LEAVING THE BELLWEATHERS

Portraying the zany antics of the Bellweather family from the perspective of their staid butler, this first novel falls short of the situation’s potential hilarity. A misguided ancestor pledged the Benway family to 200 years of butlering to the Bellweathers, and that era is about to end. Benway eyes retirement as the family—inventor father, wall-painter mother, Spider, the son who prefers darkness and dangerous animals, Ninda, social-activist bagpipe player, and very loud-mouthed triplets Sassy, Spike and Brick—run amok in their lighthouse in Eel-Smack-by-the-Bay. An endangered albino alligator Spider has rescued, the triplets’ plot to steal the Mona Lisa and Ninda’s efforts to turn a family of circus acrobats she’s locked in her bedroom into union members add flavor to the brew. Character development is secondary to silliness, creating a sense of superficiality. Debi Gliori’s Pure Dead books do a better job of capturing the humor of a bizarre family situation, but as the pace quickens, the Bellweather family will, at very least, amuse and may make some laugh out loud. (Fiction. 9-13)