Heck : Where the Bad Kids Go (Circles of Heck Series #1) [NOOK Book]

H-E-Double Hockey Sticks for People Under 18 Great

Heck is one of the best and funniest books I have ever read! I loved all the great puns about the teachers and their classes, but some of them are hard to understand. I HIGHLY, HIGHLY, HIGHLY, recommend this book trilogy. Great read for anyone who liked The series of Unfortunate Events! I loved these books and I am a 12 year old girl who reads ALOT!!!

2 out of 2 people found this review helpful.

Heck

One of the BEST series EVER!!!
Milton and Marlo live an CRAZY afterlife in the absolute WORST place for kids you could ever imagine.

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

One of the best bookz eva

In this story two kids get themselves in trouble by stealing. When they pased away, the went straight to heck, and they learn that they wont b realeased until they turn 18. Which could turn into eternity. Will their plans be good enough to escape or will they be stuck there FOREVER... read this awesome begining to this amazing story

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

I LOVE Heck!

Such a criller. Comedy+ Thriller = Criller. Imagine, basically, having a sister that is a juvinile delinquent you being a straight A+ student and you getting punished for it by being sent to the kid version of h-e-double hockey sticks because your sister tricked you into stealing! What a book! I totally recomend for 9-12 year olds!

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

Yay

Yay

0 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

A

Best book ever finished the series it is awesome!!!!!

I hope you all like the books

Heck

Iove this book

SUCH A GOOD BOOK!!!!

i saw it in in the store and it looked interesring and i went home and read it in one day!!!

0 out of 2 people found this review helpful.

Response to lindsey miller

I havent read the book yet but i own it. Lindsey miller do u read and rate every book!!!???

It was good for the most part....

I liked it alot, but I felt like it repeated itself alot. The author didn't express the characters personalities as much as I had hoped. He did very well on the details about the scenery, but not very well in general. I love the story plot but i don't think I will be reading the next book.

Heck reader.

I have read almost all the books and by far this one is my fvorite!

HECK

Pure Awesomness!

It's cute

Definatly different than other books I've read. Interesting how the author wrote a book about 2kids going to.well..not quite hell.
I found it a bit long in the tooth, yet I like the concept itself. The charters and the spins and puns were very entertaning. I think it would stand well as a book to read a "troubeling" kid. Who knows might make them think twice...if you can get them to sit and listen.

A heck of a good time!

I really enjoyed following Milton and his older sister Marlo's adventures as they do their best to escape Limbo before being permanently assigned to one of the deeper circles. Turns out that there are 9 circles in Heck: Limbo, Rapacia, Blimpo, Fibble, Snivel, Precocia, Lipptor, Sadia, and Dupli-city. Don't know if that means that there will be 9 books in the series, but it should be fun!

This book is supposed to be geared for the 9-12 age group, but I don't know if they will get some of the pop culture references. For instance, I got a kick out of Richard Nixon teaching an ethics class, but does that age group even know who Richard Nixon is? Or Lizzie Borden for that matter? And I'd be shocked if they had any idea who Anubis was! FYI, he was the Egyptian god of the underworld who had the head of a jackal.

This was a fun, quick read, but I don't know that I would give a copy to my 8 year old niece. Parts of the book were cute and funny, but other bits seemed to be aiming for disgusting. For instance, did we really need such graphic details of Milton & company crawling through the sewers? I'd recommend it for adults who enjoy YA fiction, and maybe read it with your child in order to explain certain things. But in the end, I really liked the marshmellow bear explosion! *L*

Heck

Basye, D.E. (2008). Heck: Where the Bad Kids Go. New York: Random House.

9780375840753

Heck follows the well-named Milton, his pet ferret and his goth sister, Marlo on their journey through the first level of Heck after their deaths in the first chapter. The book is humorous and Basye creates an interesting and detailed world in his first novel. The book's subject is entertaining and would be attractive to reluctant readers, especially kids who chuckle at or make fart jokes.

Basye's version of Heck has some similarities to the movie Beetlejuice's version of the underworld in that bureaucracy is perceived as one of the great evils. (IMPORTANT NOTE: Basye implies bureaucracy is evil, not me. If I hadn't fallen in love with children's literature so early, I totally would have become a bureaucrat. You hear that bureaucracy? Please don't lose my social security number)

Much of the book feels like an extensive inside joke, filled with references to the works of Donne, Dante, Milton etc. Fallowing Dante's example, Basye's version of Heck includes nine levels and real deceased people portrayed as the teachers in Heck's school. If the students do not have knowledge of Watergate or the killings of Lizzie Borden then a number of the jokes will escape them. But at the same time, many teachers would probably be unwilling to formally teach Heck, since it assumes life after death, the existence of souls, a Judeo-Christian worldview, and includes a lot of gross details and descriptions.

