stream in front of their house unexplainably runs dry. They use their magical bicycle to investigate and they find that the magic bicycle does not work when it gets wet. In the next story, they get caught in a storm and that’s how they meet Wendy, a little girl who would love to keep them. In the final story, they need all their magic and their quick thinking to help a little tree escape from a witch so it can return to its mother. After all, these are compassionate and smart pixies, even if they do get into trouble.
These stories are told with a sweet innocence befitting tales of pixies. Use the stories early in fourth grade before the fourth-grade-swagger sets in, although the reading level seems a bit high for the narrative voice. This is the fifth book of The Adventures of Titch and Mitch. One suggested literacy activity would be to have students make a chart or write an essay about the wonderful magical bicycle and describe all the things it did for Titch and Mitch.
TITLE: The Trolls of Sugar Loaf Wood- AUTHOR: Garth Edwards
- ILLUSTRATOR: Max Stasyuk
- PUBLISHER: Inside Pocket, 2011
- REVIEWER: Risa Brown
- EDITION: Paperback, 122 p.
- ISBN: 978-0-9567449-6-8
- LEXILE: 1210
