Meet the Narrator, an intrusive fellow who is funny and enlightening--and most definitely in charge. "Would I like you if I met you?" he asks. "I'm not so sure I would." The Narrator starts the prologue three times, begins chapter two twice, and just when readers think the book will never begin... it does.
Something important does happen in the prologue, however: a good-looking young man arrives at Professor Templeton's office to protest his failing grade--the only time the professor had given an F. Their interview comes to an abrupt close when the secretary announces, "The babies are coming!" The first peek we get at the professor is through the hospital's nursery window in Jeremy Holmes's (There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly) blueprint-hued illustrations. The artist foreshadows the family's preoccupation with gadgets via a contraption that feeds and rocks the twins in their hospital cradles.
Ellis Weiner's (Yiddish with Dick and Jane) pacing is like clockwork. He then introduces 12-year-old twins Abigail and John Templeton as precocious and polite, being raised by their widowed father, a professor and inventor. We meet them as they strategize about how to convince their father to let them get a dog--and not for the first time. They make their request for a fox terrier via a photo delivered by a contraption described in detail by the Narrator. Thus readers discover how smart and inventive the twins are. Abigail loves solving cryptics (the Narrator snidely explains how they work), and John loves to play drums. Holmes portrays them at their leisure activities in terrific back-to-back illustrations. The talents associated with their hobbies come in handy when that handsome failing student (from the prologue) kidnaps Abigail and John in exchange for credit for (and the proceeds from) their father's invention, the Personal One-Man Helicopter (or POMH). How they attempt their getaway makes for a page-turning and funny tale.
The Narrator litters the story with fascinating words, tongue twisters ("I suggest you say the words 'particularly ridiculous' four times very quickly") and "Questions for Review," which may or may not be related to preceding events. The inviting design embeds the occasional word balloon in the body of the text, highlighting that chapter's theme, as well as cameo appearances (of Cassie the dog and others) in the margins.
Aimed at slightly younger readers than the audience for A Series of Unfortunate Events, this entertaining series will win over word lovers, mystery and puzzle solvers, fans of gadgets and those who previously had not thought of themselves as readers. --Jennifer M. Brown
Shelf Talker: The impudent Narrator of this mystery involving resourceful twins and their professor-inventor father will win over even the most hesitant reader.