Return to Exile

Gr 5—8—Sky, 12, and his family (über-cheerleader Hannah, home-improvement-challenged Dad, botanically talented Mom) have been on the move forever. The only constant in his life has been his Uncle Phineas, who has provided games and puzzles, plus books and stories about all kinds of strange monsters that no one else has ever heard of, like evil Echoes and thumbless Gnomons. His family's return to the creepy town of Exile is marked with Phineas's disappearance and Sky's continuing dreams of an inner monster named Errand that causes him to behave badly. Complications abound, characters are not who (or what) they seem, and telling the bad guys from the good guys is at times impossible. There is plenty of humor (mostly snarky comments and horrifically bad puns), more than a little violence, but some quieter, more emotional moments as well. By the end, most of the loose ends are neatly tied up, but there are broad hints of more mayhem to come. Middle-schoolers who like untying fiendishly complicated plots will say, "bring it on."—Mara Alpert, Los Angeles Public Library