“Journee’s burgeoning relationship with her new underground family makes for an endearing tale. Younger readers will delight in the creatures of Shadow Edge.”
Publishers Weekly
“Christopher never ceases to amaze with his clever, thrilling, funny, and suspiciously spooky story telling.”
Cheryl Hayward, Los Angeles
Journee is the highlight, an impressively off-kilter little girl!
Kit Packer, Glasgow
The Underers is bizarre, funny, and utterly unique. As Publishers Weekly put it, “a real delight for young readers. “
Journee Blake hates everything. She can’t stand the way she looks. She despises her brother. And she’s so tired of constantly having to move because her father can’t keep a job.
With no friends, no allies at home, and no hope of things getting better soon, the last thing she needs is one more problem. Unfortunately, a much bigger problem is right under her nose.
She’s convinced strange beings live under her house.
Between struggling to fit in at school, a father who blames her for mysterious messes in the house, and all the other things wrong in her life, she now has to figure out how a house she knows she cleaned ends up in such disarray.
A brief investigation proves her hunch is right. Strange, white glowing beings known as the Underers are to blame. When she discovers their magical world 101 steps beneath her bed, she’s elated at the prospect of having the perfect secret family… until they make an unreasonable request.
Now she must choose between meeting their demands or losing them forever.
★ PUBLISHERS WEEKLY REVIEW ★
After moving seven times in seven years due to her cop father losing his job, Journee Blake expects Millwater to be no different from every other place: she’ll be sharing a room in a strange new house with her obnoxious younger brother, school bullies will make fun of her weight, and they’ll soon leave yet another town.
But a secret door at 88 Cabbage Tree Avenue leads down 101 steps to Shadow Edge, a sewer-laden land home to Chime, Panic, and Memory, three white, bloblike sentient creatures with antennae called Underers. As Journee navigates both frustrating classmates and gaining a new friend at school, she learns that the Underers are linked to the home’s ancient alarm—and that Shadow Edge houses dangerous secrets that threaten their realm and the human one above.
Christopher’s supporting cast is one-note and the parental figures are comically absurd, but Journee’s burgeoning relationship with her new underground family makes for an endearing tale.
Younger readers will delight in the creatures of Shadow Edge, along with the abundant crude humor, as Christopher’s whimsical narrative grounds itself in themes including grief, loss, and the occasionally scary nature of change.
Ages 9–12.
