The Door in the Alley

February 1, 2017
A boy used to predictability joins forces with a girl who wants to belong in this wildly funny adventure.STEM genius Sebastian lives a perfectly appropriate life, but when he accidentally goes the wrong way down a creepy alley on the way home from school, he winds up at The Explorers Society, where order is turned upside down and backward. When the society's president tells Sebastian to do something "inappropriate" as part of his punishment for trespassing, he steals a mysterious box from the society's archives. Subsequently, he's flung into the unexpected, where he meets orphan Evie, who has lived within the gray walls of the Wayward School since her parents died two years earlier. Her boring weekly dinners with the charitable Andersons take an unboring turn when two clearly villainous men show up looking for something. Before the kids--both of them white--know it, they've gone from strangers to friends working together to work out the fate of the Filipendulous Five, a famous group of explorers that mysteriously disbanded years ago and to whom Evie has a personal connection. Animals in teeny hats, Wonderland-style logic, and loads of wordplay and sarcasm will keep readers giggling all the way through to the dramatic--and metafictive--cliffhanger. Readers will look forward to the sequel to this dizzying loop-the-loop. (Adventure. 8-13)

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March 1, 2017

Gr 4-6-Rational and risk-averse Sebastian is challenged by the director of the madcap Explorers Society to do something he shouldn't: steal a box. The contents of the box relate in some way to Evie, an orphan who lives at a school but regularly dines with a very boring couple known as the Andersons. One night, two dangerous men burst into the Andersons' house in pursuit of a key. The two children find themselves caught up in a perilous chase involving Evie's grandfather and a group of explorers known as the Filipendulous Five. This is a rollicking read, full of derring-do and old-fashioned villainy. A narrator inserts sly and humorous comments alongside amusing footnotes. Comical chapter headings include "In Which Great Revelations Are Greatly Revealed" and "In Which We Meet a Pig in a Teeny Hat. Again." The language is quite sophisticated, with challenging vocabulary. Readers of Lemony Snicket will find a tale of adventure in a similar vein to "A Series of Unfortunate Events": the last sentence reads, "Don't you just hate stories that end in cliff-hangers? They are just so..." VERDICT A quirky and lighthearted romp with likable characters and ample plot twists and turns; hand to fans of Lemony Snicket.-Michelle Anderson, Tauranga City Libraries, New Zealand

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March 15, 2017
Grades 5-8 Two preteens are pitched into an exhilarating whirl of life-threatening danger when they find themselves tangled in the affairs of the wondrous, strange, sometimes itchy Explorers Society. For Sebastian, a lad so buttoned up that the prospect of skipping a day of school precipitates a panic attack, it begins with the discovery of a puzzle box belonging to a defunct group of explorers dubbed the Filipendulous Five. For orphaned loner Evie, it comes after a narrow escape from a pair of creepily misshapen thugs. Taking on the role of coyly obnoxious narrator, Kress provides for her increasingly tight protagonists a notably diverse supporting cast ranging from a female Indiana Jones (with an affinity for animals but no people skills) to a pig wearing a teeny hat, and strews the tale with side remarks and often tangential footnotes. Fans of a Series of Unfortunate Events will be drawn to this series openerand likely unsurprised to encounter a cliff-hanger ending with an unfinished final sentence. Final illustrations not seen.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)