Reality Leak
Grade 4-6–The dull town of South Wiggot gets turned upside down when the mysterious Archibald Keen appears. After he arrives in a wooden crate, opens up a factory, and makes sure the townspeople all have fillings in their teeth, strange things start happening. Eleven-year-old Bryan, with help from a girl named Spot, discovers flying dollar bills, tea bags that turn into mice, and other oddities, and then realizes that no one else even notices what's going on. With persistent curiosity and cleverness, he learns that the apparently sinister Mr. Keen is actually trying to patch a dangerous reality leak. They finally join forces to save the town, and Bryan earns a bright future as a special agent for Mr. Keen's secret organization. The boy's inner feelings about his family and his tentatively developing friendship with Spot seem tacked on at times, but add a bit of depth to the story. The bizarre occurrences are fun, and also key to the plot, as the boy tries to make sense of them all. Black-and-white illustrations provide lighthearted depictions of some of the unusual items Bryan encounters. The delicate balance between humor and pure absurdity generally works. When Bryan sees his dad's pants walking around with nobody in them, for instance, it's more weird than suspenseful, but the mystery surrounding the cause of such events should keep readers involved.–Steven Engelfried, Multnomah County Library, ORCopyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.