The Millicent Quibb School of Etiquette for Young Ladies of Mad Science

Gr 3-5–From the mind of beloved comedian McKinnon comes a madcap tale of three orphan girls who just don’t fit in their turn-of-the-century town. Antiquarium is a place where all the girls wear fancy Tafeteen dresses, own a fluffy bichon frise, attend etiquette school to learn how to sit properly, and receive a silver spoon for their 10th birthdays. The Porch sisters, meanwhile, would rather be crafting inventions, cracking geodes, and caring for bats and slugs. When they get kicked out of etiquette school and wind up in a mad science school instead, the unlikely heroines must work with infamous mad scientist Millicent Quibb to foil a plot involving a secret society and a giant, rock-eating worm. McKinnon’s tale is a wild ride full of footnotes, asides, and arbitrary tidbits that are never revisited, but her unique voice carries through all the while. The narrator, one G. Edwina Candlestank, is at turns conversational, dramatic, and flippant, but always engaging. Readers will also get a kick out of Millicent’s strange inventions, from the Gerbilcar to the guinea pig massage chair to the Flycycle, a flying motorcycle fashioned after a housefly.