A Friendly Town That's Almost Always by the Ocean!

March 1, 2018
A fifth-grader struggles to fit in after he and his recently widowed mother move to a decidedly oddball new town.As if the seemingly infinite pier, the lighthouse in the middle of town, and the beach teeming with enigmatic cats aren't strange enough, Davy Jones discovers that his school locker has been relocated to the deep end of the swimming pool, his lunchtime fries are delivered by a "spudzooka," and no one seems to be able to get his name right. On the other hand, his classmates welcome him, and in next to no time he's breaking into an abandoned arcade to play pinball against a ghost, helping track down a pet pig gone missing on Gravity Maintenance Day, and like adventures that, often as not, take sinister swerves before edging back to the merely peculiar. Point-of-view duties pass freely from character to character, and chapters are punctuated with extracts from the Topsea School Gazette ("Today's Seaweed Level: Medium-high and feisty"), bulletins on such topics as the safe handling of rubber ducks, and background notes on, for instance, the five local seasons, giving the narrative a pleasantly loose-jointed feel. Davy presents as white, but several other central cast members are specifically described as dark- or light-skinned and are so depicted in the frequent line drawings; one has two moms.A deft mix of chills and chuckles, not quite as sideways as Wayside School but in the same district. (Fantasy. 10-12)

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May 7, 2018
In the charming, quirky town of Topsea, dogs are considered to be mythical creatures but hogs make for adorable pets. Davyâs first day at school starts with finding that his locker is located underwater, at the bottom of the deep end of the pool, and the rest of his fifth-grade classmates are just as delightfully weird as their town. In the style of Louis Sacharâs Sideways Stories from Wayside School, this first title in the Secrets of Topsea series is replete with wittiness and absurdity, but a deeper look reveals universal themes of struggling to fit in, fearing new things, and coping with loss. Death and abandonment, in particular, are not treated lightly, but their inclusion, along with a diverse representation of families and social groups, make this story a gateway for children to see themselves and to feel seen, as well as a celebration of individuality and friendship. In the end, Davy discovers thereâs no such thing as normal. A cartoon-style sketch at the beginning of each chapter hints at which character will claim the spotlight for the next few pages. Ages 8â12.