What kid wouldn’t be scared, living in a spooky old house on Rockinghorse Lane, far away from the nearest neighbor? Add to that the fact that it’s a stormy night, your father is out of the house on an errand, and it’s the one-year anniversary of your mother’s tragic death. That’s the situation in which Minerva and Max McFearless find themselves in Ahmet Zappa’s new book, The Monstrous Memoirs of a Mighty McFearless. They accidentally find a secret passage (all spooky houses have secret passages, you know) and discover to their astonishment that the monsters they thought were imaginary are in fact real. The passage leads to a hidden chamber full of horrible trophies, potions and a book that bites.
When their father returns, he reluctantly explains that they aren’t named McFearless for nothing; he’s a monsterminator a monster hunter from a long line going back to their great-great-great-grandfather Maximillius McFearless. We flash forward two years, and during that period Minerva and Max learn all that they can (behind their father’s back) about the monsterminating trade. They’ll need that knowledge, for one fateful night a Bewilder Box is left on their doorstep, and it starts a chain of events that will put them all in mortal danger.
The Bewilder Box holds a treasure that the monsters would do anything to get. While they don’t get their prize, they do kidnap the children’s father. Now Minerva and Max must summon all their courage to rescue him, with the help of a talking, one-eyed dog who calls himself Mr. Devilstone. Along the way they’ll learn about an odd assortment of monsters like Grumplemisers and Krunkadillions, Glorches and Howleewoofs, and the crazy ways to keep them at bay.
Ahmet Zappa has done his father proud the late musician Frank Zappa (who makes a cameo appearance in the book) was renowned for his quirky sense of the absurd, and Ahmet continues that tradition. It’s a crazy combination of Harry Potter and Dr. Seuss, with some unique attributes of its own.
