What We Found in the Corn Maze and How It Saved a Dragon

February 1, 2020
Magic works? Can it save Cal's family's farm? Twelve-year-old Cal and his best friend, Drew, are momentarily distracted from Cal's family's problems--caused in no small part by Cal when he accidentally started a fire in the harvester--when they learn that classmate Modesty can practice magic. She's found a binder of magic spells, but they work only for a minute and only at certain times of the day, and most of the spells are 800-word tongue twisters that can't be said in under one minute. In puzzling this out, they end up discovering that in a parallel world called Congroo, magic is imperiled because its dragons are dying. With the help of Preface Arrowshot, a young, green-skinned Congruent librarian, the kids discover that the local entrepreneur who's got his eyes on Cal's family's farm may be at the root of the problem. Stopping him could save Congroo and the dragons, and it also might save the farm. Unrelated to the similarly titled What We Found in the Sofa and How It Saved the World (2013), this is a good choice for fans of The Phantom Tollbooth and The Westing Game and Chris Grabenstein's Mr. Lemoncello books. While there's plenty of slapstick, the physical comedy is surrounded by wordplay, a good balance of sophisticated and silly. Subtle jabs at climate change deniers and unqualified wannabe world leaders add layers to Clark's newest. Cal presents white; Drew and Modesty both have brown skin. A smart kid's goofball adventure. (Fantasy. 8-14)

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Starred review from April 15, 2020
Grades 4-6 *Starred Review* Preteens from a world where science is an everyday thing and magic the stuff of fantasy (i.e., ours) find themselves tasked with saving a parallel one where the exact opposite is true. Though the spells that the aspirationally named Modesty finds in a mysterious notebook only work for select minutes each day and bear disappointingly mundane titles like "To Gather Lost Coins" and "To Open a Door," they turn out to be surprisingly useful: she and classmates Calvin and Drew open a portal in her refrigerator to wintry Congroo, which is threatened by catastrophe because something is rapidly draining the raw magic that powers its weather and other spells. Worse yet, the dragons that produce said magic are starving to death because the cold has killed their food. The leak turns out to be embedded by a Congroo schemer in his programming for a fantastically popular 3D printer that transforms tomato juice into fresh vegetables. Perhaps the printer's inventor can be persuaded to give up his multibillion-dollar business? Right. Tongue firmly in cheek, Clark propels his squabbling eco-crusaders through a rush of misadventures that test their credibility as well as ingenuity on the way to a confrontation with an oddly familiar villain who loudly dismisses the climate change as fake news." Another romp from the author of What We Found in the Sofa and How it Saved the World (2013).(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2020, American Library Association.)

May 1, 2020

Gr 4-7-Three middle schoolers, with the help of a boy from a parallel universe, save not only a dragon, but an entire world. A notebook full of wordy magical spells brings together Modesty, Cal, and Drew. Together they use science and technology to figure out how the spells work, assisted by the Congroo Help Line, a mysterious entity that always seems to call at just the right time with an enigmatic suggestion. Then Modesty's refrigerator door opens into the world of Congroo, and Preface Arrowshot (Pre for short), Third Apprentice Librarian, Second Class stumbles through. Modesty, Cal, and Pre end up back in our world, using both magical and scientific methods to stop Elwood Davy, creator of the DavyTron, a machine that can 3-D print any vegetable out of tomato juice-by using up every bit of magic on Congroo. But is Elwood Davy the real villain? There's something for everyone here: dragons, golems, political intrigue, environmental concern, library- and bathroom-related humor galore, bad jokes, walking firewatch towers, and three strong, smart kids (Drew, the fourth, is mostly absent for much of the story) who fight hard to right a terrible wrong. VERDICT Entertaining escapism with a little (home-grown) spinach tucked in.-Mara Alpert, Los Angeles P.L.

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