Barnaby Grimes: Curse of the Night Wolf [Hardcover]

Paul Stewart (Author), Chris Riddell (Author)

Book Description

Age Level: 8 and up | Grade Level: 3 and up | Series: Barnaby Grimes

BARNABY GRIMES IS a tick-tock lad, running errands in his city, day and night, and “highstacking” around the rooftops in search of new mysteries to solve. In this first adventure, Barnaby is attacked one night by an enormous dog and soon finds himself swept up in a world of crooked doctors, poor and ill-advised patients, strange tonics, and very expensive furs. . . .

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

Grade 5–8—Barnaby Grimes is a tick-tock lad-an all-purpose messenger whose "highstacking" route carries him rapidly over the city's rooftops. He is suspicious when retired coachman Old Benjamin tells him about a miraculous cure offered free by Doctor Cadwallader. Then Benjamin vanishes mysteriously, and that same full-moon night, Barnaby is attacked by a vicious, wolflike animal. After intercepting a tardy message to Benjamin about keeping a now-missed appointment, Barnaby visits the doctor, thinking the man might need a more reliable delivery service, especially since a missed treatment could result in "side effects of the most unfortunate kind." Sure enough, Cadwallader hires Barnaby to take similar notes to other patients, all poor, lonely people who disappear soon after. What is the sinister doctor up to—and what is his relationship with the owner of a fashionable fur salon? The setting resembles Sherlock Holmes's London as seen in a shadowed, slightly warped mirror. There are hansom cabs, high-gabled row houses, and foul rat-infested slums, but mad scientists hold sway and fiendish creatures lurk in odd corners. Eerie, angular black-and-white drawings complement the atmospheric text. Fans of the macabre will enjoy this first entry in a series by the "The Edge Chronicles" (Random) creators.—Elaine E. Knight, Lincoln Elementary Schools, IL
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

Stewart and Riddell, the team behind the popular Edge Chronicles, introduce a new series and hero in this shivery mystery-horror hybrid, the first in the Barnaby Grimes series. Barnaby is a tick-tock lad (a sort of messenger) who is happiest traipsing about his Londonesque city in a manner known as highstacking: “leaping from gutter to gable, pillar to pediment—roof to roof—with the arrogant agility of a courting tomcat.” During a jaunt about town on a full moon he runs afoul of a vicious wolflike creature, an encounter that leads him to a suspiciously benevolent doctor administering a special tonic to a select group of poor, infirm, and forgotten wretches. Moody, highly detailed pen-and-ink drawings provide ornamentation throughout, lending a classic Victorian feel to help punctuate the drama. Possessing an easy confidence and quick wit, outfitted with a swordstick and stovepipe hat, and nimble as the wind, Barnaby is an appealing character sure to draw readers back to the next installment, due next spring, of what promises to be a rousing series. Grades 4-7. --Ian Chipman

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Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 8 and up
  
• Hardcover: 224 pages
• Publisher: David Fickling Books (September 9, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0385751257
• ISBN-13: 978-0385751254
• Product Dimensions: 5.6 x 0.8 x 8.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,117,357 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Buy this book!, November 24, 2008

By 

Saundra Mitchell (Indiana, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Barnaby Grimes: Curse of the Night Wolf (Hardcover)

It's About: A Victorian-era tick-tock lad named Barnaby Grimes, who- in the course of delivering messages as one of the few surviving highstacking couriers in London- uncovers a philanthropic doctor's fiendish secret. I have to tell you guys, I loved this book. I loved it like crazy. I finished it in one sitting, and seriously had to restrain myself from getting up to write the review just then. I intended to wait until my son- who is enduring Marching Band camp right now- could read it, but I just couldn't.

Seriously, I love this book. The language is challenging- both in reading level (herpetological, confidentiality, paramount,) but also in setting the era scene (medicaments, drayman, mudlarks.) But the beautiful thing is, the language is challenging in a way that it's exciting to read. Stewart and Riddell have brilliantly captured the breathless excitement of pulp novels and penny dreadfuls.

This book is full of brightly drawn characters, from Old Benjamin the coachman, to Henrietta the Landlady, who used to be the circus' Painted Lady; I especially enjoyed the wacky doctor PB, who hires Barnaby to spy on bullfinches, believing they may actually be vicious carnivores. Barnaby himself has exactly the right mix of invincibility and humanity to make a great pulp hero.

Anyone who knows how the old horror serials go can guess by the title the contents of the plot, but young readers especially, will love both how vivid the horror sequences are, and how much fun the action sequences are. The illustrations are pitch perfect, very Charles Gibson meets Edward Gorey, and the text is peppered with teases of other adventures that I look forward to reading about in future installments.

Would I Give This Book to a Kid: I plan to give this book to *several* kids, and a handful of teenagers.

Would I Give This Book to an Adult: Absolutely; I think my husband and my stepfather particularly will enjoy it.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Courtesy of Teens Read Too, September 19, 2008

By 

TeensReadToo "Eat. Drink. Read. Be Merrier." (All Over the US & Canada) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Barnaby Grimes: Curse of the Night Wolf (Hardcover)

Barnaby Grimes is a tock-tock lad. He'll deliver any message for any client, anywhere, anytime. He's the fastest messenger around and he'll even climb on rooftops to deliver his messages on time.

One night, while Barnaby is traveling by rooftop, he is attacked by a huge wolf-like beast. When Barnaby's friend, Old Benjamin, disappears, Barnaby suspects the wolf had something to do with it and sets out to discover the truth, meeting a cast of strange characters along the way.

CURSE OF THE NIGHT WOLF is the first in the new BARNABY GRIMES series from the authors of THE EDGE CHRONICLES. The story combines mystery, history, horror, action-adventure, and the paranormal into a perfectly scary story for tweens. The black and white drawings add a chilling effect to the story. The characters are brilliantly drawn and the villain is perfectly evil.

Barnaby's story will continue in RETURN OF THE EMERALD SKULL, and from the preview in my copy of CURSE OF THE NIGHT WOLF, his adventures are going to get much scarier!

Reviewed by: Sarah Bean the Green Bean Teen Queen

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars hmm... kinda disappointing for a fan of the authors, June 8, 2010

By 

N. Ferguson "Two, Daisy, Hannah, and Kitten" (Ohio) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Barnaby Grimes: Curse of the Night Wolf (Hardcover)

While this was an interesting book, it struck me as less attractive than the authors' other series (The Edge Chronicles, Far-Flung Adventures and Ottoline books...).

This was an very violent book, and also a minimally illustrated book. One of the charms of the Riddell/Stewart partnership has always been Chris Riddell's profuse and fabulous illustration, which adds so much to the characterization and sense of place. I wanted waaaay more illustration for this book, after reading their other work.

I also felt that this was more of a teenage boy book than any of their other books I have read-- I definitely would not give it to pre-teens.

SPOILER ALERT~~~SPOILER ALERT~~~SPOILER ALERT~~~SPOILER ALERT
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Here's a way to gauge whether or not this book is right for your child, in a nutshell: will he/she enjoy reading about people being transformed into werewolves and then skinned to be made into clothes for the rich? If so, buy this book. :) If not, be warned.

I am a huge, huge fan of the authors, but just did not enjoy this book at all. I had been excited to find a new series by them, but am not planning on reading any other Barnaby Grimes books.