School of Fear

Imagine a humorous middle-grade novel by a less self-absorbed Woody Allen to get an idea of this intelligent and witty children’s debut. Daneshvari assembles a precocious cast of 12- and 13-year-olds with outsize fears, including Madeleine, whose obsessive fear of insects keeps her drenched in bug repellant; Theo, “the most dramatic, hysterical, and neurotic boy in the borough of Manhattan”; brazen Lulu, with crippling claustrophobia; and hydrophobic Garrison. Desperate families entrust these kids to Mrs. Wellington, the snarky “deranged beauty queen” of a headmistress at the secretive and fairly terrifying School of Fear (“Perhaps when the summer is finished you’ll write a letter to the board of camps to complain,” Mrs. Wellington tells the children when they learn they are the sole campers. “And please do not let the board’s hypothetical status deter you”). What ensues is tautly paced, spine-tingling and quite funny, as the children overcome their fears and learn to work as a team. The ending proves as clever as the premise and shows that while everyone is afraid of something, tremendous achievements can be won by facing fear head-on. Final art not seen by PW . Ages 8–12. (Sept.)