Being an Excursion to the Wilds of Scotland, Involving Many Marvels of Experimental Invention, Pirates, a Heroic Cat, a Mechanical Man and a Monkey in the series The Mad Misadventures of Emmaline and Rubberbone.

The subtitle just about says it all. This book made me laugh out loud and reminded me of M.T. Anderson’s series of Thrilling Tales (See my review of The Clue of the Linoleum Lederhosen) and of a Little Orphan Annie cartoon story and of the movie version of Jules Verne’s Around the World the World in Eighty Days, among other things. (It’s a book full of allusions and reminders.) The setting is Victorian England, or rather Scotland. The pace is frenetic. The characters are:

Emmaline Cayley, a thirteen year old pioneer of aviation,
Rubberbones aka Rab aka Errand Boy aka Robert Burns, a bouncing boy with “indestruckable” physique,
Aunt Lucy Butterworth, the Best Sort of (very large) Aunt,
Lal Singh, a mysterious and heroic butler,
Professor Ozymandias Bellbuckle, a mad scientist from Georgia, USA,
Princess Purnah, a royal personage, also thirteen years old, daughter of the late Mir of Chiligrit (somewhere in Central Asia),
The Collector, insane, obsessive yet organized kidnapper of eminent scientists,
Samuel Soap, a master of disguise,
Hrecules and Titch, little thug and Big Thug,
Angus, a Scottish automaton,
and several other assorted minor characters and cameo appearances including Sherlock Holmes, Queen Victoria, Harry the Hobo, Maisie the cat, and several mad scientists in various stages of madness.

With such a cast, the author could afford to throw them all into peril and have them chase each other all over the British isle and run into each other at such inopportune moments as fortune and a loose plot would allow. It all makes for a lot of fun, especially since Princess Purnah never learned to speak English properly and says things like, “Here is weapony for smitings, Auntilucy. I go now. Slay thee many policishes with mighty blows of umbrelly!” Meanwhile, Emmaline tries to keep Professor Bellbuckle from the inordinate use of explosives, while Rubberbones and Lal Singh settle in on the island of Urgghh, a haven for mad scientists off the northern coast of Scotland.

I gather that The Island of Mad Scientists is a sequel to The Strictest School in the World: Being the Tale of a Clever Girl, a Rubber Boy and a Collection of Flying Machines, Mostly Broken, the first misadventure of Emmaline and Rubberbones in which Emmaline and Princess Purnah escape from a school run by the infamous Mrs. Malvolia Wackett. The second in the series is called The Faceless Fiend: Being the Tale of a Criminal Mastermind, His Masked Minions and a Princess with a Butter Knife. And there is more than a hint toward the end of the book that this third tale might not be end of the mad misadventures of Emmaline and Rubberbones. Still this book stands on its own quite well and might just induce me to find a copy of books one and two in the series.

Recommended for fun and frivolity.

Other blogger reviews:

Melissa at Book Nut: ” . . . this book is a grand romp. Hilarious, milk-snorting-through-nose funny, I can’t remember when I’ve had so much fun reading. It’s full of grand asides, amusing language, silly situations… everything a comic novel should have.”

Educating Alice: “In the witty alternate history tradition of Joan Aiken, but with a distinct feel all of their own, these books are a delight to read.”

Mr. Whitehouse’s blog.

“Since opening in March 2000 The London Eye has become an iconic landmark and a symbol of modern Britain. The London Eye is the UK’s most popular paid for visitor attraction, visited by over 3.5 million people a year.

A breathtaking feat of design and engineering, passengers in the London Eye’s capsules can see up to 40 kilometres in all directions.

