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The Fortress of Kaspar Snit

by Cary Fagan

Toronto author Cary Fagan’s first children’s novel is an adventure-fantasy about a battle between the nice and not-so-nice. The Blandes are a nice family with eccentric interests. Mr. Blande has covered every inch of their front lawn with a Roman-style fountain. Eleanor, 11, dreams of learning to fly, which females on her mother’s side of the family have been able to do for generations. Eleanor’s little brother, Solly, wants to be a superhero and wears a costume of swim goggles, flippers, and stretchy green PJs everywhere, including to school.

But it’s the Blandes’ niceness, not their eccentricity, that lands them in trouble with the self-proclaimed evil genius Kaspar Snit. Fagan works to create a campy antagonist in Snit, “The Most Evil of All Evildoers,” who, like many other villains before him, has a penchant for being addressed in ways that describe the depths of his villainy.

Picture book author/illustrator Maryann Kovalski provides the cover art, and captures Kaspar Snit at his hand-rubbing, conspiring best. Snit definitely has the look: Dracula-inspired hair and cloak, a handle-bar moustache and goatee. But unfortunately, Fagan’s run-of-the-mill evildoer doesn’t possess the unique character attributes – like the volatile edginess of the Baudelaires’ Uncle Olaf or the cutting wit of Dodie Smith’s Cruella de Vil – that would make him a truly memorable bad guy.

Eleanor Blande does what any good protagonist would do: she bravely faces her own fears and, through quick-thinking ingenuity, saves the world’s fountains from Snit’s beauty-crushing machine. Avid readers of the genre will be adequately satisfied with the fast-paced story, but don’t expect its characters to linger long in their minds.

 

Reviewer: Carol L. MacKay

Publisher: Tundra Books

DETAILS

Price: $12.99

Page Count: 152 pp

Format: Paper

ISBN: 0-88776-665-X

Released: Mar.

Issue Date: 2004-2

Categories: Children and YA Fiction

Age Range: ages 8-12