Mulrox and the Malcognitos

by Kerelyn Smith

Overview

A wildly fun adventure about friendship, imagination, and embracing your imperfections.

When an ogre poet's bad ideas come to life, he must go on a quest to save them before his world descends into chaos.

For ages 8-12, fans of The Phantom Tollbooth, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and The Wonderful Wizard of Oz will delight in this wacky and insightful children's fantasy novel.

A bad idea is nothing to worry about... until it knocks on your door.

Mulrox the ogre harbors a secret desire to become the world's greatest poet. Unfortunately, all of his ideas are rotten.

But when his terrible ideas come to life, Mulrox soon finds himself on a quest to protect the very ideas he loathes, the malcognitos as they call themselves. Accompanied by his sassy pet toad, quirky neighbor, and a hoard of mischievous bad ideas, Mulrox must travel to the malcognitos' realm, uncover the mystery of the beast hunting them, and return home in time to deliver the best poem of his life.

If you like prophetic rodents, spellbinding sneezes, and ferocious sheep, you'll love this book.

Join Mulrox and his friends for a wild ride full of antics, strange new creatures, and lots of bad poetry.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781734216912
Publisher:	Fog Field Press
Publication date:	03/29/2020
Pages:	382
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.85(d)
Age Range:	9 - 12 Years

About the Author

Kerelyn Smith is a writer of literary, speculative, and children's fiction. She writes in the wee hours of the morning, and by day is a software engineer. She lives in Seattle, WA with her partner and dog, and enjoys playing music, gardening, and overcomplicating things. Mulrox and the Malcognitos is her first novel. You can find out more at Kerelynsmith.com .

Editorial Reviews

"An original and witty adventure that celebrates the imagination... Her wonderfully expressive, inventive vocabulary resembles that in Norman Juster's The Phantom Tollbooth(1961), with an ogre flavor all its own." - Kirkus Reviews

"Smith's vibrant comic prose distinguishes Mulrox and the Malcognitos. Her sentences and dialogue bounce along, telling the story with sharp clarity and seemingly boundless imagination" - The BookLife Prize

"A fun read for all ages that's funny, charming, and an all-around delight" - 5 Star Review from Liz Konkel for Readers' Favorite

"An absolute joy of a read. This was highest level worldbuilding and MG voice... I haven't read such a lush world in MG for a long time! " - Sarah Allen, author of What Stars Are Made Of

"A fantastical tale with depth, adventure, and humor... This book is quirky and unique and full of warmth in all the right ways." - Ben Gartner, author of The Eye of Ra

"A richly imagined fantasy that will leave you rooting for the underdogs and an army of bad ideas." - S.O. Thomas, author of The Slug Queen Chronicles

"With humor, compassion, and a plot that keeps the pages turning, Mulrox and the Malcognitos shows us that fear of failure is a fear worth facing. It's required reading for anyone who's ever had an idea, good or bad." - Debbie Graber, author of Kevin Kramer Starts on Monday

"A delight... rich world-building managed in beautiful prose, complicated relationships full of generosity, a taut, engaging, always surprising plot. It's hilarious, full of energy. I could listen to these characters talk all day long." - Peter Rock, author of The Night Swimmers, Klickitat, My Abandonment, and others

"Mulrox and the Malcognitos has earned a permanent place on my shelves beside my favourite titles." - Paul Coccia, author of Cub

From the Publisher

2020-05-20
An ogre poet embarks on a quest to save his lively bad ideas from a monster in this debut children’s novel.

Mulrox is not your typical ogre. He’s scrawny, and worse, he loves poetry more than smashing things. All in all, he’s a huge disappointment to his Great-Aunt Griselda, who’s an ogre’s ogre. After breaking a hip in a roof-stomping accident, she has taken over Mulrox’s bedroom—and now threatens to take over his house. He can stop her, she says, only by winning an upcoming talent competition; Mulrox accepts the challenge but is full of self-doubt, never satisfied with his own work. On top of that, a squirrelmonk has a message for him: “Events are in motion….It can’t be helped. You’ll just have to do your best.” His destiny, it seems, is to help a swarm of malcognitos—his own bad ideas come to life—defeat the Vaccus, their enemy and the embodiment of writer’s block. But first, they must find the portal to Sounous, the malcognitos’ home, and that won’t be easy, even with Mulrox’s eccentric neighbor Yahgurkin tagging along to help. In her book, Smith demonstrates the same love of words that characterizes Mulrox. Her wonderfully expressive, inventive vocabulary resembles that in Norman Juster’s The Phantom Tollbooth (1961), with an ogre flavor all its own. The story thinks through its mythology in compelling ways, as when Sounous, the land of ideas both good and bad, is described as a “magnificent palace with a thatched roof and wooden door. Everyone should be interested in it.” Because the novel presents itself as a portal/quest story, readers will likely expect the real adventure to begin after the portal is found—but that doesn’t happen until well over two-thirds of the way through, making the pace feel off.

An original and witty adventure that celebrates the imagination.

Kirkus Reviews