Against All Odds. Natale Ghent. Toronto, ON: HarperCollins, 2011. 227 pp., pbk., $14.99. ISBN 978-1-44340-625-3. Grades 3-7 / Ages 8-12. Review by Tanya Boudreau. ***½ /4

excerpt:

Boney and Squeak peered through the bushes at a long, low grey building tucked into the trees. A strange blue light glowed from a single row of small, triangular windows running the length of the structure.

Squeak grabbed his telescope from his bag and began scouring for clues. "It looks like some kind of warehouse."

"I guarantee this wasn’t here before," Boney said. "How did it get here? And what’s it used for?"

Squeak continued to study the building. "It’s definitely not made of concrete- that much I can tell."

Boney glanced from side to side. "There doesn’t seem to be anyone around. I think we should take a closer look."

"Squeak lowered his telescope. "Do you honestly think that’s a good idea?"

Boney, Itchy, and Squeak are the Odd Fellows. They keep a rooster in their clubhouse and a simplified means of communication, called the Tele-tube, in their bedrooms. While they are on Starky Hill doing a test run of the StarSweeper for an amateur aircraft competition, they experience a shift in time they can’t explain. On the day of the competition, they begin to notice the effects, but they won’t come to an understanding about what happened until they meet the person who seems to be spying on them. This sequel to The Odds Get Even is a humorous story about a group of misfits trying to protect their best friend from extraterrestrials. They are able to use their own inventions to track him down when he disappears into the mother ship, but to distinguish him from all the clones that were made from his DNA, they will have to rely on their clone detectors; in this case, their clubhouse rooster and a few rescue animals that suddenly showed up in their lives on the day of the competition. Loyalties are tested when the spy turns out to be a girl, but they eventually accept her and change the name of their club to reflect her inclusion as the newest member. Against All Odds (which has a glow in the dark alien on the back cover) can be read as a stand alone because Ghent incorporates a few character backgrounds and plot summaries from The Odds Get Even into this sequel.

Highly Recommended.

Tanya Boudreau is a librarian at the Cold Lake Public Library in Cold Lake, AB.

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Published by The Manitoba Library Association ISSN 1201-9364

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