12/24/2018
In this tongue-in-cheek middle grade adventure, 15-year-old Ronan Boyle is tapped to join the Garda Special Unit of Tir Na Nog, an elite division of the Irish police dedicated to handling supernatural-related incidents, such as those involving leprechauns, trolls, and changelings. Determined to prove that his incarcerated parents were framed for the theft of a mummified “Bog Man,” Ronan pursues his law enforcement career with an eye toward finding the true culprit. First, however, he must survive the harrowing training process, which includes learning Shillelagh Safety and Combat as well as Weaponized Poetry. His greatest test comes when his team is sent to investigate reports of a harpy, a mission that goes disastrously wrong. Actor/screenwriter Lennon (the Night at the Museum series) makes a spirited debut with this mythology-laden tale, but his comic voice suffers from an overload of jokes, quips, and ludicrous situations. Every page is littered with clever asides or helpful footnotes, making it difficult for the reader to consider one before moving on to the next. Even so, the memorable voice and playful sensibility make this an entertaining series opener. Final art not seen by PW . Ages 10–14. Agent: Stephanie Rostan, Levine Greenberg Literary Agency. (Mar.)
"Actor and humorist Lennon introduces readers to a bright, but also endearingly bumbling, tween protagonist and a fantasy faerie land filled with strange characters . . . A hilarious, otherworldly book."
"The main thing that readers ages 10 to 15 will want to know about “Ronan Boyle and the Bridge of Riddles” (Amulet, 286 pages, $17.99) is that it’s extremely funny. Styled as a personal journal and set in a magical Irish subculture, Thomas Lennon’s caper starts out in a state of wild high humor and never really lets up. Featuring exuberant artwork by John Hendrix and humorous footnotes (“Trolls eating children is really just nature’s lint catcher—filtering out some of the ones that shouldn’t get through”), “Ronan Boyle and the Bridge of Riddles” leaves a clear opening for a sequel and is, to repeat, extremely funny.
The Ronan Boyle books are ridiculously funny. Like, Douglas Adams and Terry Pratchett funny. I was laughing hysterically while reading them. My kids were laughing hysterically. My dog might have even been laughing hysterically while listening to us read it. (At least at the parts that involved dogs, of which there are a good number.). And in addition to being funny, the books are chock-full of adventure and excitement, with stereotype-defying werewolf, leprechauns and unicorns thrown in. They’re a tremendous joy to read from the first page to the last. Especially the part with the snakes.
New York Times bestselling author of the Spy Schoo Stuart Gibbs
"Perhaps the finest children's novel of all time (in the ever-burgeoning leprechaun crime-drama sub-genre). Equal parts JK Rowling and Douglas Adams, which, y’know… ain’t a bad thing."
"A touching, funny read for smart kids young and old. Flat-out laughed out loud!
"Delightfully absurd."
The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books
"Perhaps the finest children's novel of all time (in the ever-burgeoning leprechaun crime-drama sub-genre). Equal parts JK Rowling and Douglas Adams, which, y’know… ain’t a bad thing."—"Weird Al" Yankovic Stuart Gibbs, New York Times bestselling author of the Spy School series Patton Oswalt Publishers Weekly Kirkus Reviews The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books The Wall Street Journal School Library Journal Booklist
"Actor and humorist Lennon introduces readers to a bright, but also endearingly bumbling, tween protagonist and a fantasy faerie land filled with strange characters . . . A hilarious, otherworldly book."
03/01/2019
Gr 4–7— At the age of 14, Ronan Boyle is the youngest recruit to the Garda Special Unit of Tir Na Nog, the Irish law enforcement agency tasked with investigating crimes involving the wee folk. While Ronan enrolls in the Garda as a means of finding evidence to free his parents, museum curators framed for the theft of an artifact, he learns that chasing after law-breaking faeries and other magical beings is not for the faint-at-heart. Ronan's training includes shillelagh class and weaponized poetry, as well as tin whistling for beginners; he needs all these skills and more when he and his captain set out to catch some leprechaun wine thieves. After encountering a dizzying array of faeries, and with the aid of a smarter-than-average Irish wolfhound police dog, the criminals are apprehended and Ronan returns to the human world with a lead on his parents' case. In the author's forward, Lennon states this book is his "love letter to Douglas Adams," and his efforts to emulate Adams' linguistic zaniness are evident throughout the book. However, Adams' genius is a challenging muse to follow, and this story reads like frenetic slapstick. Additionally, Lennon relies on the stereotypical trope of the Irish fondness for alcohol, and an overabundance of footnotes slows the pacing. VERDICT While the premise of the series is enticing, this first entry has trouble finding its voice. Hand readers Eoin Colfer's "Artemis Fowl" series instead.—Nancy Nadig, Penn Manor School District, Lancaster, PA
2018-12-05
A 15-year-old recruit becomes the newest faerie-fighter in Ireland in the first of a series, Lennon's debut.
After the imprisonment of his parents, curators at the National Museum of Ireland wrongfully accused of stealing the Bog Man by shady art dealer Lord Desmond Dooley, young Ronan Boyle is taken in by a sympathetic member of the Galway garda as an intern in the evidence department. Being skinny, Boyle is summoned to a castle ruin to rescue a changeling baby that a leprechaun has thrown down an oubliette. His success leads to his recruitment by the Garda Special Unit of Tir Na Nog, the Irish land of faeries. After a required course of study that includes tin whistle, he embarks on a series of adventures that eventually point in the general direction of the Bog Man and his parents' fate. They don't arrive there, but they're heading that way, and it's the vagueness of Boyle's quest and the plot as a whole that are the novel's primary weaknesses. Dry Irish humor and relentless wackiness are its primary strengths; with lines like "Pat Finch is what a heart attack would look like if it could walk around eating fish-and-chips and saying terrible things about Roscommon Football Club's starting lineup," the joy is in the journey, not the destination. The cast is default white, with diversity mostly of the nonhuman variety.
As flavorful as the strongest Irish stout, though equally an acquired taste. (map) (Fantasy. 8-12)
