The Lightning Catcher

Gr 4–6—It's an amazingly familiar premise: a boy with absent parents and unusual abilities finds himself in a school that teaches arcane knowledge, where he makes friends and enemies, experiences all kinds of eerie and dangerous goings-on, discovers secrets he isn't supposed to know, and fights the most dangerous and evil villain in the world. Angus McFangus, 11, has been living with his Uncle Max while his parents supposedly do something for an unnamed government office. After he receives a strange letter from his mother, he is whisked off to the Perilous Exploratorium for Weather and Vicious Storms on the mysterious Isle of Imbur. There, he is told by Principal Dark-Angel that he must lie about his identity, and he meets Ron and Hermione-oops, I mean Dougal and Indigo. He's thrown into training to become one of the "lightning catchers," special agents who "protect mankind from the ravages of weather at its most cruel and extreme." Storms of newts, killer fogs, and wacky weather attacks of all sorts are the norm. The Isle of Imbur and all the weather-weirdness are interesting, but the rest feels tired and overdone.—Mara Alpert, Los Angeles Public Library