"But what starts out as a classic bit of detectivating quickly becomes weirder than they could have imagined. Who is the ghost in the attic? What's their history teacher doing with a time machine? And why do a crazy bunch of Vikings seem to think Mildew is a werewolf?" 
The story starts off OK, but man does it get way better!  Witty, funny and very engaging, great read for bedtime with your little ones.

I was unable to read this one to completion due to formatting problems with the eARC. However, I did enjoy the 20ish% I read and based my rating off of that.

Thank you to NetGalley, the author, and the publisher for giving me a copy of this book in an exchange for an honest review.

Plot

This book is so freaking funny. Mildew and Sponge go on one wild adventure. I love how ridiculous the whole plot is but it makes so much sense why Mildew and Sponge, who are children, take this all very seriously. The School Spoon has been stolen *GASP* and the holiday's for the boys of Maudlin Towers are about to be ruined. That just won't do for Mildew and Sponge. So what do our young Holmes & Watson decide to do? Why they will solve the case of the missing spoon. Simple. Easy. That is until they see a ghost and not just them but another boy sees one in the attic. Now they have to solve two mysteries. Ok, two is not too bad. Oh, wait. Is that a Viking they see? What is a Viking doing in their school? Wait. Wait. Wait. Why does the history teacher have some weird time machine contraption? How did that one teacher die? What is all this nonsense about a wolf? How did Romans get involved? How did Mildew get wrapped up into an article and school play??? STOP. This is too many mysteries for our main characters to handle. Never fear though these clever boys have wit, smarts, and friendship. They can handle anything. I know what you're thinking that all sounds preposterous. IT WAS. But this whole things was so reminiscent of my childhood that I loved it so much. Things got curiouser and curiouser. The more insane it became the funnier it became. 

If you are not someone who can look past your own personal brain then please don't read this. My biggest pet peeve is adults or young adults reading middle grades and in the reviews, they say, "I didn't connect" or "The voice was really juvenile." WELL YOU DON'T SAY???? Maybe, and I might be reaching here, it wasn't MEANT for YOU! I can't stand pretentious people who feel every book has to cater to them. This is a middle grade. It is full of ridiculous plots and hilarious kids not thinking through any of their decisions. To Mildew and Sponge, they don't need to question any of the Ludacris things they just need to save their holidays. This plot doesn't have any major depth. It is just fun and light for kids to easily understand. It is so much fun and if you enjoy that type of reading then PLEASE read this joy. 

Writing

As I said, this isn't all in depth. But, Priestley sure as hell knows how to write hilarious dialogue. The world-building is actually really good as well. I pictured this deary gothic school super vividly and I loved the look in my head lol. Now what I will say as a negative is that since the plot is a bit whacky there are times when the transition from one scene to the next is not as clear. This book actually could've been a bit longer. I found myself wanting more in certain parts because they would just end and boom next scene. Other than that the voice and tone were done perfectly. I felt like I really was in the mind of two young boys. The way they spoke and viewed school/teachers and just all the nonsense was so spot on. 

Characters

Mildew was the one more out there. He was less afraid but still afraid lol. Sponge was the one a little more afraid. They were both hilarious. I can't say much except think of two young boys in a school but maybe more back in the day before technology lol like the 1800s. They had wit. They were clever. They used creativity to get out of a lot of situations. They were literally the epitome of children. I loved them both equally. The side characters were equally funny. I just had so much fun reading this book.

Published on nosestuckinabook.com on Friday, September 7th, 2018.

Witty, Funny, and Much More Engaging Than Expected

If you were to read the blurbs for this book, and the first few chapters, you would be justified in expecting the tale to be a good but fairly standard and predictable British boarding school comedy. That's fine as it goes, and fair enough. It turns out, though, that the story has much more to it than expected, including a clever, devilishly twisty, and yet still fast paced and clear mystery/detectivating plot.

At first we just follow our heroes, Mildew, (the brighter and more confident one), and Sponge, (who starts out a bit dim and queasy but bucks up). This is a classic double act pairing reminiscent of Laurel and Hardy and the like. Fine. Mildew gets most of the best deadpan lines and throwaway bits, but Sponge is more than just a straight man, and he gets to puncture Mildew whenever Mildew goes off a bit too far. We meet the masters and students of Maudlin Towers, and there are many set pieces and bits of business that establish the school daze groundwork. Priestly goes big and exaggerated on a lot of this, which is amusing and likely to be engaging for a younger middle grade reader.

The humor here is rarely edgy, but if you like deadpan observations, and sly little quips and throwaway lines, then this will do nicely. Nothing here is ironic or mean spirited, and the author doesn't mock the genre. So this isn't farts and underpants stuff; it's smarter and more satisfying than that.

But wait. This isn't just school daze. The "School Spoon" has been stolen and unless it's found all will be punish-ed. Here's where the detectivating starts. MAJOR SPOILER. Not much later in, a time travel contraption comes on the scene. The boys are now traveling back and forth among eras, (always in the same geographic location, of course), trying to solve the spoon problem and a wide variety of other loose ends that have popped up here and there. This is the beautiful part - Mildew dismisses the time travel paradox and all of those tedious time travel complications as "nonsense", and so do we. The boys are free to gambol about, meeting and remeeting themselves at will, and changing history and stomping on butterflies wherever they encounter them, and yet it still all makes sense. 

