A mildly creepy premise, lots of clueless adults, and teens who are more pranksters than toughs keep the tone light.
A reform school’s rehab program turns out to have a disturbing biological component in this satiric series opener.
When one impulsive act—well, OK, he stole a subway train—lands him in dusty, decrepit Munchem Academy alongside his bad seed big brother, Carter, undersized Mattie Larimore soon discovers the tried-and-true technique of ingratiating himself with the grown-ups isn’t going to secure him an early release. No, it seems there are plans afoot to boost the school’s reputation by producing exact but eager-to-please clones of all the school’s resident bullies and punks. Seeing sudden, bizarre behavior changes in Carter, Mattie embarks on a determined search for his original sibling that takes him from the teachers’ lounge to a high-tech lab beneath a nearby mausoleum. Eventually plans for a complicated denouement collapse, but that’s OK because a) Carter turns out to be not such a bad brother, and b) Mattie comes to realize that, particularly after some editing of the evil Headmaster Rooney’s memories, Munchem isn’t such a terrible place after all. Aside from the two Larimores, whose mother is Dominican, the cast isn’t particularly racially diverse, but Mattie does acquire as allies Eliot and Caroline, squabbling adopted sibs with distinct and special abilities who will, the pseudonymous “Bolivar” assures readers, be his future sidekicks. Stay tuned.
A mildly creepy premise, lots of clueless adults, and teens who are more pranksters than toughs keep the tone light. (Science fiction/suspense. 11-13)Pub Date: Oct. 18, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4847-5358-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Disney-Hyperion
Review Posted Online: July 19, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2016
A droll addition to the magical school genre, worthy of a seat toward the front of the (Harry) Potter-wagon.
Will assaults from within and without close a renowned school for minions—leaving the Evil Overlords of the world to draw from rival schools?
Not if Runt Higgins, newest addition to the exclusive Junior Henchman Training program, has anything to say about it. The deck looks stacked, though. A devastating video of panicked Critchlore grads fleeing a group of (apparent!) Girl Explorers has gone viral, and an ongoing string of near disasters prevents recovery. Not only that, a massive explosion in the local graveyard has robbed the school of its chief source of undead new students. Even worse, iron-willed headmaster Dr. Derek Critchlore has suddenly taken to distractedly watching TV soaps and is in danger of being replaced. Kind, thoughtful and so naïve that he’s continually being victimized by pranksters, Runt really isn’t henchman material—but significant clues and loose ends hint that he’ll be achieving a higher station in planned sequels. Moreover, Grau supplies him with loyal friends from half-ogre foster brother Boris to bolt-necked Frank Twenty-five, whose head tends to fly off in a shower of gore when he’s upset. Frequent side jokes and Sutphin’s accomplished caricatures of students, faculty and staff, both human and non-, add comical flourishes.
A droll addition to the magical school genre, worthy of a seat toward the front of the (Harry) Potter-wagon. (pictorial cast list) (Fantasy. 11-13)Pub Date: April 21, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-4197-1370-5
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Amulet/Abrams
Review Posted Online: Dec. 5, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Rare, scary fun. With tomatoes.
A moment’s messing with an odd clock plunges a lad into the strange and dangerous borderland between the living world and the realms of the dead in this decidedly offbeat chiller.
Great-aunt Primrose’s old house has no TV or Internet…but it does have a bone Nightclock hidden in the root cellar. Hardly has Dekker given its skull-shaped face a twist than he’s engaged in a desperate game with a malign doppelgänger—who plucks Dekker’s heart out and escapes into the shadowy Nightside. Fortunately, even though Dekker begins to decompose (his annoying little sister, Riley, rightly dubs him “zombie boy”), Aunt Prim grows special tomatoes that work as temporary heart replacements. Unfortunately, for all her joking, Riley intrepidly sneaks off alone into the borderland to get his stolen life back. Impelled to follow, he plunges into a huge impending crisis: The mighty Nightclock at the final gateway to the realms of the dead has been forcibly stopped so that no spirits can get through at all. Though strewn with scary creatures and tons of spooky bones, the tale is also leavened with such tongue-in-cheek elements as a bustling “Bizarre” of the dead and borderland trains lit by lanterns hung in the rib cages of skeletal conductors. Both Dekker and Riley are admirably clever, and Bradford keeps the stakes satisfyingly high.
Rare, scary fun. With tomatoes. (Horror. 11-13)Pub Date: April 1, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-4598-0755-6
Page Count: 264
Publisher: Orca
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2015
PERSPECTIVES
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