TYPO AND SKIM

In this physics-themed fantasy, an elf’s quest to prevent entropy has unintended consequences.

What is entropy, and what would happen without it? Originally published in the Czech Republic, this new U.S. edition of co-authors Klárová and Končinský’s book (translated by Oakland) is a don’t-miss for science-minded middle schoolers. Set in a wildly inventive world, “entropic elves,” invisible to humans, create disorder and chaos. The book’s lively, relatable narrator, Typo, a young elf in third grade at the Primary School for Aging Things, speaks directly to readers, explaining that all things inevitably become older, damaged, or lost thanks to the work of the entropic elves. (And today’s built-in obsolescence, he enthuses, is a golden age for the elves: “never before has aging occurred at such speed.”) Typo’s specialty is mistakes in published works. His best friend Skim excels at cocoa spilling (one page of the text in Štěpán’s inspired book design features a realistic cocoa stain). Typo considered entropy to be the elves’ noble calling, he says, until the day his faith was shaken: During a field trip to a human bakery, his creative misspelling of a little girl’s name on her birthday cake made her cry. Within the authors’ clever, informational framework, faintly reminiscent of The Phantom Tollbooth (1961), Typo recounts how he set out, with a talking dung beetle as his guide, to find entropy’s master, the legendary Cog of Time, and stop the process of aging and disorder. Špaček’s illustrations encompass witty, full-page, full-color imaginings of the elves’ busy, messy world and cartoon renderings, in color and black and white, of the characters, their gadgetry, and more, on text pages. With various font sizes for emphasis and eccentric juxtapositions of text, illustrations, and chapter titles in large, transparent blue letters, Petr Štěpán’s design adds to the book’s delights.

Imagination soars in this smart, humorous, visually captivating approach to a scientific concept.