Simon Thorn could be considered an average 12-year-old, if average 12-year-olds could talk with animals. Simon, who keeps this ability secret, is the butt of jokes at school and lives with his odd, scarred uncle Darryl in a tiny apartment in New York. When a giant golden eagle warns him of grave danger on his first day of seventh grade, Simon doesn't take the bird seriously. He is far too busy breaking up fights between pigeons and rats and dodging the taunts of eighth-grade bullies. But when his mother is kidnapped, Simon ends up on an adventure he could never have imagined, wherein he discovers that his family can shapeshift and that the most dangerous mammals of the world are out to get him. Carter, who comes from romance (The Goddess Test, 2011) and dystopian science fiction (The Blackcoat Rebellion series), makes a new foray into middle-grade fantasy and greatly succeeds. Simon Thorn is a hero worthy of a young Harry Potter, and readers are bound to be delighted.

Gr 5-8 Simon Thorn is starting seventh grade. He misses his mom, whom he sees maybe once a year; his Uncle Darryl restricts where he can go outside his New York apartment; and his only friend, besides Felix the mouse, has decided to side with the bully who makes Simon's life awful. And Simon can talk to animalsand they talk back. Soon mobs of rats start attacking him, his mother is captured, his uncle turns into a wolf, and he finds himself in the L.A.I.R., an academy for training Animalgams from each animal kingdom, under the Central Park Zoo. As if Simon's world hasn't been shifted enough, he discovers that he has a twin, Nolan, and that he himself will be able to shift into an animal form soon, just like all the other Animalgams. Simon feels betrayed and doesn't know whom to trust; his grandfather, Orion, King of the Birds, wants him captured, while his grandmother, Alpha of the L.A.I.R. and sworn enemy of Orion, wants him dead. Simon soon finds unlikely allies in a dolphin prince, Jam; a prickly poisonous spider princess, Ariana; and even his own initially pompous brother. Together they attempt to free Simon's mother and uncle, but in the process, the protagonist discovers his true heritage: he is the descendent of the Beast King, the most powerful ruler the animal kingdoms have ever seen, a creature capable of changing into any Animalgam he chooses. In an attempt to destroy the evil legacy of the Beast King, Orion and the Alpha would kill their own kin: Simon and Nolan. Though the theme of humans morphing into animals is not new and some of the conceptual aspects of this title resemble Bryan Chick's The Secret Zoo (Greenwillow, 2010), this story is nevertheless unique, the characters relatable and developed, and the adventure unpredictable and entertaining. VERDICT This title is likely to be popular with a whole zoo full of readers, and its ending leaves ample room for a sequel. Clare A. Dombrowski, Amesbury Public Library, MA