Balthazar Fabuloso in the Lair of the Humbugs
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- $12.99
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
What makes 11-year-old Balthazar's eccentric family of magicians unusual is the fact that they actually have magical powers. Only Balthazar lacks the family talent. So when the entire family except Balthazar disappears during a local dinner theater performance it's up to him to find them. To try to free his loved ones Balthazar must work with some questionable characters, including a long-lost lunatic uncle, three enigmatic senior citizens and the loathsome Pagan Fistula.
At the center of these disappearances is a force so evil that the world's most preeminent magicians cower before it. What hope could a ragtag crew of misfits have against it? This wildly imaginative debut novel uses magic, humor and high adventure to reaffirm some fundamental family values.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Twelve-year-old Balthazar Fabuloso is fed up with being the odd duck in his family of magicians he can perform only "stage magic," not "real magic." After a humiliating incident during a dinner theater performance, Balthazar vows to quit the show, and his family vanishes into thin air. Then, the smelly and strange "Incomp'rable Ignatius" appears, Balthazar's uncle and guardian who disappeared 20 years earlier; they are joined by the unruly 12-year-old Pagan Fistula, a member of a rival magician family, when her family disappears, too. Their challenge: destroy the Gloaming, "a dark force with only one desire to devour all living magic and return the world to the chaos and nothingness which are its domain." Brindle's first novel has strongly descriptive writing ("Instantly, the scattered pools of sympathy froze into lumps of ice") and plenty of adventure, and she supplements the main narrative with grouchy excerpts from Pagan's journal. There's also a lot of insult-slinging and racing around, but while the ending suggests future adventures for Balthazar, it's unclear whether this scattered outing will earn the young magician many fans. Art not seen by PW. Ages 8 12.
