Barnaby Grimes: Curse of the Night Wolf [Hardcover]

It's About: A Victorian-era tick-tock lad named Barnaby Grimes, who- in the course of delivering messages as one of the few surviving highstacking couriers in London- uncovers a philanthropic doctor's fiendish secret. I have to tell you guys, I loved this book. I loved it like crazy. I finished it in one sitting, and seriously had to restrain myself from getting up to write the review just then. I intended to wait until my son- who is enduring Marching Band camp right now- could read it, but I just couldn't.

Seriously, I love this book. The language is challenging- both in reading level (herpetological, confidentiality, paramount,) but also in setting the era scene (medicaments, drayman, mudlarks.) But the beautiful thing is, the language is challenging in a way that it's exciting to read. Stewart and Riddell have brilliantly captured the breathless excitement of pulp novels and penny dreadfuls.

This book is full of brightly drawn characters, from Old Benjamin the coachman, to Henrietta the Landlady, who used to be the circus' Painted Lady; I especially enjoyed the wacky doctor PB, who hires Barnaby to spy on bullfinches, believing they may actually be vicious carnivores. Barnaby himself has exactly the right mix of invincibility and humanity to make a great pulp hero.

Anyone who knows how the old horror serials go can guess by the title the contents of the plot, but young readers especially, will love both how vivid the horror sequences are, and how much fun the action sequences are. The illustrations are pitch perfect, very Charles Gibson meets Edward Gorey, and the text is peppered with teases of other adventures that I look forward to reading about in future installments.

Would I Give This Book to a Kid: I plan to give this book to *several* kids, and a handful of teenagers.

Would I Give This Book to an Adult: Absolutely; I think my husband and my stepfather particularly will enjoy it.

Barnaby Grimes is a tock-tock lad. He'll deliver any message for any client, anywhere, anytime. He's the fastest messenger around and he'll even climb on rooftops to deliver his messages on time.

One night, while Barnaby is traveling by rooftop, he is attacked by a huge wolf-like beast. When Barnaby's friend, Old Benjamin, disappears, Barnaby suspects the wolf had something to do with it and sets out to discover the truth, meeting a cast of strange characters along the way.

CURSE OF THE NIGHT WOLF is the first in the new BARNABY GRIMES series from the authors of THE EDGE CHRONICLES. The story combines mystery, history, horror, action-adventure, and the paranormal into a perfectly scary story for tweens. The black and white drawings add a chilling effect to the story. The characters are brilliantly drawn and the villain is perfectly evil.

Barnaby's story will continue in RETURN OF THE EMERALD SKULL, and from the preview in my copy of CURSE OF THE NIGHT WOLF, his adventures are going to get much scarier!

Reviewed by: Sarah Bean the Green Bean Teen Queen

While this was an interesting book, it struck me as less attractive than the authors' other series (The Edge Chronicles, Far-Flung Adventures and Ottoline books...).

This was an very violent book, and also a minimally illustrated book. One of the charms of the Riddell/Stewart partnership has always been Chris Riddell's profuse and fabulous illustration, which adds so much to the characterization and sense of place. I wanted waaaay more illustration for this book, after reading their other work.

I also felt that this was more of a teenage boy book than any of their other books I have read-- I definitely would not give it to pre-teens.

SPOILER ALERT~~~SPOILER ALERT~~~SPOILER ALERT~~~SPOILER ALERT
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Here's a way to gauge whether or not this book is right for your child, in a nutshell: will he/she enjoy reading about people being transformed into werewolves and then skinned to be made into clothes for the rich? If so, buy this book. :) If not, be warned.

I am a huge, huge fan of the authors, but just did not enjoy this book at all. I had been excited to find a new series by them, but am not planning on reading any other Barnaby Grimes books.