The London Eye is the vision of David Marks and Julia Barfield, a husband and wife architect team. The wheel design was used as a metaphor for the end of the 20th century, and time turning into the new millennium.” From The London Eye official website

When Ted’s cousin Salim disappears while riding in a sealed pod on the London Eye, Ted, whose “brain runs on a different operating system from other people’s,” has eight, or rather nine, theories about what might have happened to his cousin:

1. Salim hid in the pod and went around three or more times, getting out when we’d given up looking.
2. Ted’s watch went wrong. Salim got out of his pod when we weren’t there to meet him.
3. Salim got out of his pod but we missed him somehow by accident and he didn’t see us either.
4. Salim either deliberately avoided us or was suffering from amnesia.
5. Salim spontaneously combusted.
6. Salim emerged from the pod in disguise.
7. Salim went into a time-warp.
8. Salim emerged from the pod hiding beneath somebody else’s clothes.
9. Salim never got on the Eye in the first place.

The trouble is that not one of the theories works; Salim seems to have vanished into thin air, a thing that Salim’s mother Aunt Gloria says is impossible. As the police work to find Salim and the press is called in to publicize the disappearance and everyone works to comfort and reassure Aunt Glo, Ted puts his special brain to work to discover the truth. In the process, Ted doubles his number of friends from three to six and learns to work with his older sister, Kat-astrophe, who provides the energy to match Ted’s brains. And Ted also tells his first three lies of a lifetime. But will it all be enough to find Salim and save his life?

Although the word “autistic” is never used in the book, Ted is obviously a high-functioning, but autistic, child. He is obsessed with weather. He talks incessantly about rain, snow, storms, barometric pressure, fronts, and global warming. He converses and understands conversation in very literal terms, and he has trouble interpreting visual cues, facial expressions, and body language. Sometimes his hand flaps uncontrollably.

The book, told in first person from Ted’s point of view, reminds me of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night, for kids, with a child-size mystery thrown in. Because Salim does disappear, and his parents and relatives imagine the worst, it’s possibly too intense for the younger elementary age group, but it’s just right for mature fourth graders on up. The British slang gets a bit thick at times, but it’s fun to wade though and figure out what the heck these Brits are talking about when they discuss moshers and queues and serviettes. And trying to get into Ted’s brain and think as he does is fascinating.

I have an attraction to books about differently wired brains anyway; if you do, too, you might want to check out the following reviews:

The Speed of Dark by Elizabeth Moon.
the curious incident of the dog in the night-time by Mark Haddon.
Rules by Cynthia Lord.
Twilight Chldren by Torey Hayden.

If you or your child has an interest in this subject treated from a fictional point of view, I recommend The London Eye Mystery. Good story, intriguing thought process, kind of like seeing London from the Eye.

My One Hundred Adventures by Polly Horvath.

From Alice to Zen and Everyone in Between by Elizabeth Atkinson.

In fiction and in life, odd and quirky either works or it doesn’t. In From Alice to Zen and Everyone in Between, it works even though I had to push through a little discomfort with the seemingly stereotypical characters at first. In Polly Horvath’s My One Hundred Adventures, the quirkiness falls flat, and I was left wondering whether the author meant for the characters to be believable or not.

From Alice to Zen is a tale mostly about Alice, an only child who just moved with her parents from Boston to Major Suburbia. The cliches start coming fast and furious from the beginning of the book: a suburban cul-de-sac filled with snooty suburbanites, an old tree that almost got cut down by the builders of Hemlock Estates, role-reversal in which the boy that Alice meets loves fashion magazines and decorating ideas while Alice herself prefers soccer and go-carts, the popular clique at school, a crazy grandma. But somehow just when I thought “Oh, this is a how to be popular and why it’s not worth it book” or “Yeah, this is a misfit somehow learns to fit in” book or this is a “boys and girls break out of stereotypical roles” book or even “this is a be true to yourself” book, the story would transcend all of those formulas while incorporating them at the same time.

Back up a step. Alice goes looking for a friend in her new suburban neighborhood, and she happens to meet Zen, Zenithal Stevie Wonder Malinowski. If Zen is anything, he’s strange, quirky, weird, odd. He’s overweight. He loves lemonade and fashion and teen magazines. He’s allergic to the sun. He crimps his hair. He wants to give Alice a makeover so that she’ll be ready to enter middle school. His ambition is to open a total body salon in California. He’d be weird even in California.

