"WHY IS THIS NIGHT DIFFERENT FROM ALL OTHER NIGHTS?"

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"WHY IS THIS NIGHT DIFFERENT FROM ALL OTHER NIGHTS?"

Name: "WHY IS THIS NIGHT DIFFERENT FROM ALL OTHER NIGHTS?"
Author: Lemony Snicket
ISBN: 978-0-316-12304-4

From the All the Wrong Questions series , Vol. 5

by Lemony Snicket ; illustrated by Seth ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 29, 2015

Best to start at the beginning, but the whole’s an enjoyable ride. (Mystery. 8-14)

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Librarians, a train, a murder, and the end of an apprenticeship.

Young Lemony Snicket’s chaperone, S. Theodora Markson, has crept out in the middle of the night. Following her, he receives an origami message from one of his associates (a word that here refers to the people around his age with whom he shares the goal of stopping the villainous Hangfire from destroying the ink-manufacturing town of Stain’d-by-the-Sea). The message leads Snicket to the railway station, where a train is about to depart Stain’d-by-the-Sea for the city. The train’s taking both Snicket’s former associate Ellington Feint and librarian Dashiell Qwerty (the latter unjustly accused of arson) to the city to await trial. With no ticket, it takes a feat of derring-do to get aboard. When he does, Snicket nearly witnesses a murder…which he then must solve while attempting to keep Hangfire from obtaining the statue of the Bombinating Beast, the final piece in his dastardly plan. With a train half full of suspects, Snicket’s lucky the other half are his associates. Can they trap Hangfire and catch a murderer? Author Snicket (aka Daniel Handler) closes his quartet of smart, noirish mysteries detailing the early training of the chronicler of the woes of the Baudelaire children with several bangs (and a poison dart or two). Most questions (wrong and right) are answered by the satisfying close.

Best to start at the beginning, but the whole’s an enjoyable ride. (Mystery. 8-14)

Pub Date: Sept. 29, 2015

ISBN: 978-0-316-12304-4

Page Count: 304

Publisher: Little, Brown

Review Posted Online: Oct. 1, 2015

Categories:

CHILDREN'S MYSTERY & THRILLER | CHILDREN'S TRANSPORTATION

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SWARM OF BEES
by Lemony Snicket ; illustrated by Rilla Alexander

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THE BAD MOOD AND THE STICK
by Lemony Snicket ; illustrated by Matthew Forsythe

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GOLDFISH GHOST
by Lemony Snicket ; illustrated by Lisa Brown

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FINALLY, SOMETHING MYSTERIOUS

From the One and Onlys series , Vol. 1

by Doug Cornett ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 14, 2020

Delightful fun for budding mystery fans.

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Only children, rejoice! A cozy mystery just for you! (People with siblings will probably enjoy it too.)

Debut novelist Cornett introduces the One and Onlys, a trio of mystery-solving only kids: Gloria Longshanks “Shanks” Hill, Alexander “Peephole” Calloway, and narrator Paul (alas, no nickname) Marconi. The trio has a knack for finding and solving low-level mysteries, but they come up against a true head-scratcher when the yard of a resident of their small town is covered in rubber ducks overnight. Working ahead of Officer Portnoy, who’s a little on the slow side, can Paul, Shanks, and Peephole solve the mystery? Cornett has a lot of fun with this adventure, dropping additional side mysteries, a subplot about small businesses, big corporations, and economics, and a town’s love of bratwurst into the mix. Most importantly, he plays fair with the clues throughout, allowing astute readers to potentially solve the case ahead of the trio. The tone and mystery are perfect for younger readers who want to test their detective skills but are put off by anything scary or gory. The pacing would serve well for chapter-by-chapter read-alouds. If there are any quibbles, it’s the lack of diversity of the cast, as it defaults white. Diversity exists in small towns, and this one is crying out for more. Hopefully a sequel will introduce additional faces.

Delightful fun for budding mystery fans. (Mystery. 8-12)

Pub Date: April 14, 2020

ISBN: 978-1-9848-3003-6

Page Count: 256

Publisher: Knopf

Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2019

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2020

Categories:

CHILDREN'S ACTION & ADVENTURE FICTION | CHILDREN'S MYSTERY & THRILLER | CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES

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EVIL SPY SCHOOL THE GRAPHIC NOVEL

From the Spy School series , Vol. 3

by Stuart Gibbs ; illustrated by Anjan Sarkar ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 5, 2024

Will satisfy fans but could be better.

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Young CIA agent-in-training Benjamin Ripley switches sides—or is he just going undercover?—in this graphic version of the third Spy School caper.

Sticking to the plot of the 2015 original, this episode sees the talented math whiz recruited by nefarious organization SPYDER after being (unjustly, he fumes) kicked out of the CIA’s academy. While training in a hidden school for evildoers with other prospective villains, including Ashley Sparks, a gushy former competitive gymnast with a fondness for portmanteau words (sweet + awesome = swawesome), Ben gets wind of a dastardly scheme to make billions on government construction projects. Hot if inept pursuit by both rival espionage agencies takes Ben from a secret underground command center to the top of the Statue of Liberty. But while the action has a rapid flow in the art (Sarkar is good at portraying fights, high-speed chases, and explosions), several characters are drawn with generic features and such a limited range of expressions that even with help from the cast gallery, it’s hard to tell them apart easily. Still, along with coming through in the suspenseful climax—thanks to clever deductions and quick thinking—by the end, Ben has also achieved a long-sought breakthrough with Erica Hale (code name “Ice Queen”), a superbly omnicompetent schoolmate who has his heart as well as his back. The cast largely presents white.

Will satisfy fans but could be better. (Graphic thriller. 8-12)