May 6, 2024
The late Henry “Pops” Harper’s Odditorium sticks out among the rose gardens in the sedate British village of Roseville. Only Pops’s plucky 11-year-old granddaughter Bess, who reads as white, appreciates the strange house and its quirky contents, which include a vicious doll, an albino alligator, and whispering flowers collected during Pops’s mysterious adventures. As the Odditorium’s new proprietor, Bess must find a way to raise money to keep the establishment open and procure magic beans to feed the ravenous flowers overtaking the building. Clues left by Pops lead Bess to an underground railway and a wondrous train, where Bess befriends a magical puppeteer, a violin-playing werewolf, and a sorceress. Traveling to the terrifying Candymaker’s Land of Halloween Sweets, Bess, like Dorothy in Oz, joins her trio of newfound friends to procure a ghostly gobstopper in the Candymaker’s dangerous domain. In helping her companions, Bess uncovers startling family secrets—and a way to save her beloved Odditorium. Abundant extraneous fantastical features occasionally overwhelm the delightfully twee plot. Nevertheless, the courageous, overlarge band of singularly gifted characters—particularly loyal Bess—will no doubt endear themselves to readers and have them anticipating the next installment of this topsy-turvy series opener by Bell (the Polar Bear Explorers’ Club series). Ages 8–up. Agent: Therese Coen, Susanna Lea Associates.
August 1, 2024
Stowing away on a magical circus train leads a child to friends, adventures, and all the candy she can eat. Friendless, bullied, 11-year-old Bess is thrilled to inherit her grandfather Henry's Odditorium, but maintaining the museum's peculiar exhibits turns out to be a challenge: Where, for instance, is she going to get magic beans to feed the toothy, whispering flowers growing all over the ramshackle mansion's walls? Fortunately, Pops also left her a letter steering her to the titular train; unfortunately, the ensuing ride through the underground tunnels of the intercontinental Troll Network deposits her in the Land of Halloween Candy, which has turned creepy under the influence of a powerful magician known as the Candymaker. But Bess delights in weird and scary things and has, moreover, found fire witch Maria and other young allies aboard the train. Neither the sinister Candymaker nor the Land of Halloween's cute resident gummy bears turn out to be quite what they seem--so, around an intrepid protagonist, a redoubtable supporting cast, a highly caloric setting, and all sorts of magical creatures from sugar spiders and ninja mice to dragons both huge and pocket-size, Bell weaves a tale shot through with the worthy insight that it's not always possible to tell good from evil at first glance. In both the narrative and Castro's atmospherically gothic illustrations, Bess is cued white; the rest of the human cast includes racial diversity. A delightful, multilayered confection, sweet and sharp at the core.(Fantasy. 8-12)
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