Amazingly, by the end everything makes sense and every odd loose end, (there are at least a dozen or two, including many you didn't realize were loose ends until the final scenes), is tied up nicely. And, (MILD SPOILER), it may be a comfort to those of you who are less then enamored of werewolf angles, that that is just a small and rather incidental part of the larger tale.

So, bright and funny heroes, a zipping plot with plenty of Marx Brothers style dashing about, and a satisfying conclusion. Just an excellent and amusing middle grade find.

(Please note that I received a free advance ecopy of this book without a review requirement, or any influence regarding review content should I choose to post a review. Apart from that I have no connection at all to either the author or the publisher of this book.)

"The British Empire was founded on people who had the courage to prod things without worrying about the consequences, Sponge. Come on. We must be brave."

This is a cute send up of tropey boarding school books/British mysteries. The humor is definitely British in flavor, owing, I expect, to the britishness of the author.  It's clever and fast paced, and has all the necessary elements--  dumb adults,  (sometimes accidentally) brilliant children, revenge, time travel, vikings, werewolves, and a very important spoon. Funny-creepy early middle grade book.

I received an ARC of this book from the publisher via NetGalley.

This book was cute and funny, and it has a lot going for it. It reads a lot like a satire of some magical boarding school books; so many on-the-nose names and silly traditions as well as adults with exaggerated characteristics fill the pages of this one. The all-important School Spoon goes missing, and as Mildew and Sponge try to figure out what happened to it they run into more questions than they do answers. This book has a lot of twists and turns, and it's very amusing.

At the same time, I don't feel like this book was the right book for me. Though this is usually the kind of book that I like, I didn't feel particularly grabbed by this book; it didn't read as anything particularly unique, and the pacing of it felt a bit too quick for my taste. I think the plot was a bit too all over the place and the writing could have been a little bit clearer. It wasn't necessarily poorly-written or anything, but it wasn't quite meshing with me.

Younger middle grade readers who love creepy yet funny mysteries would probably really love this book. Though it's not one of my personal favorites, it still has a lot going for it and may be very entertaining for young readers.

Final rating: 3.5 of 5 stars

This was a hilarious book! I enjoyed Sponge and Mildew as characters. They helped make the book fly along! I wasn't expecting any of the things that happened in this book to happen. It was one great adventure after another. I laughed a lot and just generally enjoyed myself. Those in middle school will absolutely love this book! Even young adults and adults alike will enjoy this hilarious novel about Maudlin Towers.

4.5/5 only because the formatting was so messed up on my Kindle and it was difficult to read.

I have had this book on my Kindle shelf for a while now and was super in the mood for a quirky Middle Grade so I decided to pick it up without even reading the synopsis. At first, I definitely wasn't too fond of the writing style. I even considered DNF-ing because I was worried the plot wasn't going to capture my full attention. However, I continued on and soon fell in LOVE with the characters and story. Anything time travel is up my alley so right when that part of the story came into play, I was hooked.

I really didn't like the way Mildew talked down to Sponge at first, but I'm so glad that was addressed and changed throughout the story. The humor in this story was hard for me to grasp at first, but I actually caught myself chuckling a bit through the second half. I always judge children's and middle grade books by if I would let/want my little brother and nephews reading them. While I do find this level of humor may not get entirely passed onto to younger children, I do this it's a very enjoyable story. I should also add, I found it funny that the title of the book doesn't really make sense until almost halfway through. I kept checking that I got sent the correct file! I assumed this one would mention something about time travel since that's the main focus of the story, but I still think the title is cute and catching.

I will say, I began reading this on Kindle and the version I was given was formatted so unfortunately, I could barely understand it. All the illustrations and same letters were missing. It was very odd and I actually attest my inability to get into the story to the formatting on Kindle. I switched around 25% of the way through to a version I downloaded on my laptop. It wasn't the most comfy reading situation, but it was better than not getting to read half the book.

Mildew and Sponge attend the prestigious boarding school within Maudlin Towers, which is as boring as it is grotesque. But when the prized School Spoon goes missing, Mildew decides to put his detecting skills to the test, with Sponge close behind. Vikings, suspicious school masters, a ghost in the tower, and a series of secrets await them as they brave the mysterious and the unknown.

Zinging dialogue and dry humor spin a hilarious mystery/adventure story where the clues are purposefully none-too-subtle but the twists and unbelievable turns keep you guessing at what will happen next. Mildew and Sponge face down werewolves, time travel, ghosts, their terrifying headmaster, and much more before the story reaches its conclusion.

Retaining oldschool charm that matches the quaint boarding school setting, <i>Curse of the Werewolf Boy</i> sports an impressive vocabulary and subtle humor that will appeal to fans of Terry Pratchett or Neil Gaiman's <i>Fortunately, the Milk</i>.

I received an ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. The opinions and comments I share about this story are my own.

I adore this book! Mildew and Sponge attend Maudlin Towers, the creepiest boys' school around. Someone has stolen the famed School Spoon,  and when the Headmaster threatens to cancel the Christmas holidays until the thief is properly punished, Mildew and Sponge spring into action to solve the crime of the missing trophy. However, they find werewolves, ghosts, a time machine, and curious Vikings standing in their way. 

I'll be sending this title to our collection development librarian. It's so good!