THE NIGHT CHILDREN

Trapped in a bizarre, dystopian Mall of America–like complex complete with a spooky theme park, plucky teen heroine Jules Devereaux finds she must join a team of kooky, unlikely juvenile orphan heroes called the Castertown Crazies to save the mall and the town from an evil overlord. Alex Award–winning Reed’s first middle-school novel reads fast, and it’s slick with language that both fits the suburban setting yet often feels too playful for its own good. Social commentary runs subtly amuck, and tween readers will find themselves giggling over the simultaneously laughable yet creepy theme-park ride names, such as the nefarious Whirly-FunRide. The mostly dialogue-driven plot should appeal to early middle-school readers and could serve as a bridge to the more sophisticated yet similarly themed works of Scott Westerfeld, M.T. Anderson, Chris Wooding and the like. (Fantasy. 10-14)