The Order of Odd-Fish

September 1, 2008
Gr 8 Up-Thirteen-year-old Jo Larouche lives quietly in the California desert with her adoptive Aunt Lily, an eccentric former film star, and longs for something exciting to happen. She gets her wish and then some when Lily's annual costume party is crashed by an elderly Russian colonel ruled by his digestive system and a giant talking cockroach with a flair for the dramatic. Soon Jo and Lily are swept up by the Order of Odd-Fish, a group of knights devoted to researching useless information, and taken to the fantastical world of Eldritch City, where Jo learns the truth about her birth and destiny. This debut novel has many of the trappings of popular young adult fantasy titles, including an exotic setting, a dangerous villain, and a coming-of-age quest. However, Kennedy's clever plot, rich and fully realized setting, and often witty dialogue cannot compete with his dense, ridiculous prose (e.g., "He could not even think about the Belgian Prankster for too long before he would feel his soul dwindle and teeter on the precipice of being blasted to nothing by the sheer demonic grandeur of the Belgian Prankster."). Very few teen fantasy fans will be willing to wade through the text, no matter how likable the heroine and how fascinating the world of Eldritch City."Leah J. Sparks, formerly at Bowie Public Library, MD"

Copyright 2008 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

August 1, 2008
The basic plot of Kennedys first novel is fairly standard fantasy fareJo, a 13-year-old girl whogets whisked off to a strange world, discovers that she is a child of destiny and must combat evil forces bent on the destruction of the worldbut its so dizzyingly arrayed with Monty Pythoninspired window dressing that one might not notice. Jo is a squire to an order of knights dedicated to fiddling about and studying such topics as the philosophy of napkins. Talking cockroach butlers, a Russian colonel who takes orders from his digestive tract, and a villain called the Belgian Prankster, who wants to either destroy the world or tell the worst joke in history, are just a few of the blatantly weird characters that veer the story into the ludicrous at nearly every turn. Some might find it difficult to sustain interest in such determined high jinks, but in small doses, this isquite hilarious, and readers with a finely tuned sense of the absurd are going to adore the Technicolor ride.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2008, American Library Association.)

January 1, 2009
Thirteen-year-old Jo learns she is the Ichthala, prophesied to destroy the alternate world of Eldrich City. Kennedy imagines bizarre characters ("giant cockroaches...swishing about in jeweled capes and shimmering pantaloons, swinging chromium walking sticks") and raucous situations. Readers who aren't lost in the nonsense world or confused by the cacophony of voices will delight in the silliness and adventure.

(Copyright 2009 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)