Changes

If anything, the blurb and cover go too far to sell the burpy gran element, for the merits of the book go far beyond them. There are quite delicious ways for the truth to be slow in coming out - mostly due to Barnaby being able to cope with reading only one or two pages of the diary at a time, for various reasons. The peculiar mansion is equally well revealed, with its disembodied voices and footsteps that go tapping in the night. The loss of Barnaby's father is an easy way in for the young reader, and while it makes Nan a bit one-note when she responds to that, the boy's life and household is nicely defined.

So while there is common ground here with lots of similar wacky frolics (bodily functions, peculiar science, multiple fonts) this series opener is a flashing bright advert for what might come, while being a self-contained bounty of its own. The plotting is very clever, and even the first two pages alone were able to suck me onto a very different path to the surprising pleasures I was to find later on.