ATTICA

New stepsiblings Jordy, Chloe and Alex move into a duplex landlorded by initially crotchety Mr. Grantham. When the children venture into the attic to find Grantham’s pocket watch, they find a vast world that they dub Attica. Together (and apart) they explore a dark world of animated cast-off junk, talking vermin and small, silent indigenous people. Other lost children from the past have gone native and obsessively collect specific types of items. On the quest for the watch, which becomes a search for a way home, the adventurers encounter scissor-birds, animated mannequins, vengeful voodoo effigies and the sinister protectors of Attica the Removal Firm. Published in 2006 across the pond, this British import suffers from an overabundance of detail and a truly leaden pace. The children accept their strange milieu far too readily, and though their difficulties are often interesting and imaginative, they are never very—well, difficult. Diehard fans of British fantasy may enjoy this coincidence-filled entry in the parallel-magical-world subgenre, but it is not for every collection. (Fantasy. 9-12)