Stranger Things by David Lubar (review)

Third-grader Ed has always considered himself the most average, boring kid in his family, school, and town—and he's okay with that. When he finds a coin in the grass engraved with the words "STRANGE, STRANGER," though, weird things start happening: His sister (who's always played with her food) starts making mashed-potato sculptures that come to life, and a little neighborhood kid develops a peculiar strength that allows him to lift up bigger kids—and himself. Ed enlists the help of curio-shop owner Mr. Sage to figure out what's going on, and he finds out that he's been entrusted with the burden of making sure the coin passes to the Stranger, or else all of the strangeness will leave the world. After being confronted by friends and family because of the unusual events that occur when he's around, Ed realizes that he is the Stranger, the person who "makes things stranger," and he is now the center of the Looniverse. This transitional chapter book is the start of a series, and it gets off to a slow start—Ed's plight in figuring out who the Stranger is never feels urgent enough to maintain an engaging plot, and the mixing of the merely bizarre (Ed's brother writes down a thousand words in exchange for a picture) with the outright preposterous (Ed's sister dances through the living room with hundreds of mice and a soda-straw flute after he reads her the story of the Pied Piper) muddles what exactly the book means by "strange." Still, Ed's straightforward explanation and earnest questioning make him likable enough as a narrator in spite of his seriousness and self-consciousness, and the text is an accessible exploration of the wacky side of the world. Upbeat, light-hearted sketches help lighten the chapter length—Ed is particularly ingratiating with his spindly arms and legs, mop of hair, and bemused expressions. Readers with a taste for the peculiar will likely want to look forward to what lies ahead of these first tentative steps into the Looniverse.