Pure Dead Batty (UK title: Deep Water)
by Debi Gliori

The fifth of six books featuring the, ahem, colorful Strega-Borgia family of Auchenlochtermuchty, Scotland, is a bit of a downer, at least to begin with. At the end of the previous adventure (Pure Dead Trouble, a.k.a. Deep Trouble), the redoutable nanny Mrs. McLachlan sank into the waters of Lochnagargoyle and didn't come back to the surface.

What 13-year-old Titus, his sister Pandora, and their baby sister Damp - the most freakishly powerful sorcerer in training pants - don't know is that Mrs. McLachlan is immortal, and that she has taken refuge on an island on the edge of Death's realm, hoping to keep the all-powerful Chronostone from falling into the hands of the Prince of Darkness. Together with a fiend from hell, Flora remains marooned because Death refuses to take possession of the stone unless a mortal willingly passes into his realm with it - and because the thread that anchors her to her home has slipped out of the frozen fingers of the cryogenically-preserved Strega-Nonna.

How do the kids and their magical-beast friends get into deep water? Damp's growing ability to plunge into the world of stories and make-believe, along with her chatty bat familiar, has something to do with it. So do Pandora's camera with its mysterious power to capture images of the past, the new member of Titus's band with his non-mysterious power to cheese everybody off, the potion that makes Titus burst out into full (but premature) manhood just in time for the attractive young replacement nanny to arrive, the moving and talking portraits in the "ancestors' room," and the messages spelled out in letter-shaped refrigerator magnets. Meanwhile, their father has been arrested for murder, their evil Uncle Lucifer has hired The Devil Himself to put a hit on the whole family, and Marie Bain (remember, the worst French cook in the world?) gets her ultimate revenge.

If Harry Potter ignited in you a burning interest in things magical and Scottish, here's the series for you. It has loads of creatures that would make Hagrid's eyes dance with joy. It has bizarre, reality-bending magic. It has a castleful of whimsical marvels. It has bad guys of over-the-top campiness. It has violence, sadness, humor, and a lot of upchucking, besides other grossness. And it has one more book to go: Pure Dead Frozen.

Robbie Fischer
USA

Recommended Age: Age: 12+

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