Zen made me a little uncomfortable at first. There’s an obvious role reversal thing going on in the book, and sometimes it’s a little over the top. It’s hard to believe that any intelligent twelve year old wouldn’t realize that acting the way Zen acts is a recipe for social ostracism. And it’s hard to believe that Zen wouldn’t at least try to mitigate his behavior to fit in at school. Still, in the book he doesn’t, and by the end of the story he’s able to demonstrate for the entire school his “one true voice.”

Zen’s “church” Seacoast Spiritual Center (hosted by Elder Brightstar) also made me a little uneasy. It’s obvious from the description in the book that Zen goes to a New Age, leftover hippie, spiritually anything goes gathering for social misfits and crystal gazers. It’s not my idea of real spiritual sustenance. But the people at Seacoast are a loving and accepting community who take Zen as he is and help him to develop his own gifts, not a bad pattern for the true church of Jesus Christ to emulate. It really is possible to accept people with all their eccentricities while maintaining a set of core beliefs that are non-negotiable.

Jane, the protagonist and narrator of My One Hundred Adventures, also has a weird church and a weird family. Jane herself is boringly conventional, but she and her mom live a bohemian life in a beach house along with Jane’s three younger siblings. And over the course of the summer a succession of men come along, one of whom may or may not be Jane’s dad. Jane also becomes enslaved to a Bible-toting healer/preacher/fortune teller and to the wife of a violent alcoholic who needs a babysitter for her unruly kids. Jane’s “adventures” (not nearly 100, which bothered me) consist of being blackmailed into babysitting and being coerced into dropping Bibles on unsuspecting victims. The writing is good, but the story is just too odd to be believable or enjoyable.

So, in the final analysis I’m saying yes to the quirky unconventional characters, but no to a plot that’s too quirky or creaky to sustain my interest.

Other reviews of these books:

Diane Chen at Practically Paradise on From Alice to Zen: I love the realistic questioning and searching for one’s self that occurs in this book. Alice doesn’t need excessive drama to realize she can make choices and be herself in middle school. She finds a way to accept herself, make her own choices of friends, and help others gain acceptance.

Tanya at Children’s Books on My One Hundred Adventures: “I was overwhelmed with admiration for Polly Horvath’s skill at writing a virtual minefield of spirit crushing adults for her main character to navigate, coming out scathed, but whole and, in Jane’s case, with a budding sense of compassion, acceptance and appreciation for the world around her.”

Melissa at Book Nut says this book, while good, made her anxious. It is a little scary, not in a roller coaster sort of way or a thriller sort of way, but rather in the what-will-the-author-do-with-this-plot-set-up-and-how-will-it-all-end way. And will my peeps, the characters I’ve grown to love over the course of the book, be OK?

Bernetta Wallflower (named after her deceased Uncle Bernie) is the daughter of a magician, a stage magician, that is, not a fantasy one. She’s also the victim of a frame-up: her best friend Ashley has framed her for a crime she didn’t commit and caused her to be grounded for life (or maybe just for the summer) and to lose her scholarship to Mt. Olive School, the only place she’s ever been to school. A year’s tuition at Mt. Olive is about $9000, and Bernetta wants to get that tuition money somehow even though she’s only twelve years old, can’t get a job, and (see above) grounded for the summer.

Enter Gabe, a movie-loving, chocolate-eyed, persistently friendly, bundle of ideas who helps Bernetta come up with a plan for obtaining the money. Unfortunately, the plan isn’t exactly honest or lawful, a fact which could be discerned by mature readers from the title and plot of one of Gabe’s favorite movies, The Sting. (I like The Sting, too, but I’m not tempted to emulate the characters. Honest.) However, if everyone thinks Bernetta is dishonest anyway, why shouldn’t she become what they think she is? The Life and Crimes of Bernetta Wallflower is the story of how one girl transforms herself into a different person, like magic, over the course of a summer —and how she ends up up not much liking the person she’s become.

