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THE TRAIN TO IMPOSSIBLE PLACES by P.G. Bell Kirkus Star

THE TRAIN TO IMPOSSIBLE PLACES

A Cursed Delivery

From the Train to Impossible Places series, volume 1

by P.G. Bell ; illustrated by Matt Sharack

Pub Date: Oct. 2nd, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-250-18950-9
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends

One green flash is all it takes to turn Suzy Smith’s sensible life on its head.

Suzy figures it’s only her imagination; after all, her parents didn’t see it. But later that night, the 11-year-old physics enthusiast awakens to discover a railway line going straight through the downstairs hall. And then the Impossible Postal Express arrives. This train, which runs on “fusion bananas,” makes deliveries “from Trollville to the five corners of reality,” also known as the Union of Impossible Places: “all the weird and magical places that don’t quite fit anywhere else.” The Postmaster, a pale-green–skinned troll called Wilmot, deputizes Suzy as a Postal Operative. Suzy is to make her first delivery to the Lady Crepuscula, a wicked sorceress. When the package’s contents call out to Suzy, she discovers Prince Frederick, who has been turned into a frog in a plot to overthrow the kingdom. Suzy must help Frederick and save the Union, but there’s something he’s not telling her. The third-person narration is marked by whimsical humor with a healthy dose of irony. A cast of unforgettable characters includes a brown bear that is yellow (she’s a blonde), underwater ghosts, and a group of overexcited retired postal trolls. Suzy has light brown skin, and there’s diversity in the trolls’ skin colors, but other human characters are assumed white.

All aboard for an adventure like no other—readers will be delighted to learn it’s just the first.

(Fantasy. 8-12)