Gr 4-6-Rational and risk-averse Sebastian is challenged by the director of the madcap Explorers Society to do something he shouldn't: steal a box. The contents of the box relate in some way to Evie, an orphan who lives at a school but regularly dines with a very boring couple known as the Andersons. One night, two dangerous men burst into the Andersons' house in pursuit of a key. The two children find themselves caught up in a perilous chase involving Evie's grandfather and a group of explorers known as the Filipendulous Five. This is a rollicking read, full of derring-do and old-fashioned villainy. A narrator inserts sly and humorous comments alongside amusing footnotes. Comical chapter headings include "In Which Great Revelations Are Greatly Revealed" and "In Which We Meet a Pig in a Teeny Hat. Again." The language is quite sophisticated, with challenging vocabulary. Readers of Lemony Snicket will find a tale of adventure in a similar vein to "A Series of Unfortunate Events": the last sentence reads, "Don't you just hate stories that end in cliff-hangers? They are just so...." VERDICT A quirky and lighthearted romp with likable characters and ample plot twists and turns; hand to fans of Lemony Snicket.-Michelle Anderson, Tauranga City Libraries, New Zealand © Copyright 2017. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

The story begins, like most stories do, with a pig wearing a teeny hat. Following that attention-grabbing opening line, this funny, offbeat, and subversive tale quickly switches to the afterschool habits of twelve-year-old protagonist Sebastian, who is a clever, diligent rule-follower with a bent for science and geography. But when Sebastians cousin shows him a mysterious door bearing the legend The Explorers Society, Sebastian becomes obsessed despite himself. The appearance of the aforementioned pig results in the boy entering the Society--illegally, as it turns out--and beginning a new chapter in his life. While working at the Society after school, trying to please his adventurous new employers by doing something inappropriate, he stumbles upon the archives of a group of disgraced explorers called the Filipendulous Five, and then meets Evie, the orphaned granddaughter of their leader. Evie is being pursued by evil men, but the Explorers Society wont help her, so Sebastian steps up. Occasional footnotes and other humorous asides from the omniscient narrator break the fourth wall and ramp up the playfulness; the zaniness of the Society and Evies swashbuckling efforts to find her missing and imperiled grandfather act as foils for Sebastians straitlaced personality. Extravagant descriptions of the Explorers Society, with its part-fantasy-closet, part-amusement-park amenities, will elicit sighs of envy from Kresss target audience: clever, diligent readers like Sebastian with the imagination and spirit to become rule-breakers like Evie. anita l. burkam (c) Copyright 2017. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

A boy used to predictability joins forces with a girl who wants to belong in this wildly funny adventure.STEM genius Sebastian lives a perfectly appropriate life, but when he accidentally goes the wrong way down a creepy alley on the way home from school, he winds up at The Explorers Society, where order is turned upside down and backward. When the society's president tells Sebastian to do something "inappropriate" as part of his punishment for trespassing, he steals a mysterious box from the society's archives. Subsequently, he's flung into the unexpected, where he meets orphan Evie, who has lived within the gray walls of the Wayward School since her parents died two years earlier. Her boring weekly dinners with the charitable Andersons take an unboring turn when two clearly villainous men show up looking for something. Before the kidsboth of them whiteknow it, they've gone from strangers to friends working together to work out the fate of the Filipendulous Five, a famous group of explorers that mysteriously disbanded years ago and to whom Evie has a personal connection. Animals in teeny hats, Wonderland-style logic, and loads of wordplay and sarcasm will keep readers giggling all the way through to the dramaticand metafictivecliffhanger. Readers will look forward to the sequel to this dizzying loop-the-loop. (Adventure. 8-13) Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Two preteens are pitched into an exhilarating whirl of life-threatening danger when they find themselves tangled in the affairs of the wondrous, strange, sometimes itchy Explorers Society. For Sebastian, a lad so buttoned up that the prospect of skipping a day of school precipitates a panic attack, it begins with the discovery of a puzzle box belonging to a defunct group of explorers dubbed the Filipendulous Five. For orphaned loner Evie, it comes after a narrow escape from a pair of creepily misshapen thugs. Taking on the role of coyly obnoxious narrator, Kress provides for her increasingly tight protagonists a notably diverse supporting cast ranging from a female Indiana Jones (with an affinity for animals but no people skills) to a pig wearing a teeny hat, and strews the tale with side remarks and often tangential footnotes. Fans of a Series of Unfortunate Events will be drawn to this series opener and likely unsurprised to encounter a cliff-hanger ending with an unfinished final sentence. Final illustrations not seen.--Peters, John Copyright 2017 Booklist