The Astonishing Chronicles of Oscar from Elsewhere
by Jaclyn Moriarty
Intermediate    Levine Querido    400 pp.
11/22    9781646142026    $18.99

Moriarty’s fourth volume in the series that began with The Extremely Inconvenient Adventures of Bronte Mettlestone (rev. 9/18) sees the three Mettlestone-Staranise girls and the former-pirate-now-prince Alejandro once again heading off to save the day. The Elven city of Dun-sorey-lo-vay-lo-hey will be under threat from Doom Lantern Witches—and worse—if the children don’t find the nine pieces of a key necessary to unlock the city from its spell. Joining the questers is skateboarding Oscar, who has landed in the Kingdoms from our world, much to everyone’s mystification. Moriarty’s fantasy is an intricate confection of a fairyland, busy with good-humored, imaginative invention. The personable, confiding voices of the two narrators, Imogen and Oscar, propel the novel along with a style as breathless with emotion as it is with unpredictable adventuring. The story isn’t quite as tightly woven as its predecessors, but in amongst its eventfulness and prolific domestic squabbling, the narrators’ sorrows and insecurities provide a convincing psychological underpinning.

From the January/February 2023 issue of The Horn Book Magazine.