Claire Legrand used to be a musician until she realized she
couldn’t stop thinking about the stories in her head. Now Ms.
Legrand is a full-time writer living in New Jersey. She has written
two middle grade novels—The Cavendish Home for Boys and Girls, one
of the New York Public Library’s 100 Titles for Reading and Sharing
in 2012, and The Year of Shadows—as well as the young adult
novel Winterspell. Visit her at Claire-Legrand.com and on
Twitter @ClaireLegrand.
Sarah Watts is an illustrator of fabric lines, books, and
other printed delights. She is married to an adventure junkie and
she collects old treasures. Sarah is also the Alumni Board of
Trustee member for Ringling College of Art and Design (RACD).
The Cavendish Home for Boys and Girls is weirdly charming and
creepy. I loved the intrepid girl hero Victoria and her
determination to save her best friend from the scariest Home ever.
An enormously fun--and shivery--read.
*Sarah Prineas, author of The Magic Thief series*
A heartwarming friendship tale—played out amid carpets of
chittering insects, torture both corporal and psychological, the
odd bit of cannibalism and like ghoulish delights.
Being practically perfect in every way and someone who “never
walked anywhere without extreme purpose,” 12-year-old Victoria
resolutely sets about investigating the sudden disappearance of her
scruffy classmate and longtime rehabilitation project Lawrence.
After troubling encounters with several abruptly strange and
wolfish adults in town, including her own parents, she finds
herself borne into the titular Home by a swarm of 10-legged
roachlike creatures. This abduction quickly leads to the discovery
that it’s not an orphanage but a reform school. There, for
generations, local children have had qualities deemed undesirable
beaten or frightened out of them by sweet-looking, viciously
psychotic magician/headmistress/monster bug Mrs. Cavendish.
Victoria is challenged by a full array of terror-tale tropes, from
disoriented feelings that things are “not quite right” and
“[s]harp, invisible sensations, like reaching fingers” to dark
passageways lined with rustling roaches and breakfast casseroles
with chunks of…meat.
A thoroughgoing ickfest, elevated by vulnerable but resilient young
characters and capped by a righteously ominous closing twist.
(Horror fantasy. 11-13)
*Kirkus, starred review*
" The too-serene-to-be-true town of Belleville harbors some creepy
secrets in Legrand's debut, a sinister and occasionally playful
tale of suspense. Twelve-year-old perfectionist Victoria Wright has
bouncy curls, a fixation on achieving straight As, and just one
friend—unkempt, artistic Lawrence, who she considers her "personal
project." But when Lawrence disappears, and Victoria launches an
investigation to find him, she discovers more frightening trouble
than she imagined. Victoria unravels the mystery behind the titular
home for children, which is run by the ageless Mrs. Cavendish and a
fiendish gardener/assistant. Hair-raising adventures involving
slimy hidden passageways, pinching swarms of cockroaches, mystery
meat, and the wrath of cruel Mrs. Cavendish fill the pages. Legrand
gives Victoria's mission a prickly energy, and her descriptions of
the sighing, heaving home—a character in itself—are the stuff of
bad dreams. Watts's b&w illustrations of spindly characters,
cryptic shadows, and cramped corridors amplify the unsettling
ambiance, and her roach motif may have readers checking their arms.
Ages 10–up."
*Publisher's Weekly*
"Insidiously creepy, searingly sinister, and spine-tinglingly fun,
this book also presents a powerful message about friendship and the
value of individuality."
*School Library Journal*
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