Release: April 17th 2018
Format: Ebook
Publisher: Disney Hyperion
Source: Amazon
Find it at: Goodreads, Amazon, Kindle, B&N
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Firstly, Welcome to the Secrets of Topsea, the strangest place you’ll ever visit. In this town, the coves are bottomless and the pier has no end in sight. Generally, there’s a high tide and a low tide… and a vanishing tide. Dogs are a myth, but mermaids are totally real. And seaweed is the main ingredient in every meal-watch out, it might just start chewing you back!
New kid Davy definitely thinks Topsea is strange. His mom keeps saying they’ll get used to life in their new town-it’s just the way things are on the coast! But after his first day at Topsea School, Davy finds himself wondering: Why is his locker all the way at the bottom of the school swimming pool? Why can’t anyone remember his name? (It’s Davy!) And why does everyone act like all of this is normal?!
Through newspaper articles, stories, surveys, notifications, and more, follow Davy and the rest of Ms. Grimalkin’s fifth grade class through the weird world of Topsea. (Whatever you do, don’t make eye contact with the rubber ducks.
About the Author:
Kir Fox (Kirsten Hubbard) and M. Shelley Coats (Michelle Schusterman) are great friends, longtime critique partners, and ardent consumers of the strange and unusual. Kirsten is the author of the middle-grade novels Watch the Sky and Race the Night (Disney-Hyperion), and the young adult novels Like Mandarin and Wanderlove (Delacorte Press/Random House Children’s Books). She lives in Los Angeles.
Michelle is the author of the middle grade series I Heart Band and The Kat Sinclair Files (Grosset/Penguin), and the middle-grade novels Olive and the Backstage Ghost and Spell & Spindle (Random House Children’s Books). She is also the coauthor of the YA novel The Pros of Cons (Scholastic). She lives in Dallas, Texas..
M. SHELLEY COATS: | GOODREADS | WEBSITE | INSTAGRAM
KIR FOX: | TWITTER | FACEBOOK | GOODREADS | WEBSITE | INSTAGRAM
Secrets of Topsea Review:
Am I the only one who had mixed feelings about this book? The only term that comes to my mind for summing up this book is “meh.”
Don’t get me wrong. I love reading strange, bizarre books, mainly directed towards middle grade/YA that keep you wondering what will happen next. This book had so many odd story arcs that included mermaids, trolls, and other quirky things to make it a memorable read.
However, the main problem I had with this book was there was no plot or consistency. It is just random events that happen to Davy and his friends. I feel like the story’s overall plot was for Davy to adjust and come to terms with being accepted at Topsea, so it would have made sense for the author to focus on his bizarre interactions with each of his friends. Instead, we get separate Talise stories looking at tide pools and Quincy’s stolen questions, which doesn’t have anything to do with Davy!
I enjoyed some of these small story arcs that didn’t have anything to do with the main character, like when Finn meets Billy or when Finn gets stuck in the chewing gum wall. But again, these felt like fillers for the author to add on to cover for the weak plot.
However, the illustrations by Rachel Sanson are cute and whimsical and compliment the storylines. I also liked how each chapter begins or ends with snippets from the school newspaper or the survey Davy fills out.
Maybe in the follow-up, we would get more answers about what happened to the ice cream man and the Water Park as this is the first in the series. Overall, this was an average read that I would easily forget.
