The Cavendish Home for Boys and Girls (edition 2012)

Victoria, a no-nonsense kind of person, is constantly exasperated with her friend Lawrence. He prefers music to math, daydreaming to homework, and he's sloppy. But when Lawrence disappears, Victoria goes to great lengths to save him. Her investigations lead her to the Cavendish Home for Boys and Girls where the lovely Ms. Cavendish turns out to be quite the opposite. Victoria is sent there for asking too many questions, and soon leads a daring attempt to escape. Will she save Lawrence before he disappears for good?
I really enjoyed this book. I didn't expect to because the cover is pretty bland. But it was fantastic. The characters are very likable and interesting. The plot is full of twists and turns. Legrand weaves in aspects of growing up, being true to yourself, and falling in love into this engrossing mystery. It's a great read for students as young as 4th grade. ( )

I am not sure what I was expecting when I went in but this book got a whole lot darker and creepier than I thought it was going to be. So much so that I had to start reading another much fluffier book after so I could sleep. Overall it was really quite good. Victoria is a great character and Mrs Cavendish and Mr Alice are delightfully creepy. ( )

A strange and creepy book, the Cavendish Home for Boys and Girls took a while for me to get into. Victoria is a high achiever, but has only one friend and she's only friends with him because she wants to improve him. But he disappears one day, and Victoria realizes that other children have been disappearing and everyone seems to forget about them once they are gone. The adults are behaving strangely, too. She somehow comes to the conclusion that the orphanage in town is responsible for the disappearances, and she investigates. Captured children, lots of roaches, an orphanage that changes shape, and even torture follow. There's a lot thrown in and not all of it makes sense, but Victoria manages to save the remaining children and additionally learn that people shouldn't be perfect. ( )

The quick synopsis for this book states "At the Cavendish Home for Boys and Girls, you will definitely learn your lesson." The cover art is young and simple yet filled with that creepy vibe of a mystery to be solved. Based on the simple description and artwork, I was expecting a Scooby Doo or Nancy Drew style kids mystery story. While that would have been entertaining, I was very pleased to find that The Cavendish Home for Boys and Girls delivers so much more.

The narrative starts out focused on Victoria, a girl with a perfect life: perfect clothes, perfect school, perfect looks, perfect parents, perfect home, perfect everything. In an act of kindness, she has made a project of Lawrence, one of the least-perfect boys in her school. Victoria plans to force him to give up his slovenly, childish imperfect ways and become a natural part of her perfect life.

Early on the narrative hints that Lawrence is going to go missing. This foreshadowing also hints at some of the other strange problems that are happening around town. At first, Victoria isn't even aware of the oddities or if she is, she thinks nothing of them. She's too busy worrying about how she can repair the smudge on her Academic Report from the B she received in Music.

Once Lawrence vanishes though, Victoria searches for answers. At first, she doesn't feel particularly attached to imperfect Lawrence but his absence is a blemish on her otherwise perfectly normal life. Looking for answers she only finds more questions and more strangeness. Eventually she is led to the Cavendish Home, a large orphanage set at the end of the street. She meets the proprietress Mrs. Cavendish and the gardener/caretaker Mr. Alice. Both are pleasant enough but neither sets her questions at ease.

By this time, the story has layered on plenty of weird elements to let you know that this isn't your normal mystery story. As Victoria gets deeper and deeper into the mystery, the aspects become more and more strange. I found myself comparing this story in many ways to Neil Gaiman's Coraline. Like Coraline, this book is full of absolutely bizarre twists and turns and a heavy mix of magic, supernatural and just plain weird. And just to clarify, I found the comparison to Gaiman to be a high compliment rather than suggesting that this book is simply a rehash of elements and themes used elsewhere.

I felt like the author did a great job of taking a semi-normal missing-persons mystery and layering it with layer upon layer of the creepy and scary while still maintaining a manageable story that's believable and approachable by younger readers. I definitely wouldn't recommend reading it to a Kindergartener, but late grade school or middle graders will eat this story up and beg for more.

I loved the multi-faceted way the mystery was presented. Everything came along in quick but subtle bursts of events or information. Finally, our heroine seems to be flying along out of control headed for certain disaster. The resolution and eventual outcome are satisfying although the twist in the final couple of pages left me curious about the rules of the world as a whole.

To those who enjoy Neil Gaiman's youth fiction or had fun with R.L. Stein or other similar kids horror authors, this book will immediately appeal. To those looking for something lighthearted and fun, I can say that the writing is clever and there are some genuine heartfelt relationships and laughable humor, but it's definitely a darker story, so you should be warned.

Overall it's quite fun and I really liked the character and story development. This is only her debut novel, but I look forward to seeing more from Claire Legrand.

****
4 out of 5 stars ( )

I find I like a great many Young Adult books but the number of middle-grade/early teen books that catch my imagination are far fewer. (Authors writing for this section of the market can be so condescending. Yuck.)

But "The Cavendish Home for Boys and Girls" has none of these problems. Claire Legrand writes brilliantly, and her plotting and timing is perfect. She carefully builds the tension and leaves the reader clues, and by the time you're at the back of the book your racing down the page trying to find out what happens next.

Now as far as the horror goes, it's not graphic or gory. There's danger and tension but it's never taken too far. Definitely a book I'm going to recommend to my 12 yo daughter. And I'd have no problem suggesting it my 10 year old son as well.

Just a great story, well told. The ending might be a little less than well-read adults might want, but it's satisfying none-the-less and Legand's book stands as one of the best Middle-grade fiction choices.

Pam T~ ( )