The 9 Lives of Alexander Baddenfield by John Bemelmans Marciano (review)

Inheriting a legacy passed down from ridiculously wealthy misanthropes who died from bizarre causes at young ages, Alexander Baddenfield—a rich, mean, and self-centered twelve-year-old—is effectively and stiflingly guarded from harm by his hypervigilant servant Winterbottom. Then Alexander gets the bright idea to transplant the extra eight lives from his cat into himself and revels in living recklessly, wastefully throwing away lives by exploits such as touching the third rail on the subway to prove that it really will electrocute you. After finding himself prematurely down to one life, he retreats into a protective bubble, only to die of an allergy—to the cat whose extra lives he took. Marciano has a wry voice in this darkly comic tale, but the exposition is somewhat clumsy; the narrative asides and sarcastic commentary are reminiscent of Lemony Snicket but unfortunately aren’t as witty. Blackall’s black and white watercolor illustrations—mostly full-page, with a few splashes of spot art—add to the book’s atmosphere with their soft cartoonishness and their creepy content (each of the later chapters is capped by an full page of the grim reaper hovering over a negative picture illustrating Alexander’s death), making this an original story that could please young fans of wicked humor.