The Cavendish Home for Boys and Girls

October 22, 2012
The too-serene-to-be-true town of Belleville harbors some creepy secrets in Legrand's debut, a sinister and occasionally playful tale of suspense. Twelve-year-old perfectionist Victoria Wright has bouncy curls, a fixation on achieving straight As, and just one friendâunkempt, artistic Lawrence, who she considers her "personal project." But when Lawrence disappears, and Victoria launches an investigation to find him, she discovers more frightening trouble than she imagined. Victoria unravels the mystery behind the titular home for children, which is run by the ageless Mrs. Cavendish and a fiendish gardener/assistant. Hair-raising adventures involving slimy hidden passageways, pinching swarms of cockroaches, mystery meat, and the wrath of cruel Mrs. Cavendish fill the pages. Legrand gives Victoria's mission a prickly energy, and her descriptions of the sighing, heaving homeâa character in itselfâare the stuff of bad dreams. Watts's b&w illustrations of spindly characters, cryptic shadows, and cramped corridors amplify the unsettling ambiance, and her roach motif may have readers checking their arms. Ages 10âup. Agent: Diana Fox, Fox Literary.

December 1, 2012

Gr 5-8-A paradigm of perfection-with straight As, gleaming blond curls, and an unshakable sense of purpose-12-year-old Victoria expects everything and everyone to be just so. Friends are particularly messy, so she has opted to have only one. Lawrence is a disheveled, music-loving dreamer whom she views as a "personal project" in need of fixing. When Lawrence goes missing, Victoria investigates and soon unearths dreadful secrets lurking beneath the surface of her picture-perfect community. The adults are behaving oddly, numerous children have disappeared, and nasty creepy-crawlies are popping up everywhere. Victoria's sleuthing leads her to the local orphanage and into the flawlessly manicured grasps of Mrs. Cavendish, the malevolent, magic-using headmistress who snatches less-than-perfect children from their homes and reforms them through a nightmare-inducing regime of physical and psychological punishments. Once Victoria uncovers the awful truth, she must face her own greatest fears-and also learn to reach out to others-to save the day. Beginning with the uneasy realization that things are not quite right, gradually incorporating disquieting discoveries, and escalating into full-out horror (the children are fed chopped-up body-part casseroles), the suspense and sense of dread build to the satisfying (and also unsettling) conclusion. Shadow-filled black-and-white illustrations and the occasional bug scampering across the text intensify the eeriness. Insidiously creepy, searingly sinister, and spine-tinglingly fun, this book also presents a powerful message about friendship and the value of individuality.-Joy Fleishhacker, School Library Journal

Copyright 2012 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

January 1, 2013
Victoria does what she's told, loves order, and is used to being the best. Breaking the rules isn't how she usually operates--that is, until children start disappearing, including her only friend, Lawrence; Victoria traces the source to a nearby orphanage run by the (seemingly) lovely Mrs. Cavendish. Imaginative and creepy, with a frightening villainess, this atmospherically illustrated fantasy will suck readers in.

(Copyright 2013 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)

Starred review from September 1, 2012
A heartwarming friendship tale--played out amid carpets of chittering insects, torture both corporal and psychological, the odd bit of cannibalism and like ghoulish delights. Being practically perfect in every way and someone who "never walked anywhere without extreme purpose," 12-year-old Victoria resolutely sets about investigating the sudden disappearance of her scruffy classmate and longtime rehabilitation project Lawrence. After troubling encounters with several abruptly strange and wolfish adults in town, including her own parents, she finds herself borne into the titular Home by a swarm of 10-legged roachlike creatures. This abduction quickly leads to the discovery that it's not an orphanage but a reform school. There, for generations, local children have had qualities deemed undesirable beaten or frightened out of them by sweet-looking, viciously psychotic magician/headmistress/monster bug Mrs. Cavendish. Victoria is challenged by a full array of terror-tale tropes, from disoriented feelings that things are "not quite right" and "[s]harp, invisible sensations, like reaching fingers" to dark passageways lined with rustling roaches and breakfast casseroles with chunks of...meat. A thoroughgoing ickfest, elevated by vulnerable but resilient young characters and capped by a righteously ominous closing twist. (Horror fantasy. 11-13)

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