Substance: Adventure and humor, with a satirical bite adults can appreciate. Clever and entertaining protagonists discover that an evil rich man's hobby is collecting mad scientists (including numerous well-known historical figures), and band together to thwart his plans. Would make a nice movie for tweens.
Style: By a Canadian author, set in Great Britain, but accessible to USA-English readers. Cute pictures. ( )

Digging through the archives...

Being the third Misadventure of Emmaline and Rubberbones, involving an "Excursion to the Wilds of Scotland, Involving Many Marvels of Experiemental Invention, Pirates, a Heroic Cat, a Mechanical Man and Monkey."

In this hilarious third installment, Emmaline, the budding aviatrix, and Rubberbones, the indestructible boy, take a back seat and Princess Purnah is the main character. As they try to make their way to a safe haven in Scotland, the characters are separated from each other and set off to their own adventures - Emmaline and Professor Bellbuckle join up with pirates (and where Professor Bellbuckle goes, can explosions be far behind?) Rubberbones and Lal Singh are the first to discover the sinister plans of The Collector, and Princess Purnah, after adventures involving fake seances, policemen, and umbrellas with Aunt Lucy, is on her own. Together with Harry the tramp (or is he?) and Maisie the Very Fine Cat, she learns some interesting lessons about dealing with miscreants.

Verdict: Fans of the Series of Unfortunate Events or Philip Reeve's Larklight series will love these hilarious and insane adventures!

Revisited: I loved this series but could never convince kids to check it out. Series of Unfortunate Events is no longer popular in my library and Larklight has only ever circulated for kids who need last-minute high lexile points. There are some editions still in print, but it's only a matter of time before it's weeded.

ISBN: 978-1554532377; Published October 2008 by Kids Can Press; Borrowed from a library in my consortium; Purchased for the library

This series got better and better. I liked this book the best, followed closely by the Strictest School in the World (the first book in the series.) Purnah grew on me, to the point that I was quoting her to my dogling. Whitehouse's sense of humor is delightful. From the names of Chiligriti gods (Eejit, the god of stupidity) and victory anthem "I Have Cut Out YOur Bowels With a Hairbrush" to the various mad scientists, both resident and captured, to include Freud, Tesla, Cavor, and references to Moreau. It is obviously a book for young people, but there are references no child will get that make it a riot to read.

In my opinion this series really should be read in order. ( )