The Mighty Lalouche. By
Matthew Olshan. Illustrated by Sophie Blackall. Schwartz & Wade. $17.99.
The Man Who Was Poe. By Avi.
Scholastic. $6.99.
The Inquisitor’s Apprentice II:
The Watcher in the Shadows. By Chris Moriarty. Illustrations by Mark Edward
Geyer. Harcourt. $16.99.
Touches of real history
enliven these offbeat stories for different age groups – with two tales set in
the 19th century and one in the early 20th. The Mighty Lalouche is based on the
sport of French boxing, which was popular in the late 1800s and somewhat
resembled modern kickboxing; and one of Sophie Blackall’s delightful
illustrations is based on a photo (reproduced at the back of the book) of an
electric race car from the early automotive age. The story itself – a wonderful
concept by Matthew Olshan – is in the traditional “little guy makes good” mode,
but is sufficiently offbeat in the telling and pictures so it is anything but
formulaic. It is the tale of a small, slight postman named Lalouche who loses
his job to automation (those odd-looking cars) and, desperate for money, signs
up as a sparring partner for French boxers. He knows nothing of pugilism, much
less the French style of the 1800s, but he soon proves to have so much talent and
speed that he defeats all the huge, hulking fighters who expect to make short
work of him – even those who bend the rules (and Lalouche’s body). Blackall’s
illustrations really “pop” from the pages, their three-dimensional look
resulting from her very clever process of assembling them in layers, then
photographing them. The sense of perspective is overdone in an excellent way,
and the characters’ sizes are just right: Lalouche is about the size of the
trophies he wins, while his opponents are gigantic as well as very funny (their
“biographies” are presented inside the front and back covers). Lalouche
eventually retires undefeated and returns to his postal job when the automation
attempt fails, and he gets a double happy ending: his job back and a new
apartment with a gorgeous view of the Seine. Kids ages 4-8 will root for
Lalouche from the start – likely knowing that he will win in the end, but not
knowing how delightfully and in how many ways he, along with Olshan and
Blackall, will triumph.
Avi’s The Man Who Was Poe is for older readers, ages 8-12, and was
originally published in 1989. The new paperback edition offers a welcome chance
to read (or re-read) this fascinating novel, in which Poe assumes the role of
his famous detective character, C. Auguste Dupin, to help a young boy named
Edmund whose sister has mysteriously disappeared. Avi peppers the book with
reality: it takes place in 1848 in Providence, Rhode Island, where Poe did live
for a time (as did Avi himself); it occurs while Poe is courting a character
named Mrs. Whitman, a real woman whom the real Poe actually did court; and even
the detail of Poe’s having a daguerreotype made – a scene that proves crucial
to the plot – is taken from life, since Poe did
have one made in 1848 in Providence at the establishment of Messrs. Masury and
Hartshorn, the very place to which Poe and Edmund go in the book. The basic
plot, of course, is entirely fictional, involving twins, international travel,
stolen gold and a variety of nefarious doings; and the notion of Poe actually
using what he called the “ratiocination” employed by his detective is rather
far-fetched. But Avi interweaves reality and fiction skillfully through most of
the book, even to having Poe perpetually in search of liquor and frequently
besotted (in real life, it was because of his drinking that Mrs. Whitman
refused him). The novel veers most strongly away from reality at its climax,
which involves a boat chase; and there is one unexplained event – unusual for
Avi – in which Edmund is “struck from behind” at a crucial moment but then
apparently left alone by the evildoers so he can join in pursuing them. The
book’s conceit, a clever one, is that Poe is trying to make Edmund’s story into
a Poe story, which means it needs even more doom and death than has already
occurred; and the similarity of Poe’s first name, Edgar, to that of Edmund,
encourages Poe in this off-kilter attempt. Although not one of Avi’s very best
books, The Man Who Was Poe stands
well above typical preteen mystery adventures in its attention to detail, its
sureness of pacing and the considerable interest that Avi brings both to the
characters and to the setting.
The setting and details are
among the major strengths of The Watcher
in the Shadows as well – and this is a case where a sequel is actually
superior to an original. Chris Moriarty here returns to the alternative history
of New York City in the early 20th century that she began
chronicling in The Inquisitor’s Apprentice,
but while the earlier book’s fascinating concepts were presented somewhat
haphazardly, and its high-quality illustrations by Mark Edward Geyer were
sometimes at odds with the text, here Moriarty and Geyer really hit their
stride. The result is a taut, well-told, finely paced and genuinely frightening
mystery in which family bonds are crucial – even when they are severed – and
the existence and use of magic are even more enigmatic than they were in the
previous book. The primary cast of characters returns here, with poor Jewish protagonist
Sacha Kessler and his blue-blood friend Lily Astral helping Inspector
Maximillian Wolf try to root out the improper use of magic in criminal and
sometimes deadly enterprises. The polyglot New York of the real world is
retained and accentuated here, with Jewish, Italian, Chinese and Irish
immigrants fighting for a foothold; and the twisting of real-world names and
motivations is fleshed out more satisfactorily than before, with special
attention to Lily’s family (Astral rather than Astor) and to the primary
evildoer, James Pierpont Morgaunt (rather than Morgan). Wolf, a rather thin
character in the first book, is far more fully developed here, as we learn more
about him, including where he lives and what some of his fears are. Sacha, who can see others’ magic but cannot – yet –
perform any himself, also becomes a more fleshed-out character, learning far
more about himself through the mistakes he makes and through a terrible loss
that his family suffers at the book’s climax. The strange creature called a dybbuk reappears, of course, and even
this shadowy thing becomes more solid and interesting by the book’s end – no
less malevolent, but malevolent in, perhaps, a different way (a puzzle to be
worked out in a later book). And there
is a considerable role this time for a woman who practically oozes evil but, at
the same time, exercises considerable fascination on the reader as well as on
the book’s other characters: Morgaunt’s librarian, Bella de Serpa, “one of the
most talked-about women in New York,” around whom “rumors flocked…like art
collectors around a priceless Renaissance Madonna,” although “none of the
rumors were even remotely as interesting as Bella de Serpa herself.” What gets the plot moving here and makes it
possible for readers who missed the earlier book to pick this one up and start
with it, if they so desire, is a very strange murder: a famous vaudeville
clarinetist called the Klezmer King is fried on stage, during a show, by his
electric tuxedo. Gallows humor, yes, and there is a certain amount of it here
to leaven what is essentially a serious and very fast-paced adventure. Sacha
grows up quite a bit in this book: in a confrontation with gangster Meyer
Minsky (rather than Lansky), in his ongoing and developing relationships with
Lily and Inspector Wolf, and in his meeting in Chinatown with Shen – one of the
best characters from the previous book, equally intriguing this time. The
period elements of The Watcher in the
Shadows are effectively integrated into the invented ones, and the book as
a whole succeeds on multiple levels: as mystery, as a foray into magic, as a
combination of real and alternative history, and as an offbeat coming-of-age
novel. There will certainly be at least one more book to come in this series –
this one’s ending makes that clear – and readers will be looking forward to it
for their next trip back, or sideways, in time.
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