The Door in the Alley

"The story begins, like most stories do, with a pig wearing a teeny hat." Following that attention-grabbing opening line, this funny, offbeat, and subversive tale quickly switches to the afterschool habits of twelve-year-old protagonist Sebastian, who is a clever, diligent rule-follower with a bent for science and geography. But when Sebastian's cousin shows him a mysterious door bearing the legend "The Explorers Society," Sebastian becomes obsessed despite himself. The appearance of the aforementioned pig results in the boy entering the Society--illegally, as it turns out--and beginning a new chapter in his life. While working at the Society after school, trying to please his adventurous new employers by doing something "inappropriate," he stumbles upon the archives of a group of disgraced explorers called the Filipendulous Five, and then meets Evie, the orphaned granddaughter of their leader. Evie is being pursued by evil men, but the Explorers Society won't help her, so Sebastian steps up. Occasional footnotes and other humorous asides from the omniscient narrator break the fourth wall and ramp up the playfulness; the zaniness of the Society and Evie's swashbuckling efforts to find her missing and imperiled grandfather act as foils for Sebastian's straitlaced personality. Extravagant descriptions of the Explorers Society, with its part-fantasy-closet, part-amusement-park amenities, will elicit sighs of envy from Kress's target audience: clever, diligent readers like Sebastian with the imagination and spirit to become rule-breakers like Evie. anita l. burkam