Adrienne Kress

For my fourth Canadian author I chose Adrienne Kress, who, amusingly enough, turns out to be an old school friends-fiance's-cousin. Apparently, contrary to popular belief, the world is so small I may just fall off the edge one of these days.

Oddly I had trouble getting a hold of her first book, Alex and the Ironic Gentleman, but it didn't appear they were related so I grabbed the first copy of Timothy and the Dragon's Gate I could find and got down to reading. And what an entertaining few show more days it has been! Adrienne has this wonderfully funny, tongue and cheek way of writing, that not only completely suits her intended audience but was thoroughly entertaining for me as well, and clearly I am not 11. Though maybe not that clearly as you can't actually see me.

Timothy is a troublemaker. He's been expelled from every school in the city, so his dad takes him to work with him (at a total loss what to do with him other than that); where one thing leads to another and pretty soon he's embroiled in the biggest bit of trouble he's ever managed. Mr Shen is a dragon, trapped in a man's body, who's a slave to whomever has possession of his key. The plan is to get Mr Shen to China, to the Dragon's Gate where they can release him from his bondage after all these years but with Pirates, Ninjas, Shaolin Monks, some crazy black cabs, a Teacher and his Parents in the way, it could be somewhat tricky.

Turns out this book was linked up to Alex and the Ironic Gentleman, but it was easily read independently so no worries if you too have trouble getting your hands on it first. As I mentioned, Adrienne's brand of humor is really enjoyable, a mix of the staccato laughs an 11 year old would love mixed with a certain amount of the world weariness only an adult writer would be able to provide. Although most 11 year olds might not realize it yet, the practicalities of getting a job as a Ninja after finishing Ninja school can be challenging, and the little blurb Adrienne casually throws in about that particular problem had me laughing out loud. What I also really loved was how this didn't stop Adrienne's particular Ninja, she still went on to a professional living. I'm a big fan of leaving practicalities until such a point in life they can't be avoided, if you want to be a Ninja when you grow up, then by all means you should do it (I might still do it, as long as I don't discover I'm a really rich faeire princess first).

A super read that makes me wish I had someone little to read it out loud with (not my own of course, just a cute borrowed one off the street. The non-lippy version I can give away when they get too demanding or exhausting.) show less

Alex and the Ironic Gentleman is not about a little boy named Alex. Nor is it about a gentleman who uses irony. It is about Alex Morningside - who is a girl, thank you very much - and her quest to rescue her sixth grade teacher from some very nasty pirates. Along the way, Alex has one surreal adventure after the next - from a mysterious train ride where one person disappears after every meal, to a chaotic movie set where Alex must cajole the star giant octopus into acting his part, to a show more massive and wonderful hotel with no guests.Alex is a delightful heroine. She's always an active participant - this is a girl who knows how to make things happen, instead of waiting for things to happen to her. And her complete indifference when people assume she is a boy is refreshing. As the narrator puts it, "it wasn't that she wanted to be a boy or anything, it was simply that she didn't see much difference in being treated as a girl or boy. Because, after all, everyone is just people."Adrienne Kress has a way with words. Her delightfully droll asides can only be described as Lemony Snicket-esque. And like in Mr. Snicket's books, the narrator of Alex and the Ironic Gentleman is directly addressing the reader with witty wordplay and little bits of additional information. It's a narrative device that is charming in the beginning of the story, and really serves to draw the reader in. I was delighted to find that as the tone got a little bit grating, the author backed off. When the action really gets going, the narrative asides and bits of backstory come further apart and get out of the way of the story.This is a book with a funny sense of time and place - while it reads like a historical adventure novel, little bits of the modern world find their way into the text. The laptops and automated refrigerators felt like an anomaly in the world of the story. But in this strange book, throwing the reader for a loop is the norm - as the little old ladies of the innocent-seeming Daughters of the Founding Fathers' Preservation Society will attest.For readers who can't get enough of Alex's adventures, the next book in the series, Timothy and the Dragon's Gate, was recently released. show less

It took me a while to get around to reading this book, but when I did, I had a great time reading it. I was a bit alarmed by the beginning, since it seemed like the first few chapters were mostly the narrator taking pot-shots at adults, but it turned out that she was actually taking pot-shots at stupid adults (always a good thing), and meanwhile revealing some character flaws in her protagonist, Timothy.

The fact that this book is the second in a series affects not at all your ability to show more read it as a stand-alone novel... though reading this text only got me interested in reading the first book in the series, to see how the young lady named Alex, who turns up in this story about two-thirds of the way in, became the wonderful character she is.

In any case, this is an impressive novel for young readers, but it's damn fun for adults too. Kress combines an unhinged playfulness with a kind of hilariously cynical realism, and the result is delightful. show less

A girl sets out on a quest to rescue her sixth-grade teacher from pirates. If you enjoyed "A Series of Unfortunate Events", you'll probably like this one as there's a massive similarity in tone, world-building style, and narrative voice. Not to say that's a bad thing, and the plot's all new, but it is very noticeable.

Overall, I found it enjoyable, though the middle section of the book is decidedly odd, consisting of several unrelated episodes that don't have anything to do with anything show more before or after them and which introduce fantasy elements not present in the rest of the story. One almost wonders if the author found herself short on a word count. It feels a little bit like a LucasArts adventure game in novel form, where nothing will happen if the protagonist doesn't make it happen and everyone else is useless and obstinate. All this sounds rather negative but it isn't really at all; it's a very strange way of putting a novel together but it does work.

Age-ranking this one was difficult; the usual way to judge (knocking a couple of years off of the protagonist's age) would seem to indicate it's for eight-and-a-half-year-olds and up, but I think I'd actually put it a little older--there's a quite a body count and some of what happens gets pretty hardcore for a children's novel. Some kids could read this at eight and be perfectly fine, but some couldn't, so be aware. show less