The Wikkeling, by Steven Arntson: Things not to put on your coffee table

The Wikkeling
by Steven Arntson, illustrated by Daniela J. Terrazzini
Philadelphia: Running Press, 2011
ISBN 978-0-7624-3903-4

This…is not a normal book.  Which  means I feel okay about not doing a review of my normal format.  It also means I feel okay about admitting that I’m not sure how I feel about this book.  Honestly, I think it may be a book that tried to be too many things for too many audiences.   If you remember way back, I was lured in by the cover – it gives me the shivers yet is marketed to kids?  So I borrowed it from the library, where it is now heinously overdue, which has finally prompted me to write the following review.  

Books I want to have at already! Spring(ish) 2011

I already raved about all the awesome things Candlewick has coming out in the next few months, but there are plenty more books for kids and teens that I want to have at already.  Here is my list, in no particular order:

• Blackout, by John Rocco
  Hyperion Books CH (5/24/11)  32p.
  
  Remember how I talked about how excited I am to have at Candlewicks The Flint Heart, and how much I loved the Percy Jackon covers?  Well, check out this cover.  How pretty does that look?  It makes me want a summer blackout, just to read this book by flashlight with my imaginary children (who, incidentally, perfectly well behaved). 
  
  
  
  
  
  
• The Wikkeling, by Steven Arntson
  Running Press Kids (6/14/11)  224p.
  
  Um.  Look at how disconcerting the cover on this book is.  It's straight up terrifying.  The description doesn't really clear that up.  Check it out:
  

  Young Henrietta is about to uncover a mystery she was never supposed to solve. In the new-age world she lives in, everything is ruled by computers, and every person's movements and actions are watched and analyzed. Henrietta feels suffocated by technology's rule and questions a world she's expected to blindly accept. She and her two newfound friends believe that there is more to life than what's expected of them--they just haven't found it yet. That all changes when Henrietta finds a wounded Wild House Cat in the attic above her bedroom. This discovery sets off a chain of events that begin to poke holes in the secrets left behind by the well-hidden past. It also awakens a mysterious creature called The Wikkeling . . .

  Is that thing with the creeptastic hands the Wikkeling?  Or is that the Wild House Cat?  I need to know these things!  Regardless, that thing can definitely poke holes in secrets with those digits.  More importantly, does it remind anyone else of Hush, the Buffy episode that continues to give me nightmares to this very day?
  
  

  Please join me in leaving on a night light tonight!
  
  
  
  
• Beauty Queens, by Libba Bray
  Scholastic Press (5/24/11) 400p.
  
  This book sounds like Drop Dead Gorgeous and Ms. Congeniality go to a bar and meet the Lord of the Flies.  Obviously, I want in.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• The Penderwicks at Point Mouette, by Jeanne Birdsall
  Knopf (5/10/11) 304p.
  
  
  Hello, series of books for children ages 9-12 that consistently makes me sob from joy as an adult.  That's right.  Sob. from. JOY.  These books are sososo lovely.  Obviously, the Penderwicks are the imaginary children I referenced earlier.  I am so excited to read more about the newly expanded clan!