Winston Chu vs. the Whimsies by Stacey Lee
Publisher: Rick Riordan Presents
Special thanks to Disney Publishing Worldwide for sending a copy for review.
Summary:
Twelve-year-old Winston Chu is supposed to learn impulse control at the cooking academy his mom enrolled him in. But learning to think before he acts won’t happen overnight.
While skateboarding home with a pie in hand, Winston inadvertently stops a robbery at Mr. Pang’s Whimsies, an oddities shop in Chinatown. As a reward, Mr. Pang invites Winston to choose any item in the store. But the strange old man warns Winston to browse carefully, for the first thing Winston touches will be the thing he gets. Before Winston can decide, a magpie flies under a shelf, and he impulsively grabs an old broom to sweep it out.
Mr. Pang hands him the broom, along with a dustpan. “Two for one. Congratulations.”
Deflated, Winston returns home, determined to put the broom incident behind him. Or at least in the closet. But when some of his most beloved possessions go missing, all Winston can think about are the broom and dustpan. Did they somehow take his stuff? And what—or who—will they dispose of next?
It’s time to break into Mr. Pang’s Whimsies, where clearly there’s more going on than meets the far-seeing eyeball. It’s time to fight magic with magic. And this time, Winston better have a plan (Goodreads).
Thoughts:
This book was a charming modern fantasy with a dynamic cast of characters and an interesting storyline; however, the execution of the plot fell flat of my expectations.
While I enjoyed the characters, setting, and the many magical objects that made their appearance in the book, I was very confused by what happened in the book itself. It took me about a hundred pages to get some semblance of what was going on, but even that was thrown into question with the next few pages. The speed at which information was given was very inconsistent; for a while, there would be no new developments, and then major plot changes would start popping up seemingly out of nowhere and shift the trajectory of the story. Occasionally, something completely unrelated would also make an appearance and then ingratiate itself into the story despite having no apparent connection to any event. Although I re-read the book several times to make sure I wasn’t just imagining things, it did not get any easier to understand. From what I was able to piece together, Winston, Mav, Cassa and Bijal were hunting Mr. Pang and Winston’s baby sister, Coco, who had been kidnapped by him, but the specifics are incredibly murky.
On a more positive note, I loved the characters. Stacey Lee created a wonderfully fresh and relatable cast that felt very real to me. I liked that they were all on a soccer team together and did things as a group even though Mav went to a different school. This is very common among younger kids as their differences aren’t something that stops them from becoming friends; however, they’re at the age where they should be able to understand that their different upbringings meant that they will see the world from opposing perspectives. Mav and Winston got into an argument over Mav’s upbringing and how he never had to worry about certain things, whereas Winston, who had lost his father recently, felt those needs pressing at times.
I was extremely happy to see that the story truly took the meaning of “diverse” and ran with it. There were various ethnicities and family situations, such as Dani Kim and her grandmother who were both Korean, and all four main kids had unique family situations. Something I found funny was the way Bijal had to strategize to allow his overprotective parents to let him go out with Winston and the gang; as a child of parents who act very much like his, I thought his thought process and tactics were hilarious. Winston and Mav’s older siblings felt like real people because of their faults, like Philippa’s moodiness and Monroe’s sometimes too laid back personality. I also liked that Winston and his family were grieving their dad’s death as it added another layer of complexity and offered a perspective on grief and the healing processes within a family.
The setting by itself wasn’t anything special. The story took place in an American city, but the mix of our modern times with fantasy elements, as well as the casual acceptance of magic by everyone in the city, made the setting special. Very few fantasy stories take place in modern times, and if they do, the modern world is completely reimagined. Seeing magic woven into a contemporary setting that actually exists made the story very enjoyable, and it felt much more real to me. Seeing the kids and their older siblings take everything in a stride was also sort of funny; the nonchalance that Philippa (Winston’s older sister) accepted their infant sibling had been kidnapped by a magical broom and dustpan was quite amusing. I also liked that, despite the Whimsies being the only magical things in their world, they found a way to affect other aspects of life, such as Dani’s cocktail umbrella and the weather.
Finally, I loved the Whimsies! They were such a fun idea, and I was sad Stacey Lee didn’t include more appearances of the items. I understand that the main objective was using them to find Mr. Pang, but I wanted to see more scenes with them. I especially liked reading about the chaos they caused when they were unleashed in the real world. The Kick-Me Boots and the Hovering Pizza Swat terrorizing the hapless citizens of San Francisco is an image I won’t soon forget.
Though the characters and setting made for an intriguing background, and the Whimsies added charm to the story, I was unsatisfied with not knowing what the story fully was. I would recommend this book to people interested in middle-grade fantasy or a fun, light story.
Reviewed by Shifaa H.