Mister Monday (The Keys to the Kingdom, #1)

by Garth Nix

[Amber (The Literary Phoenix)]

Arthur just wants to breathe.

After a nasty flu epidemic when he was a baby, Arthur Penhaligon has severe asthma and no parents.  Well, no, he has no birth parents, but he does have adopted parents in the way of a famous scientist/doctor and a retired musician known in his heyday as "Plague Rat".  While dying, he finds himself entrusted with a key by two strange figures.  As far as he can tell, this key does two things:  it helps him breathe, and it makes men with bulldog faces chase him.  Oh boy.

When a nasty epidemic sweeps his town, Arthur knows that the bulldog men and the mysterious key have something to do with it.  He must get into the house that nobody else can see to find a cure before people start to die, including his adoptive mother.  Faced with eyeball-hungry clockwork people, word-devouring pirañas, a Will that must have its way, and a girl displaced from 14th century London, Arthur must navigate his way through the House and get the other key from Mister Monday so he can (hopefully) get home and save everyone.

Lets talk about heroes and villains.

In middle grade novels, the lines between good and evil are typically pretty well defined.  Saving someone's life and helping him find his inhaler?  Good guy.  Being super lazy and ordering your servants to kill people?  Bad guy.  Basic stuff.  So going into a book like this, you're not going to find a lot of mysterious intrigue.  However, I found the quirks absolutely delightful.  Mister Monday is a bad guy BUT he's not murderous - just a bit comfortable in his power and in all fairness, Arthur does have his key.

Because even when we think bad is bad and good is good, we can always see a little good in someone who is bad and a little bad in someone who is good.  A lot of children's and middle grade novels forget that aspect, but Mister Monday doesn't.  It makes the characters multi-dimensional, and I appreciated that.

This world was incredibly interesting.

Between a small town in the UK and the inky chaos that is the Lower House, you get an incredible feel for Arthur's world.  I remember Garth Nix excelling at world building way back when I read the Abhorsen series as well, so this came to no surprise to me.  I delighted in it.  The characters are quirky, the universe is run by a peculiar but perfectly understandable set of rules, and there are rich hierarchies.  It was fun.

There's a play on the standard creation story here that I thought was harmless and interesting but some might be offended by the fictionalized theological beginnings.  God, for example, is a woman, simply called "The Architect".  Theoretically, then, the denizens of the House would be angels... etc.  I know in my own family there are those who dislike any take on biblical stories other than the standard Christian view, so I'm warning you now that, as with most fantasy, there are fictional beings involved.

Well... this was unexpected.

So I added Mister Monday to my TBR a very long time ago when, in a fit of panic, I wanted to be sure that the story I was working on hadn't been entirely written yet.  To my delight, despite Google Searches telling me that The Keys to the Kingdom series would be similar, it's definitely not.  The extra good news?  This story was a delight.  It wasn't Sabriel, but as a middle grade novel it was much better than I was expecting, and honestly?  I'll read the rest of the series.

I'm also a little curious why I never heard of these before my panicked Google Search frenzy?  This series is one I would have loved as a kid, and it was available then.  I sort of feel like the world failed me on this one, guys.  Fortunately, I'm not too proud to read it now. :)

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