The Keys to the Kingdom: Book One, Mister Monday, Garth Nix

In 7th grade we wrote short fiction stories, and mine was a fantasy knockoff. My teacher gave it back to me covered in red ink, and with "Please do not capitalize every single noun!!!" written across the top. I wish Nix had been in my class.

This is a weird little book (YA fantasy) with lots of problems. For a start, the only things we learn about our hero, whose name I've forgotten in the 24 hours since I finished it, are that A) his parents died in a flu epidemic, so he's afraid of the flu, and B) he has asthma. No, I'm serious; that's all we get. He's not a reluctant hero or a scared hero or an overly-confident hero; he's a hero who suffers from asthma, until halfway through the book, when it's cured. And then he's just nothing. (Oh, his name is Arthur; I just remembered.)

Secondly, although the world is incredibly complicated, none of it makes a ton of sense, and instead of living in it, Arthur just sort of drifts from plot point to plot point. Alice in Wonderland had more motivation, and all she wanted was to find a way home. Arthur doesn't even have that. The book is filled with characters who exist only to tell Arthur what to do next, or to save him in the nick of time. There are two characters who could easily be named Deus Ex Machina. 

This kind of thing works really well when the character is a fish-out-of-his-universe who's forced to struggle with it and survive according to a new set of rules. Two great examples are Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman, and Otherland, by Tad Williams. They are both for slightly older readers, and Otherland is about 500 pages too long (it's a 4 books series), but they are both incredibly captivating and utterly terrifying. This book is slightly creepy and more than a little boring. If I were a middle schooler, I'd rather struggle through either of those than be confused and bored by this.

As for the capitalization problem... Arthur has to go to the House, where the Will is waiting to give him the Key which is the Minute Hand to the Great Clock which he finds with the help of the Old One who uses the Nothing to fight Nithlings... You get the idea.

Grade: D

 originally posted 2006