Gargantis

by Thomas Taylor, Tom Booth (Illustrator)

Overview

In the second fantasy set in Eerie-on-Sea, Herbert and Violet team up to solve the mystery of Gargantis — an ancient creature of the deep with the power to create life-threatening storms.

There's a storm brewing over Eerie-on-Sea, and the fisherfolk say a monster is the cause. Someone has woken the ancient Gargantis, who sleeps in the watery caves beneath this spooky seaside town where legends have a habit of coming to life. It seems the Gargantis is looking for something: a treasure stolen from her underwater lair. And it just might be in the Lost-and-Foundery at the Grand Nautilus Hotel, in the care of one Herbert Lemon, Lost-and-Founder. With the help of the daring Violet Parma, ever-reliable Herbie will do his best to figure out what the Gargantis wants and who stole her treasure in the first place. In a town full of suspicious, secretive characters, it could be anyone!

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781536219098
Publisher:	Candlewick Press
Publication date:	04/06/2021
Series:	Legends of Eerie-on-Sea Series , #2
Pages:	352
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 8.20(h) x 1.00(d)
Lexile:	760L (what's this?)
Age Range:	8 - 12 Years

About the Author

Thomas Taylor is an award-winning author-illustrator for children whose debut novel, Malamander, kicked off this mystery series. He illustrated the cover for the original British edition of the first Harry Potter book and has since gone on to write and illustrate several picture books and young adult novels, including the graphic novel Scarlett Hart: Monster Hunter by Marcus Sedgwick. Thomas Taylor lives on the south coast of England.

Tom Booth makes marks. He makes marks in books like this one, and he sometimes makes marks that move. Some of his marks — like those in Don't Blink! and This Is Christmas — have been given stars. Raised just outside Philadelphia, Tom Booth made his earliest marks on his parents’ antique table. He thinks the table looks better now. His parents aren't so sure. He lives in Brooklyn.

Read an Excerpt

Chapter 1

Deep Hood

  If there’s one thing hotels have a lot of, it’s strangers. Hotels are kind of in the stranger business, after all. But no hotel in the world puts the strange in stranger quite like the Grand Nautilus Hotel.
   Take this guy, for example. The one who’s just come in from the storm. The one walking across the empty marble floor of the lobby. See him? The one whose face is hidden by the enormous hood of a long waxed coat streaming with rainwater? He doesn’t even pull his hood back to talk to the receptionist, and his luggage — a metal-bound wooden box clutched in one gloved hand — doesn’t leave his side for a moment.
   Who is he? What’s his story?
 
   What’s in the box?
   Of course, we’ll probably never know. And that’s fine. People are entitled to their privacy. Privacy is something else hotels have a lot of. Besides, there’s something sinister about this man, something threatening that makes me not want to know, to be honest. I’ll be quite happy once he’s up in his room, doing whatever dark and secret things he’s come here to do, far away from me. He takes his key and steps away from the reception desk . . .
   . . . and starts walking in my direction!
   I sit up and adjust my cap.
   “May I help you, sir?” I say as the man in the overlong coat stops before the desk of my little cubbyhole. I look up and see nothing but darkness in that drooping hood. My cap starts to slip down the back of my head, so I straighten it.
   “Herbert Lemon.” A voice comes from inside the hood, and I inch. There’s an unnatural edge to that voice that makes my skin crawl.
   “Th-that’s right, sir,” I reply. “I’m Herbie Lemon, Lost-and-Founder at the Grand Nautilus Hotel, at your service. Have you lost something?”
   There’s a sudden KER-KER-BOOM as a clap of thunder gallops around the town outside. The flash of lightning that rides with it only serves to highlight the darkness in the man’s hood. The wind flings rain against the windowpanes, and the hotel lamps flicker.
   The man remains motionless, dripping rainwater on my counter.
   “Um-umbrella, perhaps?” I suggest.
   I glance at the metal-bound box in the man’s hand. There’s barely room for a change of underpants in a thing like that.
   “Or luggage, maybe?”
   My voice is almost a squeak now.
   The man leans in, his hood nearly closing over my head. My nostrils full with the stink of wet coat and fishy breath.
 
