by Keith Graves
Grade: 1 1/2 stars
Story summary: Josephine's family moves to Manitoba, very near to what they don't realize is an insane asylum. Also next door is a large mansion in which lives a very strange genius boy, his talking cat, his robot manservant, and a myriad of strange experimental creatures. Then the most insane of all the inmates in in the asylum escapes, Josephine stumbles upon said genius boy, and adventures start.
Thoughts: Possibly this would be loved by an actual child. I often love children's books--as books, and not just nostalgically or out of a desire to study them or something. But children still do have different tastes sometimes, and this could be an example of this. It wasn't
bad, per se. The grading doesn't reflect the quality
necessarily (thought it certainly wasn't a brilliantly written book), but more my enjoyment of it. It reminded me of Roald Dahl a bit. Lots of slightly unpleasant people and rather gruesome things. A cannibal with a snake living in his back, weird experimental creatures that are mixes of existing creatures, clones and cats with strange accents. Theodore, the genius boy, was interesting, but also rather unpleasant. Which might have been ok, and even a benefit, if the book wasn't filled with hybrid creatures and cannibals. The adventure wasn't really exciting, and there wasn't really much else to recommend it particularly. Or at least for someone of my taste. Perhaps a pre-teen boy would greatly enjoy it? I'm not sure.
