Middle schooler Thatcher Hill goes to live with his uncle in a small seaside town in California for the summer. His job is to take care of odd objects at the Museum of Curiosities, which includes a mysterious shrunken head in a box. A young girl steals this mysterious object from the museum and things soon turn bizarre as Thatcher, in his pursuit of this thief, gets caught up in a ages-old battle between an evil witch and the people of the lost city of Atlantis. He gets chased by jelly-fish boys on bikes, huge lobster-men, and yes a giant squid all with good humor and aplomb. Fun, quick moving story. I haven't had this much fun with a book in a long, long time.Van Eekhout's Kid Vs Squid manages to return kids of any age to that sweet spot in their imagination that their childhood favorite reads take them to. KvS is all out adventure and humor. Three kids--Thatcher, Shoal and Trudy--bond in ways that only 3 Musketeers on a life-threatening adventure can.And then there's the weirdness. Uncle Griswold runs a museum for oddities of the sea. Cursed carnies return to the board walk every year. A witch's head calls all the shots of evil. It's a tough life for a kid who's been separated from his parents (squirt gun magnates) and abandoned in Strangeville.Both touching and quirky, KvS delivers. Kids will be delighted by the bizarre backdrop and story, and the strong main characters. It will become a book they remember fondly, and they leave laying around for their own kids.
What do You think about Kid Vs. Squid (2010)?
A fun little book combining Atlantis and boardwalk culture.
—1234
