The Midnight Gang

December 1, 2017

Gr 3-6-The Lord Funt Hospital in London is a rambling building with a rather odd staff. Twelve-year-old Tom Charper finds this out when the admitting doctor poses 192 questions before treating Tom's bump on the head. Tom soon joins the Children's Ward on the 44th floor where he meets Amber, Robin, George, and Sally. The children-except for Sally who is gravely ill-escape the horrible Matron each night at midnight. The children pretend to visit the North Pole, fly, and enact other grandiose plans with the help of the caring porter. Tom's desire to participate disrupts his friendship with Sally who asks Tom to include her. The Midnight Gang's final dream is tragic and boisterously youthful. Ross's numerous black-and-white illustrations mirror Walliams's lawless, uncontained revelry. The author creates a surreal world in which adults are remote and children set the stage with their wildest imaginings. The giant hospital makes for a contained yet boundless setting where children find the supplies to fuel their dreams. Take-charge Amber directs events from her wheelchair and conniving George uses drugged sweets on the Matron. The dark cloud of Sally's prognosis cannot be ignored, yet Walliams portrays it as one element in the glorious fabric of childhood. VERDICT Irreverent as Roald Dahl, Walliams is a unique author who's created a memorable world and cast of characters.-Caitlin Augusta, Stratford Library Association, CT

Copyright 2017 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

December 1, 2017
Plucky, sometimes-mean children come together to defeat diabolical hospital administrators and evil headmasters.When Tom gets hit on the head with a cricket ball, he is sent to a horrible hospital, with clueless doctors, a horrid matron, and a porter with "the most monstrous face he had ever seen." In the middle of the night, Tom follows the secretive children in his ward and discovers the Midnight Gang, the mysterious society of child patients who have nighttime adventures. With the porter's help, the children, all apparently white, create a North Pole adventure and a whiz-bang balloon journey. The excited prose, supplemented by a variety of typefaces and Ross' not-quite-Quentin Blake illustrations, describes disgusting school dinners of "deep-fried otter" and adults who revel in "a touch of cruelty." Despite clear Roald Dahl parallels, Walliams' nastiness and yuck aren't accompanied by Dahl's charm or wicked wit. The humor is found in "plump-looking" George's candy eating, Robin's and Amber's disabilities, and--unexpected from the author of The Boy in the Dress (2009)--Matron's cruel insistence on dressing Tom in a pink frilly nightdress. An eventual lesson about bigotry against ugly people is undercut by prose that delights in describing the porter as "pongy" and having "rotten and misshapen teeth."An entertaining tale that will definitely find an audience, but fans of icky, vicious comedy deserve better. (Fiction. 9-11)

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July 1, 2018
Walliams channels Roald Dahl's irreverent, authority-bashing humor in this energetic fantasy in which rebellious children escape their London hospital ward to act out their wildest dreams. Ross's line drawings and the use of varied fonts enliven the proceedings. Verisimilitude is hardly the point here, nor is depth of characterization: the silliness is its own raison d'jtre.

(Copyright 2018 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)