Island of Silence is Book 2 in The Unwanteds series, and it suffered in my reading from my not having read the first book. I couldn’t really tell if the characters were poorly developed, or if I just missed the development. I tried to give the book the benefit of the doubt, but I would suggest that you start with Book 1 if you want to check this series out.

In Island of Silence, Quill and Artime are neighboring countries that are recovering from a recent war between the two. The magical barrier between the two countries is now gone. The artistic warriors of Artime struggle to forgive the citizens of Quill who sent them to their deaths and to take in refugees from grey, colorless Quill. The people still in Quill struggle to recover from their defeat in the war and the loss of their slaves, the Necessaries, and to understand what to do about the collapse of their safe and orderly society (based on slave labor). Alex Stowe, our protagonist, muddles through the book, trying to figure out his place in all of this post-war rebuilding and rejects the idea that he could be a leader in the new Artime. Then, a crisis gives Alex no choice but to confront his own insecurities and the schemes of his twin brother in Quill, Aaron, who is determined to return to power using any means necessary, even magic.

Here’s Alice at Supratentorial reviewing the first book, The Unwanteds, which, by the way, was a favorite with her nine year old son. So the series definitely has some things going for it. The blurb on the front is “The Hunger Games Meets Harry Potter“(not much Hunger Games, lots of Harry Potter). Creativity and artistic ability are valued in this world (well, eventually). The plot is exciting and well-paced. Book Two is all about the hard work of making peace between historic enemies.

However, just as Alice did with the first book in the series, I had questions after I finished reading Island of Silence, not about what’s going to happen next (the series is obviously unfinished at the end of Book 2), but about what in cat-hair was going on in Book 2.
Why does Mr. Today seem so ineffectual when he’s supposed to be the creator and sustainer of the country of Artime?
Why isn’t anyone keeping an eye on Aaron if he was so evil in the first book?
Why won’t the Wanteds do anything to get their own food if they’re starving? How do the Unwanted get fed? By magic? No one seems to do much in the way of work in this book.
What’s with the lack of water in both Quill and Artime? Why? It rains, doesn’t it? (Maybe this problem was explained in Book 1?)
Why do the Necessaries go back to Quill where they were slaves?
Why is Aaron so bad, and Alex so humble and good? Why do they make such diametrically opposed choices?
Why does Mr. Today choose Alex to be his successor?

Lots more questions, but you get the idea. I’m going to go with neutral as far as a recommendation on this one. If you decide to try it, start at the beginning, and then come back and let me know if I should start all over myself and read it the right way. Maybe it would work better that way.

Benjamin Franklinstein Meets Thomas Deadison by Matthew McElligott and Larry Tuxbury.
I didn’t read the first two books in this series, Benjamin Franklinstein Lives! and Benjamin Franklinstein Meets the Fright Brothers, but I was able to catch on to the gist of story up until this point pretty easily. This series is easy to read and just fun, nothing heavy or serious, just a simple story about an evil-emperor who tries to take over the world by hypnotizing everyone with scientifically altered light bulbs.

“Wherein is contained an Accounting of the Quest by our Subject and his Young Companions to subdue an Army of Hypnotized Zombies and thwart the Evil Plans of the Emperor.”

The Emperor is Napoleon. Young Victor Godwin is “our subject” and his friends are Benjamin Franklin, Orville and Wilbur Wright, and other members of the Modern Order of Prometheus. If you thought Franklin, Napoleon, and the Wright brothers were dead, you’d be right, except that they were actually preserved by the Order, each in his own Leyden casket, to be awakened when society faced a Great Emergency. Unfortunately, Napoleon was also preserved in a Leyden casket and revived by his assistant Moreau to further the evil Emperor’s plans to control the world.

Those plans include Infinity Light Bulbs in every light fixture in Philadelphia, the kidnapping of famous scientists, and mind control for famous and talented dead scientists like Thomas Edison, for instance. It’s a bumpy ride that starts with a literally bumpy ride in a gyroplane and ends in a desperate attempt to destroy Napoleon’s Harmonic Supertransmitter. The fun part, at least one fun part, is that there are diagrams and pictures of all of the wacky scientific gizmos in the book, like the supertransmitter, and the infinity bulb, and the Leyden casket/bathtub, and a harmonic antenna and even a potato battery eggplant. Here’s a picture of a Leyden jar (a device that ‘stores’ static electricity between two electrodes on the inside and outside of a glass jar), but I couldn’t find a picture of the Leyden casket. You don’t think it’s just a figment of Mr. McElligot’s or Mr. Tuxbury’s imagination, do you?

Reluctant readers, especially those who are interested in science and jokes but not reading, might very well eat this stuff up. It’s definitely worth a try. I’d start with the first book and see how it goes over. Benjamin Franklinstein lives!, just in time for Halloween, but hilarious anytime.

Fake Mustache, or How Jodie O’Rodeo and her Wonder Horse (and Some Nerdy Kid) Saved the U.S. Presidential Election from a Mad Genius Criminal Mastermind by Tom Angleberger.

A novelty store fake mustache, a very special mustache, turns Lenny Flem’s best friend, Casper, into the afore-mentioned evil genius who wants to take over, if not the world, at least the United States. Fake Mustache is even more of a farce and a slap-stick comedy than Benjamin Franklinstein. Angleberger parodies pre-teen Disney channel sitcoms, old-fashioned melodramas, and zombie attacks in this fast-moving 193 pages of buffoonery.

The first half of the story is narrated by Lenny who is the only one in the fair city of Hairsprinkle (as far as he knows) who hasn’t been brainwashed by Casper, aka Fako Mustacho. However, the second half of the story has washed-up TV star Jodie O’Rodeo telling the story—and getting all the glory– for putting a stop to the nefarious plans of Fako Mustacho, aka Casper.

Loads of fun. And the story takes place during Halloween and Election Day, just perfect for this time of year, but readable in any season.