The propulsive first entry in Downing and Waugh’s new middle-grade adventure series vividly evokes its Depression-era Pittsburgh setting in a plucky story of unlikely friendship and macabre conspiracy. Eleven-year-old street-dweller Lewis Carter becomes notorious for using an explosive compound—one he engineered quite by accident, when mixing his missing chemist father’s recycled ingredients together—to pilfer food. When he teams up with whimsical nonsense-spouter and fellow child urchin Pearl Alice Clavell to keep the so-called Flash out of the wrong hands, the two ultimately uncover an insidious, homegrown political subversion plot.This is an endlessly delightful romp packed with rich characterization, transportive period details, and plenty of important life lessons for middle-grade readers. The authors nimbly weave explorations of homelessness, the death and betrayal of parents, and the dangers of radicalization into a fun and fast-paced detective plot—a winning formula that could support plenty of follow-ups. Playful writing pops the characters off the page and enlivens the book’s graver stretches, as when Pearl whispers to Lewis about a real Nazi rally held in New York City in 1934.
The heart of this promising start to the Flash Gang series is the bond between Lewis and Pearl. Downing and Waugh make the enemies-to-allies tropes their own by rooting their cast in the terra firma of an authentically rendered steel-belt metropolis at the pinnacle of production. The “hot, sludgy, ashy, and gritty” surroundings add depth and specificity to the characters’ desperate situations—parentless but perseverant, with an inner pride that, at the very least, they aren’t orphans (Lewis boasts that “whether they worked in groups or operated alone, all streeters preferred to pinch a meal, to sleep under the stars with frost chewing their fingertips, than to be lost to a grim institution”). Readers will root for a triumph over the forces of very real evil in this entertaining offering.
Takeaway: Plucky Depression-era street kids uncover vast conspiracy.
Comparable Titles: Lauren Wolk’s Beyond the Bright Sea, Sheila Turnage’s Three Times Lucky.
Production grades
Cover: B+
Design and typography: A
Illustrations: N/A
Editing: A
Marketing copy: A
