another pickup at the ALA conference. donating to the school library, but wanted to check it out for future RA purposes. plus, it looks sort of cool.

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there was something a little weird about this. not that it was trying to hard, and not that it was too old for the audience, but it seemed like it was trying to be quirkier than it needed to be. i don't know; is this how YA books are written now? i have yet to read any lemony snicket or similar reads; i probably should. ( )

I think this is really interesting and has great appeal to mid graders. It has an Alice in Wonderland-ish feel with quirky characters. However, the narrator comes out of the story and addresses the reader, much like most of Kate DiCamillo's books (which I generally detest) that turns me off personally. ( )

I think this is really interesting and has great appeal to mid graders. It has an Alice in Wonderland-ish feel with quirky characters. However, the narrator comes out of the story and addresses the reader, much like most of Kate DiCamillo's books (which I generally detest) that turns me off personally. ( )

I liked the plot. I even quite liked some of the characters. But the storytelling really annoyed me. The narrator constantly broke the fourth wall with "Oh, I forgot to tell you" constructs and frivolous not-funny jokes. And there was an excess of telling instead of showing. ( )

A girl sets out on a quest to rescue her sixth-grade teacher from pirates. If you enjoyed "A Series of Unfortunate Events", you'll probably like this one as there's a massive similarity in tone, world-building style, and narrative voice. Not to say that's a bad thing, and the plot's all new, but it is very noticeable.

Overall, I found it enjoyable, though the middle section of the book is decidedly odd, consisting of several unrelated episodes that don't have anything to do with anything before or after them and which introduce fantasy elements not present in the rest of the story. One almost wonders if the author found herself short on a word count. It feels a little bit like a LucasArts adventure game in novel form, where nothing will happen if the protagonist doesn't make it happen and everyone else is useless and obstinate. All this sounds rather negative but it isn't really at all; it's a very strange way of putting a novel together but it does work.

Age-ranking this one was difficult; the usual way to judge (knocking a couple of years off of the protagonist's age) would seem to indicate it's for eight-and-a-half-year-olds and up, but I think I'd actually put it a little older--there's a quite a body count and some of what happens gets pretty hardcore for a children's novel. Some kids could read this at eight and be perfectly fine, but some couldn't, so be aware. ( )