thedoommachine

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The Doom Machine

Mark Teague

Teague, Mark. The Doom Machine. The Blue Sky Press. New York, NY. 2009.

The Doom Machine is a fictional novel of mystery and humor by Mark Teague. The novel has been popular for all ages since 1935, and is great family read. This humorous story inspires everyone to be fearless and face their fears.

A fourteen year old boy named Sam, living in North Dakota, was walking down the street when an alien-looking space ship arrived. Arms extend out of the ship and started to tickle him. Sam was startled and passes out.

Sam woke up and feels doomed that he will never stop laughing; he runs into the nearest house to get away from the ship. Sam locks himself in the basement. The ship was unable to go underground. Sam was safe, but will be stuck there forever. The ship followed him that whole day, but finally escaped out of sight. Sam thought the ship was gone. A couple days later Sam saw the ship everywhere he went. Hiding behind buildings, in stores, etc. He was always being tickled by it. Sam felt there was no way to escape the curse of being tickled.

Sam found out that the ship was actually being controlled by his older sister, Phoebe, who was actually trying to get revenge on Sam for the time he put green die in her shampoo. Phoebe got the ship from a scientist who came to her school once to substitute.

Mark Teague’s mysterious story, The Doom Machine, keeps readers from around the world wondering what’s going to happen next. The reader feels sympathy for the boy, and the reader will wish to help him throughout the book. Even though the reader is not in the story, they will be in the story in their mind.

4 out of 5 stars.

Contributed by S. Swanson

Apr 12th 2011