The Bone Thief

September 4, 2017
Twelve-year-old orphan Grimsly Summerfield has the distinction of being the only normal resident of Quiver Hollows, a magical town where waterfalls flow in endless loops and people have supernatural abilities. In order to make himself more interesting, Grimsly begins to perform pet funerals at Summerfield Lawn, next to the twisted metal house he shares with Professor Snelling, his adoptive father. When things in Quiver Hollows start to become less magical, Grimsly is the natural person to blame. To save the only home he’s ever known, Grimsly must travel to the outside world to figure out what is happening. Noël (Five Days of Famous) takes a familiar trope—the special orphan—and inverts it in a way that recalls Gitty Daneshvari’s League of Unexceptional Children series (Grimsly is special precisely because he’s so completely ordinary). Despite this twist, most of the magical elements will strike fantasy fans as overly familiar. It’s an entertaining story, but not one that distinguishes itself from the pack. Ages 10–up. Agent: Bill Contardi, Brandt & Hochman.

Narrator Robbie Daymond sweeps listeners into Quiver Hollows on the day Grimsly fails the sixth-grade spoon-bending examination at the Manifesters Academy. In a wondrous and magical world whose denizens' abnormalities are celebrated, Grimsly has tried to make himself interesting by performing pet funerals. Now his normalcy not only makes him stand out in the town but it also makes his community blame him when things start becoming ordinary. Daymond's characters project the appropriate emotions as the book moves from humorous to much darker tones. An enjoyable performance compensates for a somewhat lackluster story. B.F. � AudioFile 2017, Portland, Maine