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Reviewed by:
  • Max & the Millions by Ross Montgomery
  • Wesley Jacques
Montgomery, Ross Max & the Millions. Lamb, 2018 [272p]
Library ed. ISBN 978-1-5247-1885-5 $19.99
Trade ed. ISBN 978-1-5247-1884-8 $16.99
E-book ed. ISBN 978-1-5247-1886-2 $10.99
Reviewed from galleys R Gr. 4-7

Max uses hearing aids and no one at St. Goliath’s, his new boarding school, lets him forget it long enough for him to make any real friends. After learning that he’s deaf, everyone generally speaks loudly and slowly—which really doesn’t help at all—ignoring the quiet ten-year-old between the hearing aids who loves making miniature models and keeping to himself. Everyone, that is, except Mr. Darrow, the eccentric and curmudgeonly janitor, who shares Max’s love of model-making and has been at odds with St. Goliath’s headmaster for years. When Mr. Darrow successfully imbues life into his highly detailed models but accidentally shrinks himself to the size of this newborn mini-civilization, Max returns from summer break to find various tiny tribes at war and immediately takes on the responsibility of reuniting them to save them from extinction. In this deeply silly but clever story imported from the UK, Montgomery contrasts the responsibility that comes with power at various sizes—from the headmaster’s abuses of power, to the power a tiny king may have over his people, to the power a child may have to change a whole world—and emphasizes an attention to detail beyond what is easily seen or heard. Likewise, while the worlds of the Floor (as Mr. Darrow’s miniatures call their realm) and the greater St. Goliath’s may, at times, seem a bit misaligned, the familiar Honey, I Shrunk the Kids–esque slapstick works well to tie everything together.

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