Samuel Blink and the Forbidden Forest

""There is a place you must never enter. It is a place where evil has many faces, and where creatures of myth live and breathe. And kill. It is a place beyond dreams or nightmares—a place that has so far been too feared to be called anything at all. Now, in this book, I will explain the unexplained, and give fear a name that suits it well. That name shall be Shadow Forest, and it will plant terror in your hearts.""

- Professor Horatio Tanglewood

Samuel Blink and the Forbidden Forest (also known as Shadow Forest) is a novel written by British novelist Matt Haig.

The book is about Samuel, regular, 12-year-old boy and his sister who goes to live with his eccentric aunt after his parents in a car crash.

How quaint.

His aunt insists that he stays away from a forest next to their house. Naturally, that just makes him want to go into it more. Later, he finds a book in the attic, called The Creatures of Shadow Forest, written by Prof. Horatio Tanglewood, describing supernatural, incredibly dangerous creatures within said forest.

The question is, are they really that dangerous?


 * Achilles' Heel: The creatures in the forest each have one, and they are each listed in the book.
 * Big Bad: The Changemaker.
 * Can Not Tell a Lie: The Truth Pixie.
 * Cassandra Truth: Samuel has a moment of this when he points out to his parents that their car is about to crash.
 * Exactly What It Says on the Tin: All the troll's names work this way. Any troll that is known for any particular thing is named after that. For example, the left head of a two-headed troll would be called "Troll-the-Left". A weaver troll would be called "Troll-the-Weaver". This creates problems, as there are many generic "Troll-Sons", "Troll-Daughters", "Troll-Fathers", and "Troll-Mothers", with only one family of them actually important to the plot.
 * Also the Truth Pixie.
 * Foreign Queasine: Reindeer soup and gjetost cheese.
 * Henpecked Husband: Troll-Father.
 * Informed Obscenity: Stinkymudfungle!
 * Magic Is Evil: Discussed, but not used.
 * Pardon My Klingon: The troll swearword "flenk".
 * Also "Stinkymudfungle".