Hollow City

Gr 8 Up—Listeners are hurled head first into Riggs's stormy seas, right where he abandoned us at the end of Miss Peregrine's Peculiar Children. The children, now loaded into three rowboats, have narrowly escaped the dangers that invaded their island, rescued Miss Peregrine from a weight-driven submarine, and now only need to row more than eight kilometers to mainland England. It will take all of the children's peculiar abilities to even make it to the shore—which is only the first stop on their near-impossible journey. Narrator Kirby Heyborne's pacing is deliberate and measured, matching the real-time pacing of the book, which takes place over the course of only a few days. The voices of our Peculiar friends are as quirky as the characters themselves, and are exceptionally well done. But much of the magic of these books is lost without immediate access to the unusual pictures which inspired the story, even though they are available on an included PDF. Recommended for libraries with the first audiobook or as an accompaniment to the print version.—Chani Craig, Great Falls Middle/Turners Falls High School, Montague, MA