I’ll have to agree with Melissa that the book had me worried, or maybe anxious. Bernetta, a likeable person, keeps getting into deeper and deeper trouble, and I wondered how the author was going to pull her out. And I wondered if Gabe was really Bernetta’s friend, or if he had ulterior motives for his help and advice. And I wondered whether Bernetta was ever going to tell the truth —and what would happen when she did. The ending is satisfactory in all respects, and Bernetta does survive. It’s a cautionary tale. but the medicine goes down easily, wrapped in a story that is suspenseful and fun and somewhat nerve-racking, in a good way.

I’m recommending this one for eleven or twelve year olds on up, both those who lack discernment and those who have the honesty thing down. The book would be good for parents or teachers to read along with the children and then have a good discussion about honesty and peer pressure and responding to false accusations and distinguishing pretend from dishonest and choosing friends.

Bernetta’s other fans and detractors (Ok, just fans):

Melissa at Book Nut: “In spite of my anxiousness, I really liked this book. It was very funny — never talking down, always smart — and the while the plot is way over-the-top (I mean really, is this even plausible? Really?), I was happy to go along for the ride. Bernetta is a charming character.”

MotherReader: “The Life and Crimes of Bernetta Wallflower would be great for a book club because there is so much left open for discussion in the character and the plot.”

Miss Erin: “Oh boy was this book fun! The writing is tight and the fast-paced plotting forces you to keep turning the pages. It’s chock-full of humor; I was laughing about every other page.”

This year’s list of nominees for the Cybils Middle Grade Fiction Award is packed with sequels and books that form part of a series. A few I’ve already read and reviewed: The Year of the Rat by Grace Lin, Moxy Maxwell Does Not Love Writing Thank-you Notes by Peggy Gifford, First Daughter: White Rules by Mitali Perkins, The Calder Game by Blue Balliett, and Clementine’s Letter by Sara Pennypacker.

Two books, each one supposed to be the last in a quite satisfying and beloved series, I just finished reading: Jessie’s Mountain by Kerry Madden and Forever Rose by Hilary McKay. Both books fulfilled the promise of earlier volumes in the series and delivered a gratifying ending to the story while still leaving me wanting just a little more.

Jessie’s Mountain features Livy Two, the fourth of ten children in the poverty-stricken Weems family, making a serious error in judgement and paying the consequences. The first two books in this Smoky Mountain series, Gentle’s Holler and Louisiana’s Song, each starred one of Livy’s sisters, but Livy Two was the narrator. In this third book, Livy Two comes into her own, takes center stage, and gets into a lot of trouble. In my review of Gentle’s Holler and Louisiana’s Song, I said, “Each child does have his/her own personality. The family isn’t perfect, but they are a big, loving family. The difficulties of raising such a family in poverty with a devoted, but financially irresponsible, father and a worried and always pregnant mother are not minimized.” That’s what I like about these books, and especially this last one. Life in a big family is messy. Sometimes people don’t get along, don’t speak to each other, keep secrets they shouldn’t keep, annoy one another. Each family member has his faults, sometimes major faults. Our family is like that, and the Weems family is, too. And yet, there’s a happy ending, not one that assures me that every one of the Weems kids is going to be fat, rich, and happy forever, but a reassuring conclusion nevertheless. If you read all three books, you sort of fall in love with the Weems family, and it’s good to see them in the end settled in, working hard, and pulling together.

And then there are the Cassons in Hilary McKay’s series of books of whom I wrote: “I feel a bit responsible after three books to see that they all come out all right.” I read and reviewed the first three books in the Casson family series last July, and then I picked up the fourth book, Caddy Ever After, and reviewed it. The setting for the latest in theCasson family series, Forever Rose, is completely different from that of Ms. Madden’s Smoky Mountain family series, a village in the north of England as opposed to Maggie Valley, North Carolina. But the families and the plots of the two novels share some similarities. Rose in this final installment does something unwise and dangerous (don’t want to spoil either story) similar to what Livy Two does in Jessie’s Mountain. However, Rose’s mistake somehow leads to resolution and reconciliation. Go figure. Maybe the difference is that the Casson family is so dysfunctional that it functions in a crazy, backwards way. And there’s always lots of love to go around. The Cassons also survive and thrive in the end despite a book full of chapter titles such as “The Trouble with Molly” and “Anything for a Bit of Peace” and the climactic “Oh Bloody Bloody Hell!”

