Susie Wilde (Children's Literature)
Tacky title? The title speaks volumes about this madcap. Lily Gefelty’s father works at a boring job, brings home boring office news, and life itself seems boring until Lily visits him at work. She discovers he works in a secret lab fully involved in a strange project. Led by a peculiar, huge, hooded man named Larry, everyone in the office is mass producing stilts. When Lily guesses this is the means to an invasion and take-over by whales, she quickly involves her two friends in saving the world. We meet Jasper Dash, Boy Technonaut, who invents gadgets, and Katie Mulligan, the star of a series of books where she protects the world from weregoats and earwigs. Will the plain and boring Lily be able to pull it off? Will the author? The book slips into insane annotations, takes graphic excursions off the plot path, and introduces more bizarre elements than you can believe. Anderson, long on creativity and short on typical conventions, has created a novel for younger readers who will laugh at the wildness of words and antics from beginning to end. 2005, Harcourt, $15.00. Ages 8 to 11.

Heidi Hauser Green (Children's Literature)
Twelve-year-old Lily Gefelty has always had an ordinary life. While her best friends, Jasper Dash and Katie Mulligan, have lives filled with dangerous adventures, daring escapes, and dastardly villains, Lily does not. Not until the day she accompanies her dad to work and finds out that her normal, unassuming father works for an evil genius who is planning to take over the world! It is up to Lily to stop him from unleashing his army of stilt-walking, laser-beam shooting, remote-controlled whales. But how can that happen when adults will not believe her and she has always been so ordinary? With a bit of cunning and some help from her friends, Lily just might be able to save the day. The cover, in the style of a 1950’s monster movie, hints at the over-the-top tone of M.T. Anderson’s outrageous fantasy novel. Readers will either love or hate this wacky, exaggerated story with its larger-than-life villains--and heroes! 2005, Harcourt, $15.00. Ages 9 to 13.

Kirkus (Kirkus Reviews, April 1, 2005 (Vol. 73, No. 7))
Anderson's mind is a very strange place, and this almost indescribable wackiness is further proof. In a grand send-up of all that is series books, it echoes Nancy Drew, the Hardy Boys and those with cliffhanger chapter endings; references Godzilla movies and offspring; talks to, at and around the reader and is generally awfully funny (and we do mean awfully). Our heroine is ten-year old Lily, whose dad works in an abandoned warehouse making stilts for whales. His boss, Larry, seems to be blue and kind of whale-like, although he has a lot in common with Dilbert's boss, too. It's pretty obvious that there's a nefarious plan at work, so Lily enlists her two best friends, Jasper Dash, Boy Technonaut, and Katie Mulligan of Horror Hollow, who, like Jasper, already has a book series chronicling her adventures. The three figure out that the whales are about to take over the world, and they save it amid many explosions, catastrophes and asides from the author. Promises-or threatens-to be a series of its own. It doesn't get any better than this. 2005, Harcourt, 192p, $15.00. Category: Fiction. Ages 9 to 12. © 2005 Kirkus Reviews/VNU eMedia, Inc. All rights reserved.

Susan Black (Library Media Connection, October 2005)
Lily discovers her father is working for a mad scientific lab that is planning to destroy the world by setting loose whales walking on stilts with laser-beam eyes. She and her resourceful friends, Katie Mulligan, and equally brilliant Jasper Dash plot to stop the invasion. Young readers may have trouble understanding some of the humor and small print footnotes in this book. The advertising for the next Horror Hollow books and Jasper Dash, Boy Technonaut books included within the pages draw attention away from the story and decrease the book's value for the library shelf. Additional Selection. 2005, Harcourt, 192pp., $15 hc. Ages 9 to 14.

Krista Hutley (The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books, April 2005 (Vol. 58, No. 8))
What would you do if you visited your dad’s job and found out that he works for a mad scientist bent on taking over the world with an army of whales on stilts wearing laser beams? Ten-year-old Lily is in that precarious position, but luckily, she has help. Not from her dad, of course; he wholly buys that he works for “a midsize company devoted to expanding cetacean pedestrian opportunities,” overlooking the fact that his boss, Larry, has blue, rubbery hands, wears a bag over his head, and pours brine on himself. No, Lily has two friends who star in their own books--Jasper Dash, in his Boy Technonaut series, and Katie Mulligan, in her Horror Hollow series--and only they have the guts to face off against an invasion of fully armed whales. However, this book seems to belong to Lily alone--is she good enough to be the heroine, even with her friends backing her up? Anderson’s zany new entry has layer upon layer of heroic kids, clueless adults, and thinly disguised villains, topped off with an aggressively chummy narrator whose offhand digressions provide many of the funniest moments (such as the way he survived the Manatee Offensive one terrible summer). Like the narrator, this book has a sense of humor about itself, and it isn’t shy about showing off its conventions: ways to withhold information, build or dissolve tension, annoy the people at Harcourt, and advertise more books are all laid bare for laughter. A sprinkling of full-page sketches throughout the text provides visuals for the mechanics of the whale operation. This will be a favorite of those willing to smirk at series conventions or any reader who’s ready to giggle through a book. (Reviewed from galleys) Review Code: R -- Recommended. (c) Copyright 2005, The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois. 2005, Harcourt, 192p, $15.00. Grades 3-6.

Horn Book (The Horn Book Guide, Fall 2005)
Lily Gefelty finds herself in the thick of the action when a visit to her dad's office convinces her that a stilt-walking army of whales is about to take over the world. This satire on the series book industry is populated with dense adults, resourceful kids, and a beguilingly impossible adversary. For series burnouts, the narrative gleefully revels in each cliche it exploits. Category: Intermediate Fiction. 2005, Harcourt, 200pp, 15.00. Ages 9 to 12. Rating: 2: Superior, well above average.

Lou Underwood (The Lorgnette - Heart of Texas Reviews, (Vol. 18, No. 2))
Lily is a shy and very average middle school student. However, when she discovers her dad’s boss has a plan to conquer the world with an army of whales, her life becomes anything but average. Lily, with the help of her two friends, Katie and Jasper, must stop this invasion of whales. This book is well written and easily holds the reader’s attention. Fiction. Grades 4-6. 2005, Harcourt, 188p., $15.00. Ages 9 to 12.