Freaks

February 4, 2013
Victorian London gets a little weirder in this fast-paced tale of outcasts serving as champions of the oppressed and underprivileged, which won the 2011 London Times/Chicken House Children’s Fiction Competition. Ten-year-old Sheba, better known as the Wolfgirl for her layer of fur and ability to sprout fangs and claws, is an orphan who ends up as part of Plump-scuttle’s Peculiars, a freak show that also stars a teenage ninja, a trash-talking monkey boy, a romance-writing strongman, and a woman who talks to rats. This gang of unlikely heroes gets caught up in a mystery involving missing street urchins, steampunk monstrosities, and a fiendish set of villains. Newcomer Larwood spins a whimsical yet touching story, injecting the unpleasant reality of Victorian-era poverty with a touch of humor and fantastical elements, making for an enjoyable and none-too-serious adventure. A good deal goes unexplained, meant to be taken at face value (such as Sheba or Monkeyboy’s animal natures), but the weird and serious sides of the story balance each other nicely. Ages 10–14.

February 15, 2013
Debut novelist Larwood introduces Sheba, a 10-year-old crime-fighting Victorian werewolf. Sheba's lived in a dilapidated freak show as long as she can remember, displaying her furred snout and clawed hands alongside Flossy the two-headed lamb. Her purchase by a new master introduces her to the first friends she's ever had: Monkeyboy, a foulmouthed and foul-smelling tailed boy; Sister Moon, a Japanese ninja girl; Mama Rat the rat trainer; and the enormous Gigantus. Newly introduced to London, Sheba's lupine nose is nearly overwhelmed by the city's legendary stench--but it comes in handy when she and her new friends embark on a detecting mission. The poor trash-pickers of the Thames mudflats are losing their children, and only Sheba and her freak-show friends--the Peculiars--can find them. They must rescue the children from a nefarious fiend, aided only by Sheba's nose, Sister Moon's ninjitsu skills, Mama Rat's rodent sidekicks, Gigantus' fists and Monkeyboy's putrid odor. Their adventures bring them from wretched sewers and taverns to the Victorian optimism of the Great Exhibition at the Crystal Palace. There's a little too much reliance on stale tropes of fat villains and exotic (and unrealistic) foreigners, but this mystery, peppered by gentle gross-out humor, will appeal to young steampunk fans. (historical note) (Steampunk. 11-13)

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June 1, 2013

Gr 5-8-Larwood takes readers to gritty parts of Victorian London in this novel about performers in a freak show. There's actually little performance involved in their nightly exhibitions. It's more a matter of letting people gawk at their physical anomalies or unusual proclivities. Sheba the Wolfgirl is covered in fur; Mama Rat has a troupe of trained rodents; Gigantus is (as you might surmise) a giant; Sister Moon is a ninja; and Monkeyboy has a tail. When they learn that young children have been disappearing from the riverbanks, the misfits use their strangeness to their advantage, solving the mysterious kidnappings and thwarting evildoers. Much is attempted in this book, but the development of plot, characters, and setting is superficial and unconvincing. Larwood resorts far too frequently to the scatological humor of Monkeyboy, who delights in fouling the air with gaseous emissions and any available surface or receptacle with his fecal matter, which pales rather quickly. The combination of the improbable and the impossible sits uneasily beside Larwood's efforts to depict the grim realities of underclass life in 19th-century England.-Miriam Lang Budin, Chappaqua Library, NY

Copyright 2013 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

March 15, 2013
Grades 5-8 Winner of the London Times Children's Fiction Competition, this highly readable, energetic first outing pits steampunk, peculiarly talented tweens against dastardly villains that would give Lemony Snicket's baddies a run for their money. Sheba, a wolf girl covered with a pelt of fine hair (and in moments of stress, the possessor of clawed hands and fanged teeth), has little memory of her past, but when she becomes part of a London freak show in early Victorian England, she finds a family of sorts among the other peculiars: a giant, a rat trainer, a ninja, and a boy who resembles a monkey. A missing local waif attracts the gang's attention to a mystery involving a river-trolling apparatus that snatches children from the Thames' mudflats. Plans to foil the plot take them across the Dickensian cityscape all the way to the Crystal Palace, a historical exhibition of wonders. There's enough bashing, slicing, and close shaves to excite action fans, and just enough loose ends to presume a sequel is the offing.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2013, American Library Association.)