If you've ever whiled away an afternoon dreaming of another world, then you know that place is real. Oyster R. Motel has dreamed of another world for almost his whole life. (But that's only understandable--he's been raised in a nunnery. Do you think nuns approve of swinging from the belfry? Of raising tadpoles in the holy water? Of playing the organ at all hours? They do not.) Oyster didn't even know that imaginations could be mapped; he barely knew he had an imagination. But then a gust of wind and a distant voice send him on a dizzying ride in a silver bucket, and Oyster finds himself, his own map in hand, in "someone else"'s imaginary world--a place where rivers breathe and sugar snows down from the sky. Whose world is it? And what does it have to do with Oyster's map? You'll have to read the book to find out. Imagine "that." Distributed by Syndetic Solutions, Inc.

Starred Review. At the heart of this inventive, far-reaching fantasy is Oyster R. Motel, an earnest 10-year-old raised in a nunnery shared by 13 nuns who have taken vows of silence anticipating objections to a boy in a nunnery, the author interjects: You can't be overly rigid about the English language. (Nurses don't live in nurseries! Novels don't live in novelties!) But as he grows up, normally and noisily, he wears out his welcome with everyone but the nun he thinks of as Sister Mary Many Pockets, who found him as an abandoned infant (she named him for the motel towel wrapped around him). On a rare venture outside, Oyster meets a old woman who maps children's Imagined Other Worlds. She tells him of two youngsters later revealed as Oyster's parents who once slipped inside the map they created, traveling through the Gulf of Wind and Darkness into their imagined world, never to return. Accompanied by a dachshund belonging to the nunnery's child-hating lone employee, Oyster is soon transported through that same Slippery Map to the Other World, where the evil Dark Mouth holds his parents prisoners. In a Harry Potter esque twist, Oyster is heralded as the boy, the long-awaited hero entreated to take up his parents' crusade to destroy the villain and end his cruel regime. Writing as Bode (The Anybodies), Julianna Baggott effortlessly renders an expansive, entertainingly quirky cast of creatures benign and malevolent. Her snappy prose makes the case for the story's explicit messages about the value of unbridled imagination. Ages 8-12. (Sept.) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. From: Reed Elsevier Inc. Copyright Reed Business Information

Gr 4 7 Throughout Baltimore, children are falling victim to the Awful MTDs Mysterious Temporary Disappearances. One minute there, then, poof! Gone. And with another poof, returned. Adults find it quite disconcerting, but Oyster R. Motel, a 10-year-old orphan who lives in a nunnery, longs for the adventure of an MTD. One day, he enters a dusty old shop full of scrolls and discovers the ancient Mapkeeper, charged with recording the Imagined Other Worlds of children. Oyster is pulled into one of them and learns that the disappearances of other children have been bungled attempts to get him into Boneland, the imaginary world that his parents created many years ago. It has taken on a life of its own, and as a result of the Foul Revolution, his parents are now prisoners of the evil Dark Mouth. Along with his companion Leatherbelly, a timid dachshund, he sets out to find the parents he has never met and to prevent Dark Mouth from using the Slippery Map to slide into the real world. Through his adventures, he comes to understand the power of unleashed imagination and discovers the true meaning of family. This story does not have the effortless humor and whimsy that made The Anybodies (HarperCollins, 2004) shine. The cast of characters is confusing, as are all the locations that Oyster must traverse to reach the final destination, and parts of the story drag. Dorman's pencil drawings of the various characters add a light touch; it's unfortunate that there's no detailed image of the Slippery Map, with the various locations laid out. Purchase where Bode has a loyal following. Kim Dare, Fairfax County Public Schools, VA Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. From: Reed Elsevier Inc. Copyright Reed Business Information

When orphaned 10-year-old Oyster R. Motel discovers a mysterious map that allows him to slip into an imaginary world created by his long-lost parents, he embarks on a quest to save both them and their invented country from destruction. Bode's fourth stand-alone novel is whimsically peopled with the elaborately named nuns (Sister Mary Many Pockets, Sister Patricia Tough-Pork) who raised Oyster, and the fantastical beasts that roam the land of Oyster's "slippery" map: Spider Wolves, Doggers, Growsels, and Dirt Clams. Although the story is weighed down by tangential subplots, and many of the secondary characters merely function as one-dimensional tools to aid Oyster in his struggle, readers will be tickled by the punny dialogue and the book's playful illustrations. Bode's nonsensical fun will attract fans of The Edge Chronicles, The Eddie Dickens Trilogy, and A Series of Unfortunate Events. Hubert, Jennifer. From: Syndetics Solutions, Inc. Distributed by Syndetic Solutions, Inc.