The Mechanical Mind of John Coggin

Starred review from January 1, 2016
The dreary prospect of spending a lifetime making caskets instead of wonderful inventions prompts a young orphan to snatch up his little sister and flee. Where? To the circus, of course. Fortunately or otherwise, John and 6-year-old Page join up with Boz--sometime human cannonball for the seedy Wandering Wayfarers and a "vertically challenged" trickster with a fantastic gift for sowing chaos. Alas, the budding engineer barely has time to settle in to begin work on an experimental circus wagon powered by chicken poop and dubbed (with questionable forethought) the Autopsy. The hot pursuit of malign and indomitable Great-Aunt Beauregard, the Coggins' only living relative, forces all three to leave the troupe for further flights and misadventures. Teele spins her adventure around a sturdy protagonist whose love for his little sister is matched only by his fierce desire for something better in life for them both and tucks in an outstanding supporting cast featuring several notably strong-minded, independent women (Page, whose glare "would kill spiders dead," not least among them). Better yet, in Boz she has created a scene-stealing force of nature, a free spirit who's never happier than when he's stirring up mischief. A climactic clutch culminating in a magnificently destructive display of fireworks leaves the Coggin sibs well-positioned for bright futures. (Illustrations not seen.) A sly, side-splitting hoot from start to finish. (Adventure. 11-13)

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January 1, 2016

Gr 4-6-Since the death of their parents, John and Page Coggin live with their Great-Aunt Beauregard, who is obsessed with the family business: coffin-making. After many grueling hours at this trade, John develops some sharp coffin-making skills but is thwarted in his true ambition of engineering fantastical machines. His great-aunt finally pushes things too far by suggesting that young Page can help prepare the corpses for burial and insisting that John sign a mysterious contract pledging himself to the family business for life. The siblings make a daring escape with the help of an accident-prone circus acrobat, and so the adventures begin. Teele has populated her fictional world with whimsical characters who would easily be at home in a Roald Dahl book: prickly circus performers, a sweet but overtaxed baker, friendly railcar hoppers, and an ardent archaeologist-to name a few. Even those with the crustiest exterior have hearts of gold, except, of course, the bad guys, who are truly horrible in the grand tradition of melodrama. John and Page have a realistic and compelling sibling relationship-they annoy each other but care for each other deeply-but most of the other characters are too archetypical to be relatable. The combination of many characters and plot twists may leave some young readers confused, but those who can embrace the madcap without worrying about the details will find some measure of magic in this title. VERDICT A charming fantasy/adventure to add to larger middle grade collections.-Gesse Stark-Smith, Multnomah County Library, Portland, OR

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