Kirkus Bullies spur a lad and two new friends to dress up as secret superheroes in this trilogy opener from Norway.Encouraged by the spectral figure of his just-deceased grandpa, Rusty sets out for payback after three punksidentified throughout as "Anton, Ruben, and the minister's son"wreck the clubhouse he and his friend Jack have laboriously constructed from scrap. As "Brown," dressed in a brown cape and mask, he sneaks out into the night to slap brown paint on Ruben's bicycle. Shortly after Rusty tells Jack about the feat, another masked marauder, "Black," repaints Anton's bike. Joined by a third confidante, styling herself "Blue, or the Blue Avenger," the trio sets out on one more nocturnal missiononly to discover that most of the stash of blue paint has disappeared. Still, there's enough to repaint the bikes of all three foes blue. The next day Rusty, overcome by guilt, is on the verge of confessingwhen he learns that his nemeses are now in deep doo-doo for several acts of mischief, notably splashing the local church's spire with blue "rude words." Off the hook! Small, fine-lined ink drawings with color highlights on nearly every page supply this tongue-in-cheek escapade with evocative vignettes depicting Rusty's flights of fancy, quizzical-looking parents and other grown-ups, and masked prowlers in homemade outfits. The cast defaults to white. Chucklebait for Wimpy Kid fans. (Fiction. 9-11) Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright © Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Publishers Weekly In this first in a series from Øvreås (The Heartless Troll) and one of Enchanted Lion’s early forays into middle grade, Rusty hopes that after his family moves to the country, he’ll be able to spend more time with his grandfather. Instead, his grandfather dies suddenly, and a trio of persistent neighborhood bullies adds to Rusty’s troubles. Unable to talk about his loss and pushed to the edge after the bullies destroy the fort he’s been building with his friend Jack, Rusty steals away in the night, dressed as “Brown,” a superhero, and defaces one of the bullies’ bikes with brown paint. Feeling empowered, Rusty begins to encounter his grandfather’s spirit, who seems to approve of his nightly heroic missions. He’s joined by tall tale–telling Jack and lonely Lou (the superheroes Black and Blue, respectively), and together, the three friends find courage and independence when acting as their alter egos. Rusty’s slow, rebellious processing of his grandfather’s death and his growing sense of self and agency will appeal to Roald Dahl fans. Simple line illustrations with splashes of color and texture from Torseter (My Father’s Arms Are a Boat) enhance the quirky, engaging story told in poignant, occasionally humorous prose. Ages 6–10. (June)

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Horn Book Rusty's beloved grandfather has just died and his fort has been ruined by neighborhood bullies, so Rusty's alter-ego, "Brown," arrives to deal with these problems. Rusty/Brown, joined eventually by friends Jack and Lou, works his way through his grief while confronting the bullies. This plentifully illustrated import from Norway is in equal measure heartbreaking, silly, realistic, and childlike. (c) Copyright 2021. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

(c) Copyright The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Publishers Weekly Even the book's younger readers will understand the distinctive visual code. As the pigs enter the confines of a storybook page, they conform to that book's illustrative style, appearing as nursery-rhyme friezes or comic-book line drawings. When the pigs emerge from the storybook pages into the meta-landscape, they appear photographically clear and crisp, with shadows and three dimensions. Wiesner's (Tuesday) brilliant use of white space and perspective (as the pigs fly to the upper right-hand corner of a spread on their makeshift plane, or as one pig's snout dominates a full page) evokes a feeling that the characters can navigate endless possibilitiesDand that the range of story itself is limitless. Ages 5-up. (Apr.) Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

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School Library Journal K-Gr 6-In Tuesday (Clarion, 1991), Wiesner demonstrated that pigs could fly. Here, he shows what happens when they take control of their story. In an L. Leslie Brooke sort of style (the illustrations are created through a combination of watercolor, gouache, colored inks, and pencils), the wolf comes a-knocking on the straw house. When he puffs, the pig gets blown "right out of the story." (The double spread contains four panels on a white background; the first two follow the familiar story line, but the pig falls out of the third frame, so in the fourth, the wolf looks quite perplexed.) So it goes until the pigs bump the story panels aside, fold one with the wolf on it into a paper airplane, and take to the air. Children will delight in the changing perspectives, the effect of the wolf's folded-paper body, and the whole notion of the interrupted narrative. Wiesner's luxurious use of white space with the textured pigs zooming in and out of view is fresh and funny. They wander through other stories-their bodies changing to take on the new style of illustration as they enter the pages-emerging with a dragon and the cat with a fiddle. The cat draws their attention to a panel with a brick house, and they all sit down to soup, while one of the pigs reconstructs the text. Witty dialogue and physical comedy abound in this inspired retelling of a familiar favorite.-Wendy Lukehart, Dauphin County Library, Harrisburg, PA Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

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Book list Ages 3^-6. This spectacular, large-format edition has double-page-spread illustrations that resonate with bold strokes and exuberant images of the moon as it prepares for its nightly activities. The moon paints the sky, gets rid of fog and mist, plants dreams, locks up nightmares until morning comes and it's time to go to sleep. Even very young children will understand this simple, almost poetic Spanish rendition of a sweet bedtime story.