While geared toward middle grade students, if I were to teach this book, it would be to high school student and only in I was conducting a parent-approved extensive examination of the portrayal of Hell in literature and other media first.

Of course, Heck (like so many other books) is being turned into a series. All I have to say is that if I'm expected to read nine books to discover how Milton and Marlo find peace and/or escape Heck, I'll declare that I have discovered my own, personal, hated circle of Heck.

Activities to do with the book:

Discuss fun topics like the way Hell (or Heck) is portrayed by different authors and in different media. The book also lends itself to discuss the lives of some of the real people who are featured as teachers in Heck, including Lizzie Borden, Typhoid Mary, former president Richard Nixon, etc. This book could also be used to discuss the nature of death and loss.
Students could also make illustrations or dioramas of what Heck looks like or they could create their own versions of Heck. Which behaviors cause a person to go to Heck? What are the punishments for those behaviors?

Favorite Quotes:

"ABANDON ALL HOPE, YE WHO ENTER HERE (AS WELL AS ALL CAMERAS AND ELECTRONIC RECORDING DEVICES)" (p. 14).

"So I'm facing eternal.darnation.for a tube of kiwi-cantaloupe lip gloss?" (p. 25).

"Just because you cease to be doesn't mean you cease to learn" (p. 77).

"This was simply a case of mind over fecal matter" (p. 133).

"It was joy with an edge. Happiness with a hunger to it, an appetite that ached, that could never be filled. It crackled all around him, making him itchy and agitated" (p. 168).

For more of my reviews, visit sjkessel.blogspot.com

Tay's review: from a kid to a kid

I'm 9 yrs old and I loved this book. I like to read, although it's not my favorite subject, but I couldn't stop readig this book. I think my favorite character is Marlo because he's like a straight A student that turned bad because of his sister Milton. My vavorite part is when they're on the run from the mall cops and die. But it's not sad, this is where the story gets really interesting.

absorbing

very interesting a page turner

Heck of a good read.

Dale Basye must have been off his rocker when he came up with a idea to write a book about a teenage brother and sister who die and are sent to Heck. This book just caught my eye well I was at the store one day and I had to read it. (Though I may not be a teen anymore I'd like to see where I would have ended up had I ended during that time in my life) Milton and Marlo's journey to the first cirlce of Heck, and attemps to escape as well turned out to be a rather good read. Basye's use of comic releif help make this a great book rather then a weird read. His use as Richard Nixon as the Ethics teacher in Heck, was wonderful. This is a start of a series with the next book due out the end of July of this year, so don't plan on the book coming to a perfect ending, as there are 9 circles of Heck, and we just deal with the first one here. I look forward to following Milton and Marlo's joureny through this series.

Reviewed by Rebecca Wells for TeensReadToo.com

When Milton and Marlo Fauster die in a marshmallow bear explosion, they are sent not to Heaven or Hell, but instead to Heck, an otherworldly reform school for "bad kids." There, they must toil until they turn eighteen, at which point their souls will be reevaluated and sent on. Though Marlo, a teenager with an unfortunate case of kleptomania, clearly belongs in Heck, the siblings are at a loss to understand why Milton is there as well - he has always been a model citizen.

Could there possibly have been a mistake?

The authorities claim otherwise, and so Milton and Marlo are forced to endure such classes as ethics with Robert Nixon and gym with Blackbeard the pirate as they plot their way out of Heck. But will these intrepid siblings discover a way to escape, or will they be forced to stay in this thoroughly heckish place forever?

HECK: WHERE THE BAD KIDS GO is a book that will appeal to everyone still a child at heart. The narration flows smoothly with a thoroughly engaging voice, and the landscape of Heck is funny and inventive; it is a world where children are forced to eat their way out of rooms as punishment, where candy can glue mouths shut, and where good dreams are strictly prohibited.

Dale E. Basye takes the reader on a nonstop adventure that is sometimes touching, sometimes disgusting in the best of gleeful ways, and at all times captivatingly entertaining.

Clever and intelligent, but not for little kids

This is an intelligent and culturally literate tour de force, a very well written novel by a writer who's obviously in love with his craft. That being said, the book is quite long for the 9-12 year old age group. Furthermore, the cultural references will be almost completely lost on this group-- Beelzebub, Richard Nixon, Lizzie Borden, for example. And references to one of the protagonist's acne and underdeveloped breast size? Those aren't primary concerns for third-to-fifth graders. It's marketed for the wrong age group, quite frankly. Middle-schoolers might love it.