Through the Looking Glass Children's Book Reviews
Pure Dead Brilliant
Fiction Series
For ages 10 and up
Random UK, 2004 ISBN: 978-0552547512
Titus should be happy. After all he is about to have his thirteenth birthday and he is at last going to be a bona fide teenager. Better still, he is going to inherit his grandfather's millions. Finally he will be able to buy the most powerful computer equipment on the market. There does seem to be a down side to this whole inheritance thing however; Pandora is furious with him and though he would never like to admit it, Titus does not like it when he and his sister are at each other's throats.
This situation only gets worse when Titus's mother, Baci Strega-Borgia, brings home her entire student-witch class. For some reason, after their arrival, some really nasty things start to happen; Tarnatella has one of her eight legs lopped off, Titus starts to get some really terrifying email, and Mrs. McLachlan, the nanny, starts to get really worried about one of the visiting witches in particular.
After many adventures and misadventures Mrs. McLachlan, Titus, and Pandora finally come to realize that the witch is not in fact a witch at all and they are all in very deep "poo" indeed. It will be a major miracle if they are all alive to celebrate Titus' birthday at all.
Switching between the distant past, the present, and the future, Debi Gliori takes us on a whirl wind adventure with what must be the world's most accident prone and most peculiar family. Liberally sprinkled with the kind of descriptions that are both disgusting and often funny, and full of completely ridiculous coincidences, this hilarious third book in the Pure Dead series is just as addictive as the previous books were.
