Sophisticated fare for readers in search of a few more Unfortunate Events. Well endowed with classic horror-tale tropes from creepy woods, old curses and creaky mansions to a lunatic asylum with a strange staff and an ichorous pool with uncanny properties, the community of Spooking looms over a modern suburb, seemingly ripe for Development. Strewing broad hints that, except for protagonist Joy, who is ablaze with a massive case of Early Adolescence, and her wholly normal little brother Byron, few if any of Spooking’s residents are quite Who (or What) They Seem, Bracegirdle reprises the general arc of prequel Fiendish Deeds (2008)—subjecting an ominous new scheme of hapless villain Phipps to turn the asylum into an exclusive spa to messy and (more through suggestion than overt detail) gruesome treatment. As observed by the largely uncomprehending Joy, the antics and infatuations of the adults supply most of the comedy, but the thoroughly gothic setting and a madcap climax will keep younger audiences entertained, too. (Comic horror. 11-13)
Pub Date: Aug. 10, 2010
ISBN: 978-1-4169-3418-9
Page Count: 304
Publisher: McElderry
Review Posted Online: June 15, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2010
Categories: CHILDREN'S MYSTERY & THRILLER
Did you like this book?
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
When deadly minions of archvillain Ledroptha Curtain escape from prison, the talented young protégés of his twin brother, Nicholas Benedict, reunite for a new round of desperate ploys and ingenious trickery.
Stewart sets the reunion of cerebral Reynie Muldoon Perumal, hypercapable Kate Wetherall, shy scientific genius George “Sticky” Washington, and spectacularly sullen telepath Constance Contraire a few years after the previous episode, The Mysterious Benedict Society and the Prisoner’s Dilemma (2009). Providing relief from the quartet’s continual internecine squabbling and self-analysis, he trucks in Tai Li, a grubby, precociously verbal 5-year-old orphan who also happens to be telepathic. (Just to even the playing field a bit, the bad guys get a telepath too.) Series fans will know to be patient in wading through all the angst, arguments, and flurries of significant nose-tapping (occasionally in unison), for when the main action does at long last get under way—the five don’t even set out from Mr. Benedict’s mansion together until more than halfway through—the Society returns to Nomansan Island (get it?), the site of their first mission, for chases, narrow squeaks, hastily revised stratagems, and heroic exploits that culminate in a characteristically byzantine whirl of climactic twists, triumphs, and revelations. Except for brown-skinned George and olive-complected, presumably Asian-descended Tai, the central cast defaults to white; Reynie’s adoptive mother is South Asian.
Clever as ever—if slow off the mark—and positively laden with tics, quirks, and puns. (Fiction. 11-13)Pub Date: Sept. 24, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-316-45264-9
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Megan Tingley/Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: April 28, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2019
Categories: CHILDREN'S MYSTERY & THRILLER | CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES
Did you like this book?
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Four children find their way into another world through a hidden doorway in a mysterious old piece of furniture.
Gallagher elaborates on this oddly familiar premise by (eventually) explaining that the right sort of wooden joinery will link furniture from any place or time. Billy, his little sister Sophie and their friends Chris and Maggie discover a seemingly endless maze of hallways lined with doors and drawers full of strange artifacts by crawling into a nightstand belonging to missing Uncle Gary. The labyrinth is actually a “cabinet of curiosities” that brilliant carpenters of many generations have been building to store treasures like Excalibur and the Thunderbird Photograph. Before this is explained, however, the four children have spent many chapters wandering the halls at random—and also being menaced in the outside world by animated wooden puppets from the fictional “Zobadak Wood Company,” who are after Uncle Gary and the nightstand at the command of a shadowy figure named Brope. Along with introducing scads of enigmatic elements from flocks of aggressive crows to a mischievous fairy, the author injects artificial melodrama into the tale by having Billy and Sophie rescue their pointlessly kidnapped parents. He clumsily tries for comic relief by casting the puppets as inept Abbott-and-Costello types and with no perceptible rationale closes by having all of the adults stonewall or downplay everything that has happened.
Inventive worldbuilding, but way too much is left unexplained and unresolved. (Fantasy. 11-13)Pub Date: July 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-1-934133-32-3
Page Count: 360
Publisher: Charlesbridge
Review Posted Online: May 4, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2011
Did you like this book?
© Copyright 2022 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
