World of Adventure 7 – The Gorgon Slayer

Gary Paulsen's The Gorgon Slayer is a very silly monster story for 10 year olds about a boy stuck with the worst job in town.

What happens

Warren Trumbull works for Prince Charming's Damsel in Distress Rescue Agency. Sounds exciting? It isn't. The older boys get the princesses in towers. Warren gets the jobs nobody else wants, for twenty dollars a day.

He also has a turned-up pig nose and sticky-out ears, thanks to a witch whose garden he once raided. So everyone calls him Piggy.

Today's job is a Gorgon in an old lady's basement. Warren has dealt with a dozen of them this summer and he finds them boring. Just don't look at one or you turn to stone. But three boys have already been sent down to Mrs Thorensen's cellar, and all three are now statues.

Warren has to take Rick along too, a gangly new boy on his first day. And this Gorgon has worked out how to beat the old mirror-shield trick.

The joke is that the world of myths is completely ordinary. Centaurs drive taxis. Genies turn up in every shop. The boss is a grumpy eight-foot Cyclops who says everything in capitals (so you can hear him shouting). The man who rents out the swords and shields is a swindler with a "real" Thor's hammer under the counter.

It's a short, fast read. The basement fights are chaotic and very funny, with Warren and Rick keeping their eyes shut, clinging to each other's heads and swinging swords at thin air. Your reader will probably laugh most at Mrs Thorensen, who grumbles that in her day you walked seven miles through the snow to find a Gorgon. Uphill both ways!

There's a nice bit of heart too. Warren is saving up for a camera and Rick wants a new bike. Neither of them is brave for the sake of it. They just really need the money, and they really don't want to be called rockheads for the rest of their lives.

If you've got a reader who likes their heroes a bit hopeless and their monsters a bit ridiculous, this is a lot of fun.

What to read next

If they'd like another Gary Paulsen story with something nasty lurking, The Creature of Black Water Lake has a boy new in town and a lake that nobody is allowed to swim in.