   “Do not ask what I have lost, Herbert Lemon,” comes the man’s voice, sounding as if each word is made with a great deal of effort. “Ask what I have found.”
   And that’s when there’s another crash of thunder and the hotel’s lights go out.
   Now, I know what you’re thinking. Yes, you — sitting there safe at home, staring into your book with bugged-out eyes, waiting for something horrible to happen to me. You’re thinking that I’m going to freak out now. And I admit, I am considering it. But you don’t get to be Lost-and-Founder at the Grand Nautilus Hotel without learning how to be a professional. So, OK, yes, maybe I’m not the bravest mouse in the basket, but I am in my place, behind my polished desk, master of my own little world of lost property and shiny buttons. And so that’s why, when the lights come back on again, I’m still sitting exactly where I was, clutching my Lost-and-Founder’s cap with both hands and blinking at empty space.
   Because, of course, the man with the deep hood has gone.

Editorial Reviews

Underlying all the fun is a gentle, unforced message about life's interdependence. Human, animal, and mechanical characters (especially the charming hermit crab) are a winning assortment: enchanting or horrifying, quirky or droll, invariably original. Enticing mysteries remain to be solved...Evocative settings, ingenious plotting, sly humor, and shivery suspense render this sequel an unmitigated delight.
—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

Fortunately, Herbert has several allies, notably pushy but clever Violet Parma and Clermit, a small but well-armed clockwork hermit crab, to help him quiet the monster but keep it alive. Said quest bears fruit, but only at the climax of a suspenseful narrative awash in old legends, secret codes, strange local characters, and hints of startling revelations to come.
—Booklist

Having already dealt with one legendary sea creature in Malamander (BCCB 9/19), Herbie Lemon and his pal Violet must now face another monster that threatens Eerie-on-Sea...Fans of the first will continue to delight in Taylor’s wry humor, and one can only hope for more strange adventures in Eerie-on-Sea.
—Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books

From the Publisher

★ 2020-02-09
Legend says that St. Dismal rescued Eerie-on-Sea from Gargantis, a supernatural storm threatening to destroy the coastal village; centuries later, the storm is back.

Herbie Lemon, Lost-and-Founder of the Grand Nautilus Hotel, has a well-founded fear of the ocean. It’s tested when his imperious employer appoints him the one to decide who owns a fish-shaped glass bottle engraved with undecipherable Eerie Script. Professional beachcomber Mrs. Fossil found and claims it; Dr. Thalassi wants it for his museum; Eerie’s fisherfolk insist that because St. Dismal, Eerie’s first fisherman, invented the script, it’s theirs; young Blaze Westerley hopes it’s a clue to his uncle’s disappearance. When Violet Parma, whose curiosity invariably overrules Herbie’s caution, persuades him to open the bottle, what’s inside leads them to Gargantis. As stormquakes shatter the rock beneath Eerie, terrifying hotel guest Deep Hood, face and body concealed (except for a snaking tentacle), bribes the fisherfolk to destroy Gargantis using Herbie as bait. Smart, impulsive Vi (who’s biracial, with a black father) and thoughtful, steadfast Herbie (white, like most of the other characters) are well matched. The book-dispensing mermonkey and oracular cat from opening volume Malamander (2019) return in key roles. Underlying all the fun is a gentle, unforced message about life’s interdependence. Human, animal, and mechanical characters (especially the charming hermit crab) are a winning assortment: enchanting or horrifying, quirky or droll, invariably original. Enticing mysteries remain to be solved. (Most art was unavailable for review.)

Evocative settings, ingenious plotting, sly humor, and shivery suspense render this sequel an unmitigated delight. (Fantasy. 8-12)

Kirkus Reviews