From Booklist, Copyright © American Library Association. Used with permission.

Publishers Weekly Toss together an alternate 19th-century New England city, a strong tradition of Sherlockian pastiche, and one seriously ugly hat, and this lighthearted and assured debut emerges, all action and quirk. In the best Doyle tradition, the first-person narrator is pragmatic yet naive Abigail Rook, native of Britain and seeker of adventure. Thwarted in Ukraine, she catches ship for the U.S. and lands in New Fiddleham, penniless and with few employable skills. This matters not to R.F. Jackaby, the peculiar stranger with the awful hat, who is more interested in the kobold (household spirit) Abigail has unknowingly picked up on her travels. Jackaby is a detective in need of an unflappable assistant-literally, as his last one "is temporarily waterfowl." Abigail's keen eye for detail and complete ignorance of the paranormal make her observations invaluable to him, and she's soon caught up in the eccentric mayhem that is Jackaby's workaday world. Ritter is also capable of tenderness and pathos, as his description of a suffering banshee demonstrates, leaving room for development in any future cases Abigail may chronicle. Ages 12-up. Agent: Lucy Carson, Friedrich Agency. (Sept.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

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Kirkus A Sherlock Holmesstyle adventure featuring the egotistical and eccentric R.F. Jackaby and his bewildered but invaluable assistant, Abigail Rook. Inspired by her fathers paleontological expeditions and frustrated by her mothers expectations of femininity, Abigail arrives in the New England city of New Fiddleham with a suitcase of inappropriate attire and a need for money. She finds employment with the oddball supernatural investigator Jackaby, whose previous assistants have met unfortunate or fowl ends (literally). Aiding Jackaby, flirting with the secretive Detective Charlie Cane, and trying to avoid the wrath of Chief Inspector Marlowe and Commissioner Swift, Abigail discovers that the world is stranger and more dangerous than she ever imagined. Although Abigail is not a seer like Jackaby, able to pierce the glamour of New Fiddlehams fairy-tale and folklore inhabitants, she learns that to see the ordinary is extraordinary indeed. Abigails attention to the everyday serves as a foil to Jackabys paranormal perception and makes her a refreshingly realistic and agreeable heroine. Secondary charactersincluding Jackabys houseare equally enchanting and well-drawn. Ritters debut skillfully blends science with the supernatural and balances whimsy with violence. The smartly paced plot wraps up neatly, but the rich world of this debut demands sequels. A magical mystery tour de force with a high body count and a list of unusual suspects. (Paranormal. 12-18) Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright © Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Book list In 1892, girls in their late teens from good English families don't wander the world, but Abigail Rook seeks adventure. She sails to New England and is hired on a trial basis by R. F. Jackaby, an investigator specializing in unexplained phenomena. Before long, she is deep in a murder investigation that includes a banshee, a shape-changer, and a malevolent goblin known as a red cap. Smooth writing and inventive but underutilized background touches (like Jackaby's pocket contents) characterize this supernatural riff on the typical Sherlockian murder mystery. Although the perpetrator is a red cap, a mythological creature whose life depends on keeping its hat soaked in fresh blood, the crime scenes are not garish, and occasional touches of humor lighten an otherwise earnest tone. For a lighter read-alike, try Patricia C. Wrede and Caroline Stevermer's Sorcery and Cecilia (2004); for a darker tone, perhaps Philip Pullman's Sally Lockhart mysteries.--Welch, Cindy Copyright 2014 Booklist

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School Library Journal Gr 9 Up-Fans of Jonathan Stroud's The Screaming StaircaseÅ(Disne-Hyperion, 2013) will appreciate Ritter's initial foray into the realm of supernatural. When Abigail Rook abandons university, and her parents' hopes, she arrives at the fictional New England town of New Fiddleham. There, she promptly meets R. F. Jackaby, a paranormal detective, and is flung into the investigation of a serial killer suspected of being nonhuman.ÅWhere Ritter excels is in the fast and furious plotline-events unfold rapidly while satisfying tastes for mystery and a small amount of gore. Unfortunately, so much attention is paid to the unfolding circumstances that the two main characters remain mysteries themselves. While readers know Abigail is fleeing the expectations society and her parents have placed on her, little is done to explain why. The protagonist is also a mystery-he just appears, as if a ghost himself, with much fanfare but scant backstory. Ultimately, however, avid lovers of fantasy will enjoy this quick read.-Amanda C. Buschmann, Atascocita Middle School, Humble, TX (c) Copyright 2014. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

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Horn Book In 1892 New Fiddleham, America, newly arrived young Englishwoman Abigail Rook crosses paths with the remarkable Mr. R. F. Jackaby. Jackaby is a detective, but his perceptive observations are of the paranormal variety, and Abigail jumps at the chance to work for him. Ritter's debut is a riveting mash-up of mystery and folklore, with vivid details and striking turns of phrase. (c) Copyright 2015. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

(c) Copyright The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.