Andy Griffiths, Terry Denton and The 130-Storey Treehouse
Okay, so the 13-Storey Treehouse wasn’t exactly modest to begin with – I mean, it did start off with 12 more stories than your average arboreal haven – but now it’s grown to incorporate 130, that’s right, 130, imaginative, ridiculous and super-fun floors!
The cartoony illustrations, the zippy prose and the sheer ingenious silliness of the thing made The 13-Storey Treehouse an almost instant hit with readers of seven years and up. The author-illustrator partnership of Andy Griffiths and Terry Denton took a simple, brilliant idea and turned it into one of the most popular children’s book series in the world, prompting giggles and guffaws everywhere. Popular with reluctant readers and avid bookworms alike (as well as with a good few adults, no doubt), the Treehouse books, like the titular structure, just keep getting bigger and better. The fact that it’s now ten times taller than when it started out is an ongoing testament to the pair’s imagination and ingenuity (and madness, probably).
“I was never lucky enough to have a treehouse but my cousin David had one in an oak tree in his backyard. It was just a basic platform but I loved the feeling of how the real world seemed to fade away as we lost ourselves in the imaginative (adult-free!) space of the treehouse. It was this feeling of complete involvement in an imaginative world that I recaptured many years later as an adult when I began collaborating with Terry on a regular basis.” – Andy Griffiths, Q&A with BooksforKeeps
Since Andy and Terry decided to create their ever-expanding treetop playground, the treehouse has gone on to feature a giant catapult, a secret laboratory, a man-eating shark tank and an automatic marshmallow machine… and that’s just in the first 13 floors!
Other favourite improvements include:
- Anti-gravity chamber
- The Maze of Doom
- Baby dinosaur petting zoo
- Not-very-merry-merry-go-round
- Life-size snakes and ladders
- Ninja Snail Training Academy
- Tree-NN News Centre
- Exploding eyeball room
- Scribbletorium
- Never-ending staircase
- And, of course, hundreds of other hilariously surreal additions.
“There’s still a 10-year-old child inside us both that likes being stupid, dumb and silly and somehow he gets out every now and then and somehow we try and control him.” – Terry Denton, Q&A with Stuff.co.nz
The 130-Storey Treehouse (Release 20/10/20)
The newest addition to the series features a further host of extraordinary constructions and loads of whacky adventure.
Andy and Terry have now lived in the treehouse long enough to add yet another 13 levels to their beloved project. By now, the treehouse includes an observatory just for checking on extra-terrestrial life, a whole level just for time-wasting, a toilet paper factory (because you never know when you’ll run out) and a 13-storey igloo – I guess you’d have to ask them how they managed that.
The thing that Andy, Terry and Jill didn’t really realise is that if they are watching the aliens, they might just be watching them back. Of course, when they are abducted by a giant floating intergalactic eyeball, they probably realise their oversight. But hey, Planet Eyeballia actually sounds super-exciting… until they arrive, that is. Will the gang be able to make it back to Earth in time to get their book finished?
Another 13 storeys, another treasure trove of absurd, slapstick humour, outrageous invention and impossible shenanigans!
There might not be time for us to run through every one of the ten books in this series, but here’s a bit about the two that came before this new one.
The 117-Storey Treehouse
When you just keep on adding and adding to your gravity-defying treehouse, eventually you’re likely to run in to some trouble.
This time around Andy and Terry have constructed a level just for tiny horses, and underpants museum (surprisingly informative), a pyjama-party room and an Information Centre (you try finding your way around 117 floors without it. But. With all this unstoppable expansion, the duo has managed to run afoul of the Story Police… and there only chance of escaping them is through the dreaded Door of Doom! Why is it called the Door of Doom? Well, you’ll have to climb on up and ask them!
The 104-Storey Treehouse
Here’s what’s new: a whole level for stupid hats, a money/honey-making machine, a never-ending staircase, a burp-bank (whatever that’s for) and an impressive fortress. That’s not all, of course… but you’ll have to explore for yourself to find out the full extent of Andy and Terry’s latest bout of constructive madness.
Is their next funny story lurking somewhere in the two-million-dollar shop, or perhaps in the deep-thoughts thinking room?
Everything else you might want to know about Andy, Terry and the Treehouse books can be found at https://www.treehousebookseries.com/
Happy Reading!