Critics' Opinion:
Readers' rating:
Published Sep 2007
288 pages
Genre: Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Speculative, Alt. History
Publication Information
Ages 8-12. Alex hates Wigpowder-Steele Academy because as much as she enjoys learning, she doesn't enjoy wearing a uniform with a skirt. She also doesn't enjoy her teachers, who are all very old and smell funny and don't seem to know about any of the developments that have happened in the world in the last thirty years. And she most definitely does not enjoy her peers, who are quite simply ridiculous. However, that's okay, too, because her peers don't enjoy her much either. Luckily for Alex, the new school year brings an exciting new teacher. Mr. Underwood makes lessons fun and teaches her how to fence. But Mr. Underwood has a mysterious family secret—the swashbuckling and buried treasure kind—and not everyone is glad he has come to Wigpowder-Steele.
When the pirates of a ship called The Ironic Gentleman kidnap her beloved teacher, Alex sets off on a through-the-looking-glass journey to rescue him, along the way encountering a steady stream of hilarious and colorful characters, including one Captain Magnanimous, Coriander the Conjurer, and the Extremely Ginormous Octopus.
"Starred Review. Kress has a delightfully simple, observational prose style that recalls A.A. Milne, right down to the frequent capitalization of Good Things and Very Interesting Things and so on. This inspired book should hold up to many re-readings. Ages 10-up." - Publishers Weekly.
"I read Alex and the Ironic Gentleman, and to be honest it had me at the title. A clever title to live up to and the story did not disappoint. I found it quirky, hilarious and genuinely exhilarating. There was a nod to Lewis Carroll and a wink to Charles Dickens, but no more than that, Adrienne's words are packed with originality. Alex is a wonderful hero who deserves to return for further adventures, indeed I suspect there will be a riot if she does not. Great plot, larger than life characters. The future is bright." - Eoin Colfer, author of the Artemis Fowl Series.
"A fun read but flawed by the randomness' of Alex's world. She has lived in a perfectly normal town all her short life, and attended a rather dull school; but all of a sudden, without falling down a rabbit hole or driving through a toll-booth, she appears to be living in an entirely different world - one populated with talking animals, where none previously existed; soul-sucking bad guys in the place of daily drudgery; and wind-powered ships with cannons, despite the fact that elsewhere in the story Alex encounters a movie-crew using high tech computer aided effects. Three of us, aged 46 to 12, read Alex and The Ironic Gentleman. We all expected to, and wanted to, enjoy the story but, at the end of the day, found it disappointing - fantasy worlds can come in many stripes, but within their alternate realm there needs to be some attempt at consistency!" - BookBrowse.
This information about Alex & The Ironic Gentleman was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Adrienne Kress is an actor and author born and residing in Toronto, Canada. She is the author of two children's novels and two young adult novels: Alex And The Ironic Gentleman, Timothy And The Dragon's Gate, The Friday Society and Outcast. Published around the world, Alex and the Ironic Gentleman, was featured in the New York Post as a "Post Potter Pick," as well as on the CBS early show. It also won the Heart of Hawick award in the UK. The sequel, i>Timothy And The Dragon's Gate, was nominated for the Audie, Red Cedar and Manitoba Young Readers Choice Awards, and was optioned for film. And her debut YA, The Friday Society, was nominated for the Quill Award and was optioned for television.
She's contributed to anthologies: Corsets & Clockwork (YA Steampunk Romance short story anthology, Running Press Kids),The Girl Who Was On Fire (an essay anthology analysing the Hunger Games series) and Complete Guide To Writing For The Young Adult. She also wrote, produced and directed the play A Weekend In The Country for both the Summerworks Festival in Toronto, Canada, and the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in Scotland. And she co-wrote/produced/directed (and even starred in) the webseries Ryan Gosling Must Be Stopped.
Adrienne is also an actor with an honours BA in theatre from the University of Toronto and is a graduate of LAMDA's post-graduate classical acting programme in the UK.
Adrienne also loves hot chocolate. And cheese. Not necessarily together. Her website www.AdrienneKress.com
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