The four monster-fighting kids with superpowers who first appeared in the Grey Griffins series are now headed to middle school in this start to a new trilogy, the Clockwork Chronicles. Max, Natalia, Harley, and changeling Ernie take the Zephyr subway to Iron Bridge Academy, a private military school run by the Knights Templar, where they will join Templar children to be trained to fight monsters and their ilk. Their backstory is filled in enough to allow readers meeting the characters for the first time to pick up the action as the story unfolds: the Clockwork King is stealing changeling children to use their souls to fuel his evil machines. The steampunk infusion is interesting, but as in the previous books, flashes of creative elements and danger fizzle with fairly pedestrian writing and uneven plotting. Purchase where fans of the previous series demand it.

The monster-hunting kids from the Grey Griffins books (The Revenge of the Shadow King; The Rise of the Black Wolf; The Fall of the Templar) battle the Clockwork King. The race to stop him barely begins in this first series entry. Steampunk elements provide a fresh take on a familiar story line, but this series-within-a-series struggles to stand on its own.

Aiming to be a steampunk action/adventure with a faerie element and a side of gaming, this opener of the second Grey Griffins series is a congested mess of overwritten prose, weak descriptions and inflated dangers. The four Griffins (three boys, plus one girl to ask questions, be prissy and get taken down a peg) are a monster-fighting team aided by magical and military adults. Technology and magic overflow, from Max's transformable codex/ring/gauntlet-weapon to wireless cameras and long-distance imaging, laptops, clockworks, cogs, robotics and soul-stealing. A clockwork king from the past is kidnapping faerie changelings, potentially including one Griffin and one close friend, but weapons are too easily deployed and too quickly successful for battles and victories to resonate. Gadget and scene descriptions are slapdash, Arthurian references inexplicable. Perspective shifts lazily, and ornate substitutions for "said" are distracting and often inaccurate (" Cheer up,' Todd noted"). Prose is purple ("She was thin, fitting into her clothes like a blade into a starched scabbard") and redundant ("a round globe"). Sloppy all around. (Fantasy. 8-12)

Gr 5-8 The Grey Griffins are back in a new series, and they're off to Iron Bridge Academy, a Hogwarts-type school that prepares promising young students for the fight against the forces of evil. Once Max, Harley, Natalia, and Ernie arrive at the school (which has long been closed due to mysterious circumstances), the changelings there begin to vanish, and it becomes apparent that The Clockwork King is behind the disappearances. Max has been having realistic nightmares that lead him to believe that the mad scientist is horrifyingly merging students with clockwork creations. The authors have jumped on the steampunk bandwagon without really embracing the steampunk aesthetic. Yes, there are clockwork automatons, an airship, and a place called New Victoria where humans, pixies, and hobgoblins linger on the streets together, but the main characters are skeptical of those who embrace Victorian fashion. Despite some awkwardly inserted background information from the previous books, it is still difficult for someone unfamiliar with them to keep track of the various characters, their histories, and their roles. Fans of the "Grey Griffins" series will be thrilled to revisit their old friends in this action-packed adventure, but newcomers would benefit from starting with The Revenge of the Shadow King (Scholastic/Orchard, 2005). Heather M. Campbell, formerly at Philip S. Miller Library, Castle Rock, CO