Here’s hoping the next installment in this series achieves a better balance.
In this sequel to Curse of the Boggin (2016), Marcus (white), Theo (African-American), and Lu (Asian-American) are back.
Strange disruptions have beset Coppell Middle School in Massachusetts, some distance from Marcus’ home in Stony Brook, Connecticut, and Marcus’ first assignment as an agent of the Library is to find out what’s going on. At Coppell, the three friends go undercover, befriending Ainsley Murcer, the feisty eighth-grade class president, who seems to always be around when a violent disruption occurs. After following a white wolf into the surrounding forest, both Marcus and Ainsley are confronted by a witch who informs the white girl that she has been chosen by a coven as its high priestess. Ainsley’s connection to the coven, along with the disruptions at the school, was activated with the onset of her menses. If Ainsley goes through with the priestess ritual on the night of the black moon, or Halloween, the coven will be poised to take over the world. As an agent of the Library and holder of the Paradox key, Marcus is the only one who can stop them. Despite solid folkloric grounding, delving into blood-related connections to witchcraft feels out of step for the light adventure series. Still, MacHale once again pens a page-turner that adds just the right amount of humor from narrator Marcus to buoy the mood.
Here’s hoping the next installment in this series achieves a better balance. (Fantasy. 10-14)Pub Date: Oct. 3, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-101-93257-5
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: July 16, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2017
A thrilling first installment in an adventurous new series.
An orphaned street urchin is recruited into an elite school for thieves.
In an alternate world where France is the dominant world power, 13-year-old Tom Morgan has had to scrimp, starve, and steal on the streets of London to survive. Born into a workhouse, he doesn’t know anything about his father, while his mother may have been from North Africa. One thing he does know is the sort of cruelty that awaits the poor who are sent to the workhouse, and he’s determined not to go back. But when their camp is raided and his friends are captured by workhouse agents, the only thing Tom can think of is how to get them out. Enter the Corsair, a cunning and mysterious man with a proposition: He wants to recruit Tom into Beaufort’s School for Deceptive Arts. From nabbing treasures to forging identity papers, Beaufort’s promises to teach Tom everything he needs to know to become a Shadow Thief and a member of the Shadow League, the secret global organization that helps keep the world’s political power in balance. But Beaufort’s has its own rules and secrets, and if Tom is to survive long enough to help his friends, he’ll need to figure them out quickly. Clever and gripping, this fast-paced boarding school story will appeal to fans of the Mysterious Benedict Society and Spy School series.
A thrilling first installment in an adventurous new series. (Adventure. 10-14)Pub Date: Aug. 26, 2025
ISBN: 9781665982283
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Aladdin
Review Posted Online: May 3, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2025
Is this the end? Well, no…the series will stagger on through at least one more scheduled sequel.
Sure signs that the creative wells are running dry at last, the Captain’s ninth, overstuffed outing both recycles a villain (see Book 4) and offers trendy anti-bullying wish fulfillment.
Not that there aren’t pranks and envelope-pushing quips aplenty. To start, in an alternate ending to the previous episode, Principal Krupp ends up in prison (“…a lot like being a student at Jerome Horwitz Elementary School, except that the prison had better funding”). There, he witnesses fellow inmate Tippy Tinkletrousers (aka Professor Poopypants) escape in a giant Robo-Suit (later reduced to time-traveling trousers). The villain sets off after George and Harold, who are in juvie (“not much different from our old school…except that they have library books here.”). Cut to five years previous, in a prequel to the whole series. George and Harold link up in kindergarten to reduce a quartet of vicious bullies to giggling insanity with a relentless series of pranks involving shaving cream, spiders, effeminate spoof text messages and friendship bracelets. Pilkey tucks both topical jokes and bathroom humor into the cartoon art, and ups the narrative’s lexical ante with terms like “pharmaceuticals” and “theatrical flair.” Unfortunately, the bullies’ sad fates force Krupp to resign, so he’s not around to save the Earth from being destroyed later on by Talking Toilets and other invaders…
Is this the end? Well, no…the series will stagger on through at least one more scheduled sequel. (Fantasy. 10-12)Pub Date: Aug. 28, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-545-17534-0
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: June 19, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2012
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