The Midnight Brigade
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- $6.99
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- $6.99
Publisher Description
Harkening to classics such as Roald Dahl's The BFG, this heartwarming story highlights the power of friendship and the importance of finding your voice.
Carl Chesterfield wishes he could speak up—whether that means being honest with his father about the family's new (and failing) food truck, reaching out to a potential friend, or alerting others to the fact that monsters might be secretly overrunning his hometown of Pittsburgh. There's plenty to fret over. And plenty to question.
When a flyer about a mysterious monster-seeking group called the Midnight Brigade catches his eye, Carl sees an opportunity to find answers. Little does he know, his curiosity will lead him to find an incredible discovery under one of his city's magnificent bridges and to be bolder than he ever imagined. Chock-full of humor and heart, this is the quirky tale of three unexpected friends and the crankiest troll with a heart of gold.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Carl Chesterfield loves his parents, his home of Pittsburgh, and the city's 400 bridges—which the men on his father's side have engineered for generations—but his shyness prevents him from speaking up much at home or at school. Since "few places remain for new bridges to be built," Carl's engineer father is stuck repairing them—lately, at a bizarrely high rate. Seeking "a new noble profession," Carl's dad spontaneously mortgages the family's home to buy a rusty food truck and a spot of land under a bridge. While Carl's ever-arguing parents navigate this decision's financial fallout, Carl begins to notice that the increasing bridge damage looks to be the work of steel-hungry monsters. When confident principal's son Teddy and vivacious Bee team up with shy Carl, forming the Midnight Brigade, they meet Frank, a 25-foot-tall troll with a mysterious past involving bridge protection. Together, the four work to save Pittsburgh's bridges and the food truck's future. Carl's parents are realistically flawed, and his mix of feelings around their constant fighting ring true as a candid third-person narrative follows the presumed-white characters through Borba's whimsical, sincere debut. Final art not seen by PW. Ages 8–12.
