Alice Cary

Imagine if Sherlock Holmes were an 11-year-old girl at a ritzy boarding school. That’s the premise of Friday Barnes: Girl Detective, the first in a series by Australian writer R.A. Spratt. This children’s comedy TV writer and author of the award-winning Nanny Piggins series has crafted a likable, intriguing heroine and a lighthearted, breezy mystery.

Friday is the unexpected fifth child of busy, brilliant parents, who name her after the day on which she was born. (Turns out she was actually born on a Thursday, a fact about which they were too distracted to notice.) Friday has been largely left to her own devices, but after helping her beloved Uncle Bernie solve a crime, she uses the reward money to enroll in the ultra-exclusive Highcrest Academy.

Mystery after mystery presents itself, and even though Friday prefers to fly under the radar, she can’t help but take on each challenge. A special clock has been stolen from the Headmaster's desk, homework assignments turn up missing, and fake history presentations are just waiting to be revealed. Barnes uses her innate Sherlockian abilities to solve these conundrums, and also gets help from her Watson―roommate Melanie Pelly, a brilliantly observant girl. There’s an even bigger mystery afoot involving a Yeti said to be haunting the nearby swamp, and before long the Headmaster comes to Friday for help.

Spratt’s characters are entertaining, although she relies too heavily on boarding-school stereotypes of both students and teachers. For instance, the geography teacher informs Friday, “My dear girls, this is a private school. You’ve entered Lord of the Flies now.” Spratt’s writing is nonetheless snappy and smart, and her clever plotting moves the action right along. Everything ends with a giant cliffhanger, which will definitely leave readers ready for more.

Oh, how I wish I had a friend like Miss Petitfour, who follows “a strict schedule of fun and more fun.” As her name implies, she’s partial to sweets, and on windy days she uses her tablecloth like a parachute so she and her 16 cats can take to the skies.

The five gentle stories in The Adventures of Miss Petitfour, each starring this eccentric cat lady, remind me of some of my favorite childhood tales with heroines like Miss Piggle-Wiggle and Pippi Longstocking. One scene with an exploding confetti factory could have come directly from Roald Dahl.

This is the first children’s book from Canadian poet and novelist Anne Michaels, and she seems like a natural, writing in a style that’s full of humor, puns and all sorts of literary lusciousness. There’s sophisticated amusement as well, making this book the perfect read-aloud, with quirky lists and nimble use of language.

Adding to the charm are a multitude of color illustrations by British illustrator Emma Block, whose drawings bring Miss Petitfour and her feline troop to life, making them soar through the sky, cats clinging together like the colorful tail of a whimsical kite.

This article was originally published in the November 2015 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

The Doldrums is a whirlwind of an eccentric adventure tale centered on Archer B. Helmsley, the 11-year-old grandson of a pair of world-famous explorers thought to have disappeared on an Antarctic iceberg. He lives with his parents in his grandparents’ museum-like home, brimming with artifacts from their travels, including a stuffed ostrich, badger and giraffe that Archer occasionally talks to. Archer is bored and lonely; his overprotective mother barely lets him out of the house, fearing that her son has inherited the dangerous wandering genes of his forebears.

And indeed he has.

Luckily, the virtually imprisoned Archer discovers two trusty sidekicks: neighbor Oliver Glub and Adelaide Belmont, who has just moved from Paris with her wooden leg, reportedly the result of an unfortunate encounter with a crocodile.

Archer notices many mysterious details surrounding his grandparents, including mysterious trunks of belongings delivered by a man with an eye patch. As a result, he remains hopeful that his relatives are still alive, and of course decides to investigate for himself.

First-time novelist Nicholas Gannon has created a lavish, fun-filled romp that’s complemented by delightfully detailed full-color and black-and-white illustrations. Fans of Polly Horvath’s Everything on a Waffle and Lemony Snicket books are likely to be attracted to this novel with its likable young heroes and a cast of suspicious and nervous-Nelly adults. However, readers may ultimately be disappointed that there’s a lot more planning and plotting than actual adventure. The trio never makes it to the Antarctic, although absolute chaos erupts in the final wild scenes set in a museum, including tigers on the loose.

There’s no doubt that Louis Sachar, the Newbery Medal-winning author of Holes, knows how to draw in his readers. His latest book, Fuzzy Mud, reads like a middle school version of Contagion―it’s a thriller that will have readers quickly turning its pages.

In this case, the culprit isn’t a virus, but a mutant microbe of an amazing new biofuel that’s somehow multiplying like crazy in the woods next to Woodbridge Academy. Three Woodbridge students end up in these woods one afternoon when seventh-grader Marshall Walsh takes a shortcut to avoid a fight with bully Chad Hilligas. Fifth-grader Tamaya Dhilwaddi has followed as well; she always walks home with Marshall, her neighbor.

The trio has no idea that a strange mutation under their feet threatens to become a world crisis, but Sachar inserts short portions of secret Senate hearings between chapters to enhance the big picture. Then Tamaya unknowingly dips her hand into the mutant microbe (which she calls Fuzzy Mud) and flings it at Chad’s face. Tamaya and Marshall run home, but the next day they’re dismayed to hear that Chad is missing. Meanwhile, Tamaya’s hand is covered with a bloody, blistering rash that is spreading like wildfire. Tamaya and Marshall face a moral crisis about whether to return to the woods to try to help their lost enemy. Their ensuing search is so dramatic that readers will genuinely fear that none of them will make it out alive.

Although the novel’s imagined biological catastrophe seems far-fetched and the biofuel inventor never becomes more than an eccentric caricature, the heart and soul of this book belongs to Tamaya, Marshall and Chad, and their compelling journey from hatred to friendship.