In addition to those series sequels, there are some others on the Cybils list that I’m looking forward to reading:
The Island of Mad Scientists by Howard Whitehouse. See Melissa’s Book Nut review.
Porcupine Year by Louise Erdrich.
Just Grace Walks the Dog by Charise Mericle Harper.
Julia Gillian and the Art of Knowing BY Allison McGhee
The Diamond of Drury Lane: A Cat Royal Adventure by Julia Golding.
Daisy Dawson is on Her Way by Steve Voake.
The Case of the Bizarre Bouquets: An Enola Holmes Mystery by Nancy Springer.
Brand New School, Brave New Ruby by Derrick Barnes.
Andrea Carter and the San Francisco Smugglers by Susan Marlow.
10 Lucky Things That Have Happened to Me Since I Nearly Got Hit by Lightning by Mary Hershey.
Step Fourth Mallory! by Laurie Friedman.
Thirteen by Lauren Myracle
Piper Reed: The Great Gypsy by Kimberly Willis Holt.
Zibby Payne and the Red Carpet Revolt by Allison Bell.
Aloha Crossing by Pamela Bauer Mueller.
Ellie McDoodle: New Kid in School by Ruth Barshaw.
These are the sequels for which I haven’t read the first book(s) in the series. The ones I have already been introduced to are:

My New Best Friend by Julie Bowe. Sequel to last year’s My Last Best Friend.
The Penderwicks on Gardam Street by Jeanne Birdsall. Sequel to The Penderwicks.
And last but certainly not least: The Mysterious Benedict Society and the Perilous Journey by Trenton Stewart, sequel to last year’s The Mysterious Benedict Society.

My only problem with all these sequels and series, especially the ones I’ve already grown to love and enjoy, is that it’s hard to evaluate them objectively and alone, each volume on its own merits. I find myself thinking that of course everybody, including me, is going to love The Mysterious Benedict Society and the Perilous Journey. I haven’t even read it, but it’s already imbued with my warm appreciation for the first book in the series.

Of course, if it’s a dud, it’ll be that much more of a disappointment. So I guess the expectations and pre-judgments can work both ways.

Cybils Middle Grade Fiction nominees: 129
Nominees that are part of a series: 26 by my count.

That’s 19%. Publishers must like sequels and series. I guess it gives the book a head-start in the marketing department. Did I miss any?

Influenced in her childhood by a mother who insisted on surrounding her with books instead of roller skates and jump ropes, Lois Lowry grew up lacking fresh air and exercise but with a keen understanding of plot, character and setting. Every morning she opened the front door hoping to find an orphaned infant in a wicker basket. Alas, her hopes were always dashed and her dreams thwarted. She compensates by writing books.

There you have the tone of this now-for-something-completely-different farce by the Newbery award-winning author of The Giver. If you’re looking for futuristic science fiction with a message like The Giver, you’ve come to the wrong place. If you’re looking for wickedly delicious humor with an “old-fashioned” flavor, stop and take a look at The Willoughbys. All the traditional elements are present:

There are four children, the eldest, Timothy, the twins, Barnaby A and Barnaby B, and Jane the youngest.
Check.

A baby is left on the doorstep in a wicker basket with a note attached.
Check.

Baby is adopted by an eccentric, rich inventor of candies.
Check.

Children’s parents go off on a long sea voyage.
CHeck.

Heavyset nanny with lace-up shoes feeds the children oatmeal for breakfast.
Check.

Nanny and the children go for walks to “expose themselves to invigorating fresh air.”
Check.

A lost, but enterprising, son returns home just in the nick of time.
Check.

