FALCON QUINN AND THE CRIMSON VAPOR

Falcon Quinn returns to another exclamation mark–laden year at a school where nobody understands him, the poor little angel—literally. 

At the end of his last year at the Monster Academy, Falcon discovered his angelic nature as well as his true parentage: His father is the demonic Academy headmaster Crow; his mother, queen of the monster-killing guardians. None of this knowledge has made him any more popular. The other kids don't trust him anyway, and it doesn't help that he keeps finding himself in ridiculous scrapes. Did Falcon try to kill his friend Pearl, the famous Chupakabra of Peru? Did he stuff Quagmire, the puddle of bubbling glop, in his godzooka during band practice? When Falcon flees from monsters and finds himself among guardians, he discovers those monster-killers resemble his monster friends more closely than either side would like to admit. The silliness is consistently funny but not consistently age-appropriate; a pirate referring to the bottom of the sea as "Peter Tork's locker" is a groaner that will zoom right over the heads of middle-school readers. For the most part, however, egg-laying werechicken boys and Hamlet "as written in the original Frankenstein dialect" will keep giggles coming. The humor provides necessary counterpoint to the trowelled-on nobody-loves-me angst.

Goofy, overenthusiastic nonsense with just enough rambling plot to hold it all together