The Lightning Catcher

May 13, 2013
While a certain spunkiness pervades British author Cameron's debut novel (first in a planned four-book series), it's let down by an over-reliance on familiar middle-grade fantasy conventions. Eleven-year-old Angus lives with his eccentric inventor uncle (his parents are conspicuously away on covert assignment). In the middle of the night, a peculiar stranger arrives and insists that Angus must accompany him to the previously unknown Isle of Imbur. There, Angus begins his apprenticeship as a "lightning cub" at the Perilous Exploratorium for Violent Weather and Vicious Storms, where he learns the secrets of his lightning-catching powers and the threats that he and his fellow apprentices are there to stop. Readers may embrace the novel's genial goofinessâCameron casts a ragtag team of characters with such monikers as Delphinia Dark-Angel, Scabious Dankhart, and Catcher Sparks. But while the author writes evocatively of unusual weather patterns, the story never veers off its predictable path, and the humor doesn't go far enough in punching holes in the source material it draws from. Ages 8â12.

April 1, 2013
A trainee at the Perilous Exploratorium for Violent Weather and Vicious Storms on the Isle of Imbur tries to find his missing parents and prevent the unleashing of an eternal storm. Eleven-year-old Angus McFangus is unexpectedly wrenched from the Devon home he shares with his inventor uncle Max to Perilous, where lightning catchers train to protect the world from extreme weather. Angus learns his own parents are respected lightning catchers who have mysteriously disappeared on an assignment involving the villainous Scabious Dankhart. He also discovers he's a storm prophet--he has the rare ability to predict the weather. Adjusting to the perils of Perilous, Angus barely survives the weather tunnel and fog field trips while bonding with fellow trainees Dougal Dewsnap and Indigo Midnight. Worried about his parents, Angus concludes Dankhart has them and is using bizarre meteorological disasters to distract Perilous from his dastardly plot to "wreak havoc and cause delicious mayhem." Despite the dangers, Angus, Dougal and Indigo bravely set out to thwart him. With its trio of likable school-chum heroes, its eccentric characters and their ingenious names, its imaginative boarding school setting and its supernatural adventure, this first of a projected four-book series has inevitable Harry Potter echoes. Inventive weather-themed fantasy makes for decent, if derivative, fun. (maps) (Fantasy. 8-12)

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July 1, 2013

Gr 4-6-It's an amazingly familiar premise: a boy with absent parents and unusual abilities finds himself in a school that teaches arcane knowledge, where he makes friends and enemies, experiences all kinds of eerie and dangerous goings-on, discovers secrets he isn't supposed to know, and fights the most dangerous and evil villain in the world. Angus McFangus, 11, has been living with his Uncle Max while his parents supposedly do something for an unnamed government office. After he receives a strange letter from his mother, he is whisked off to the Perilous Exploratorium for Weather and Vicious Storms on the mysterious Isle of Imbur. There, he is told by Principal Dark-Angel that he must lie about his identity, and he meets Ron and Hermione-oops, I mean Dougal and Indigo. He's thrown into training to become one of the "lightning catchers," special agents who "protect mankind from the ravages of weather at its most cruel and extreme." Storms of newts, killer fogs, and wacky weather attacks of all sorts are the norm. The Isle of Imbur and all the weather-weirdness are interesting, but the rest feels tired and overdone.-Mara Alpert, Los Angeles Public Library

Copyright 2013 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

May 15, 2013
Grades 4-7 Imagine being pulled from your regular life and sequestered in a special school where your heretofore undiscovered talents are shaped and polished, all in the interest of saving the world for good. In a new treatment of a familiar trope, Angus McFangus is taken in the middle of the night to the Isle of Imbur (not found on any map), where he will study as a lightning catcher at the Perilous Exploratorium for Violent Weather and Vicious Storms. There he makes friends and enemies, encounters adults who may or may not be trustworthy, discovers startling truths about his family history, and faces his own mysterious destiny. In this first of a planned four-book series, Cameron establishes a fascinating, albeit narrowly focused, mythology around weather, mixing serious science with full-on fantasy, and readers will do well to have a dictionary (or keyboard) at hand to learn the truth about such strange-sounding phenomena as custard winds and graupel. With a motley collection of instructors, dangerous lightning dragons, a cinematic setting, and all manner of malevolent treachery, this fantastical adventure will find a wide audience.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2013, American Library Association.)

July 1, 2013
In this imaginative fantasy, Angus learns that his missing parents are extreme weather scientists called lightning catchers. At a (Hogwarts-like) school for trainees, he tries to uncover what happened to his parents and why he has visions of dragons. Dangerous field trips and mad scientists keep the story moving quickly, and even the explanations of weather are presented in an exciting way.

(Copyright 2013 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)