We all have such different senses of humor. What to me is just silly may be laugh out loud funny to you. What is witty and fun for me may be boring to another person. So, when I say that humor in Wizardmatch just didn’t tickle my funny bone, that’s not to say that it won’t poke yours or that it shouldn’t. A chocolate pudding swimming pool, a boy whose magical talent is burping out birds, a wizard grandfather who is a spoiled brat—these just weren’t very humorous to me. But you—or your kids– may find them to be hilarious.

“Mortimer de Pomporromp—the oldest, most powerful, most celebrated wizard in his entire family—had the sniffles.”

Now, that’s a promising first line. I liked the name, Mortimer de Pomporromp. I liked that Mortimer’s granddaughter Lennie, the actual protagonist of the book, was half-Filipina. I liked Mortimer’s sensible assistant, Estella. I liked the persnickety cat, Fluffles aka Sir Fluffington the Fourth. I liked the eventual emphasis on forgiveness and family unity and teamwork.

I didn’t care for the constant sparring and fighting that went on between all of the characters in the book. I just didn’t like any of them very much. I didn’t like the snot/barf/gross motif that wove its way throughout the story either, although I realize that repetitive emphasis on bodily functions wasn’t written in for my benefit. Authors think middle graders in particular love that kind of stuff, and they write down to them, IMHO.

Then, there were some things in the book that just didn’t make sense. Lennie thinks her grandfather may be favoring her brother Michael over her partly because she’s a girl but also because she’s part Filipina. However, Poppop Pomporromp does favor Michael, who’s also half Filipino. When the villain of the story is trapped in a supposedly inescapable sticky trap, it turns out that it is escapable after all. And all of the adults in the story are horrendously bad at being mature adults; they’re more childishly competitive and bickering than the children. (Maybe that’s not so unrealistic as I wish it were.)

Final word: I didn’t care for it. You may like it better than I did. It depends on your sense of humor.

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This book may be nominated for a Cybils Award, but the views expressed here are strictly my own and do not reflect or determine the judging panel’s opinions.

George, the Third Lord of Devonshire and the unluckiest boy in London, has a number of problems. Everyone who comes near him seems to die or at least suffer some sort of tragedy. He’s an orphan with no family left. He has sold almost everything he owns, but he’s about to lose his home anyway. His last heirloom, a map that’s supposed to reveal the hiding place of a treasure called the Star of Victory, is stolen. And his only friend and caretaker, his manservant Frobisher, has disappeared, presumably kidnapped.

Then, George meets Ada Byron, his neighbor across the street, and life gets even more interesting—and dangerous. Ada introduces George to Oscar, whose father is a long-absent pirate, and to Ruthie, the orangutan who is Oscar’s friend, and the four of them set out to find the map, the Star of Victory, and Frobisher. Will George’s notoriously bad luck jinx the entire quest? Is Ada really able to fly—and land—her own self-invented flying machine? Are Oscar and Ruthie a help or a hindrance in the mission to find the Star of Victory? Where and what is the Star of Victory, and can it help them rescue Frobisher? And is Ada like her estranged father Lord Byron, “mad, bad, and dangerous to know”?

At the end of this rather extravagantly nonsensical story, the author quotes Ada Byron Lovelace herself, who was a real person, really the inventive and talented daughter of Lord Byron, the poet. From a letter to Ada Byron’s mother:

“P.S. I put as much nonsense as I possibly can in my letter to you because I think it compensates you for the grave dry subjects of your letters, but I suspect the truth is it gives me pleasure to write nonsense.”

I suspect it gave Ms. Morgen much pleasure to write this fantastical adventure story, and it gave me some pleasure to read it. I did have trouble following the logic of the story, but that may be due to the lack of logic in some parts. The children, as children and adults are wont to do, often make assumptions and jump to conclusions that are unwarranted. If you are looking for a Poirot-type logical and sensible mystery story, this adventure isn’t it. But it is a romp. And the characterization is lovely:

George, the 3rd Lord of Devonshire, is a Puddleglum, pessimistic, superstitious, wary of Ada’s flights of fancy, and untrusting (with reason). But he works himself up to bravery in spite of his fears, and he begins to believe in impossible adventures by the end of the book.

Ada Byron is the Pied Piper, luring George into adventure, danger, and belief in the impossible. She is inventive, intelligent, and confident, everything that George isn’t and doesn’t believe he can possibly become. In the author’s note, Ms. Morgen tells us that twelve year old Ada Byron really did dream of building a flying machine, but it never quite got off the ground.

Oscar is bit less well-developed as a character, but he does add “character” to the ensemble, especially when he talks to Ruthie the orangutan using semaphore sign language.

Anyway, for the enjoyment of this particular fantasy, you will need to suspend disbelief and judgment and maybe logic and just go with the flow. Not a bad way to spend an afternoon.

Amazon Affiliate. If you click on a book cover here to go to Amazon and buy something, I receive a very small percentage of the purchase price.
This book may be nominated for a Cybils Award, but the views expressed here are strictly my own and do not reflect or determine the judging panel’s opinions.