Brain Full of Holes

Gr 5—8—Sheldon McGlone, the adolescent hero of The Brain Finds a Leg (Peachtree, 2009), finds himself moving from Australia to Switzerland when his mother marries Captain Schnurrbart of the Swiss Scientific SWAT Unit. Accompanied by his stepbrother and best friend, junior detective Theophilus Brain, Sheldon is soon led into a nutty mystery that begins when the holes disappear from the Swiss cheese. Next Helga Poom, an enchanting blonde, asks the Brain to help her locate her missing father. The Brain soon locates the elder Poom's truck—buried in solid rock and containing a curious substance called Duzzent Matter—but without Helga's father. Then everything goes crazy; a police officer turns into a chicken; carnivorous cows and walking, talking cuckoo clocks appear; and Sheldon, Helga, and the Brain must deal with a two-headed butler and multiple Captain Schnurrbarts, some of whom are prepared to send the three into other dimensions. Striving for humor, Chatterton bombards readers with everything but the kitchen sink, and the story grows so wild and overheated that kids will be yawning. Sheldon is too much of a doofus—constantly tongue-tied and falling over his own feet—to be a sympathetic character, and the Brain is the kind of would-be Sherlock Holmes we've seen too many times before.—Walter Minkel, Austin Public Library, TX