THE FACTTRACKER

“The true test of any society isn’t how many lies it has; it’s how many lies it believes.” For the town of Traäkerfaxx, truth is a way of life. The residents dutifully sell facts that have been located and collected by the resident Facttracker and everyone has loads of facts about themselves available as well. Everyone, that is, except the “just small enough boy,” whose facts and parents were both lost when he was just a babe. When an unfortunate incident involving the Facttracker, the boy and an explosion renders the town factless, in waltzes the Facttracker’s no-good brother Ersatz, convincing the town to sell lies instead. Now the just small enough boy must find a way to defeat this slick villain before Ersatz’s dangerous Liebrary hurts the world irredeemably. The book proves cleverer than its concept, balancing child-friendly writing with sophisticated undercurrents. Best of all, the intrusive narrator does not test the reader’s patience. The entire enterprise is, quite simply, pure unadulterated fun. Recommended for any and all. (Fiction. 8-12)