Every once in a while I have to read a book written primarily for children. It clears my head. This one got my attention by the very Edward Gorey illustrations on the cover and the kooky premise. ( )

In Eel-Smack-by-the-Bay, put-upon butler Tristan Benway writes a memoir of his years spent working for the chaotic and eccentric Bellweather family in their lighthouse, as he prepares for his long-awaited departure from indentured servitude. ( )

Reviewed by Lauren Ashley for TeensReadToo.com

The Bellweathers are a kooky family with wild, extravagant habits and interests.

The father is an inventor who hates noise (yet the house is full of it). The mother is obsessed with painting and re-painting the lighthouse they live in. Spider hates the sunlight and loves crazy animals. Ninda is someone who wants to Do Good and Help the Downtrodden. And, finally, you have the artistic, yet insane, triplets: Spike, Brick, and Sassy. With their butler, Tristan Benway, the Bellweathers find themselves harboring foreign circus folk, albino alligators, and making plans to steal the Mona Lisa.

LEAVING THE BELLWEATHERS is one wacky book! It's also quite fun. There are moments in the story that might be slightly over the head of your average middle grader, but overall, I think they would enjoy the funny antics that this family gets up to...even if they are completely unrealistic in most senses.

One of the things that I found different and fun about this book was the end of every chapter. You get a look into the butler's journal. He looks back on what has happened in the lighthouse on the hill...as well as fondly thinking of his future when he is free of his servitude to the Bellweathers and can live in a Warm Place Far, Far Away.

Obviously, this book is full of good messages, though not preachy or annoyingly so. Some of these would be the love of family (even when not blood related), the importance of creativity, and the need to think of others and not just yourself.

This was a fun book overall. I think it would be much more exciting for someone of a younger age, and it's certain to be one that could produce crazy sequels! ( )

Absurd, hysterically funny, and impeccably well-written, Leaving the Bellweathers is the story of one butler, Tristan Benway, and the family in the lighthouse on the hill, whom he is bound to serve by an Oath of Fealty sworn by one Benway long deceased. But this oath will soon be expiring, and Benway has decided to write a tell-all book about the strange family: the mother who is constantly painting the walls, the inventor-father who accosts all doorbell-ringers by dropping things from the window, the artistic triplets who only speak VERY LOUDLY LIKE THIS unless they are Up to No Good, the bagpipe-playing daughter who takes up any cause she can find (and often invites them to dinner, and the son whose love for endangered animals that can kill you has recently brought an albino alligator into the house. There simply is nothing like LEAVING THE BELLWEATHERS, and it is easily among the best middle grades of the past few years. ( )

In Eel-Smack-by-the-Bay, put-upon butler Tristan Benway writes a memoir of his years spent working for the chaotic and eccentric Bellweather family in their lighthouse, as he prepares for his long-awaited departure from indentured servitude.