They all, mostly, live happily ever after by the end of the book.
Check.

Yes, it’s an old-fashioned story complete with villainous parents, an imperious and overbearing elder brother, a rather mousy and pathetic little sister, whimsy abounding, bootstraps, diabolical conspiracies, nefarious schemes, and other Dickensian words such as irascible and obsequious. (There’s a glossary in the back of the book if you want to surreptitiously look up the meanings of the words you don’t know.) Oh, there are also piranhas and alligators. And pitons and crampons for climbing the Swiss Alps. All that in one book! Imagine!

I thought Ms. Lowry’s exercise in absurdity and parody was delightful. I’m not sure if Karate Kid liked it or not. Maybe he wasn’t sure whether he was supposed to laugh or not at children who decide that in order to be like the old-fashioned children in books they must dispense with their parents. After all, most of the children in old books are orphans, worthy, deserving and winsome orphans. And the Willoughbys’ parents aren’t very nice anyway. So a ruthless plan to get rid of the parents is almost required.

Come to think of it, do I really want my eleven year old son to read about and laugh at children who hatch a plot to get rid of their despicable parents? What’s that whispering I hear in the next room? Nah, no worries, I’m a much better parent than the Willoughbys; I’d never wear crampons on my head —or anywhere else for that matter. And I’m not exactly a “vile cook” like Mrs. Willoughby.

Nefariously written and ignominiously illustrated by Lois Lowry, The Willoughbys is a hilarious story, and it has the added advantage of developing vocabulary painlessly. Well, it’s painless for the child reader; if you’re a parent of one of those readers, beware of amiable children bearing glossy brochures from The Reprehensible Travel Agency.

Grace, or Pacy as she’s known to her family, the Taiwanese American equivalent of all the feisty little girl characters who are trying to figure out the world in children’s literature, is back. Last year’s The Year of the Dog (Semicolon review here) had Grace thinking about whether she was American or Taiwanese or Chinese and about who she is and who she wants to become. That story ended with Grace’s making a new friend, Melody, who was Chinese like her and deciding that she wanted to become an author and an illustrator.

But Pacy’s dad tells her, “The Year of the Rat is the time to make a fresh start and to change things.” Grace/Pacy is not so sure she like changes. Why can’t things stay the way they are?

Stories within the story, told mostly by Grace’s mom and dad, showcase Taiwanese culture and teach subtle lessons about thankfulness, consideration, diligence, and other important values. Because it’s not preachy and not overused, these stories-within-the-story about “when I was a little girl” or even”when you were little” become some of the most memorable parts of the novel.

Grace/Pacy is a thoughtful little girl, rather serious, but with a happy close-knit family to help her understand the things that puzzle her and to help her celebrate both her American-ness and her Chinese heritage. Most of the issues Grace deals with in the book are the same ones that show up in other books for children this age: what to do when your best friend moves away, how to treat others at school and in the family, how to remain true to who you are without losing friends who may not understand. But Pacy/Grace draws on her family’s cultural strengths and her own “tiger strength” to not only survive the changes of The Year of the Rat, but also to surprise herself with how she can shape her own destiny.

Bloggers on The Year of the Rat:

Matt at The Book Club Shelf: “From the dedication to the reader to the Author’s Note at the end, I loved every minute of this book (a sequel to The Year of the Dog) and am certain that young readers would as well.”

Cloudscome at A Wrung Sponge: “I love that this friendly, engaging story has the depth to show a regular kid dealing with every day meanness and racism to find a satisfying, peaceful result. So often kids are left alone to process the bullying they encounter. Here’s a story where a girl finds a way to stand up to it and her so-called friends grow beyond their pettiness to be better friends.”

Fuse 8: “Grace Lin’s semi-autobiographical stories of Pacy and her life in New Hartford contain just the right balance of sweetness and story. Without ever becoming trite or saccharine, Lin hits gold yet again with The Year of the Rat.”

Jama Rattigan interviews Grace Lin, April 2008. (with recipes).

Grace Lin’s blog Gracenotes.