The Squampkin Patch: A Nasselrogt Adventure - Hardcover

JT Petty is the author of Clemency Pogue: Fairy Killer and The Squampkin Patch: A Nasselrogt Adventure. He is also a director and screenwriter for movies and video games. His film Soft for Digging was an Official Selection of the Sundance Film Festival. He received a Game Developers Choice Award for his work on the bestselling video game Splinter Cell. JT lives in Brooklyn, New York. Visit his Web site at www.pettyofficial.com.

David Michael Friend is a freelance illustrator and animator living in Brooklyn, New York, whose creations have been used by such companies as Sesame Workshop, Disney, Jim Henson Company, and the Cartoon Network. He illustrated JT Petty's The Squampkin Patch, Blueberry Mouse by Alice Low, and the graphic novel Daniel and the Great Bearded One by Richard W. Friend III. Visit him at www.dmfriend.com.

Grade 4-7–Temporarily orphaned by workaholic parents trapped in tanning beds at the mall, Milton and Chloe Nasselrogt escape the local zipper factory-cum-orphanage only to end up in the village of Goodfellow's Landing. Taking up temporary abode in the candy maker's abandoned house, the children discover that his squampkin patch (think carnivorous attack pumpkins) may be responsible for several mysterious disappearances. The plot becomes tangled when hundreds of viney squampkins rush the house. Petty has a tremendous gift for humor, his witty style paralleling that of Roald Dahl and Lemony Snicket. Gems like What did I tell you about talking to yeti? and Milton could spot an Oompa Loompa reference from a mile off will choke chuckles out of the most hardened readers. The zigzagging zany story shares Jean Ferris's talent of being almost too implausible to believe, although Petty avoids predictable happily-ever-after orphan story clichés. The squampkin patch captures its share of victims, leaving readers with disquieting images mixed with relief for Chloe and Milton's escape. While the ending is disappointingly rushed, readers will relish Petty's joyous use of language in this tantalizing confection.–Caitlin Augusta, The Darien Library, CT
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