Author is Howard Whitehouse... there are two books currently available in the series and one due out next month. The first book is
The Strictest School in the World: Being the Tale of a Clever Girl, a Rubber Boy and a Collection of Flying Machines, Mostly Broken. The Second is
The Faceless Fiend: Being the Tale of a Criminal Mastermind, His Masked Minions and a Princess with a Butter Knife, and the third will be
The Island of Mad Scientists: Being an Excursion to the Wilds of Scotland, Involving Many Marvels of Experimental Invention, Pirates, a Heroic Cat, a Mechanical Man, and a Monkey. How could anyone resist such titles?
The series is called The Mad Misadventures of Emmaline and Rubberbones and a) it's hysterically funny, b) it's well-written, and c) the main character, Emmaline, is a brilliant young inventor with two extremely quirky friends (who are very clever in their own right). There is cartoonish peril and whatnot (and "Rubberbones" is so-called for his ability to survive peril un-injured... so I'd maybe think twice about handing this over to the sort of kid who would think "I wonder if I could do that..." LOL), but DS enjoyed it all as a fairly sensitive 7 year old (and as a slightly-less-sensitive 8 year old). There are villains, but they're similarly cartoonish -- evil schoolmistresses, fiends, and
But the good guys are very good and they always show up in the nick of time, and they make a very sweet family-of-misfits. There's some fairly subtle humor, some extremely broad humor, and plenty of "clever wins the day"... and really just some excellent storytelling.
I was just trying to get a solid date on the release to see if there was any hope of ordering it for an upcoming birthday present and thought I should take the opportunity to spread the word.
