Frances and the Monster

June 1, 2022
When her scientific experiment unleashes a monster, an 11-year-old Swiss girl's extraordinary efforts to capture him reveal a surprising secret. A solitary girl who likes tinkering with machines and wearing lab coats, Frances Stenzel has been raised by her famous scientist parents and a series of tutors inside her great-grandfather's mansion in Bern. It's August 1939, and she leads a quiet life, never going anywhere and rarely seeing anyone. When her parents depart for a symposium in Brussels, they leave Frances in the care of Hobbes, a mechanical man designed and programmed by her father to be her perfect tutor. Unhappy about being left with a machine, Frances explores the basement, discovering her great-grandfather's journal and a secret lab with a frozen body. Deciphering the notes in the journal, she successfully animates the body, creating a massive monster. Immediately, Frances regrets what she has done and knows she must stop the monster as he flees into the center of Bern. Leaving home, Frances tracks the monster through the streets, across rooftops, along the river, and down into the city's bear pit and sewers. Pursued by the police and aided by Hobbes, the chimpanzee her mother has been doing intelligence enhancing experiments on, and a boy who befriends her, Frances exhibits remarkable courage and resolve. Her memorable adventure, with strong echoes of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, plays out against a colorful background as she confronts who she is in a truly shocking finale. A fast-paced and remarkably original tale. (Adventure. 9-12)

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Starred review from August 8, 2022
In 1939 Switzerland, 11-year-old Frances Stenzel, who longs to join her famed scientist parents at a Brussels science symposium, is dismayed to be left behind as she always has been following the accident that took her ear seven years prior. This time, though, she’s left in the care of a specially engineered android tutor named Hobbes. Chafing under the attention of her indefatigable caretaker, inventive Frances searches for a way to power Hobbes down, and instead discovers her great-grandfather Grimme’s encoded journal and secret laboratory, which houses a corpse encased in ice. Deciphering the journal, Frances devises a way to complete Grimme’s final experiment: reanimating the body, which promptly escapes the manor into the nearby city of Bern. Wracked with regret and clad in a bow tie and fedora, Frances sets out in pursuit, aided by sardonic Hobbes; a kind local boy, Luca Frick; and Fritz, a chimpanzee with artificially enhanced intelligence. Bursting with wry humor and references to Frankenstein, Tuma’s (the What the Dinosaurs Did series) idiosyncratic, utterly original tale moves at breakneck speed through a richly imagined landscape, accumulating vividly rendered characters and settings—including a bear pit, a sewer, and the famous Zytglogge clock tower—while injecting considered discussions of modern themes such as gender roles and privilege. Characters are presumed white. Ages 8–12. Agent: Marlo Berliner, Jennifer De Chiara Literary.

January 1, 2023
Ever since a car accident seven years earlier, Frances has not left the old mansion where she lives with her scientist parents, Victor and Mary. While attending a conference, they leave Frances in the care of a robot; she outfoxes the robot and plunges into the secrets of her grandfather's infamous laboratory. There she awakens a long-dormant creature who rampages through town. Frances pursues the creature, joined by new friend Luca and the head (only the head) of the robot. A furious constable follows them, convinced that the children are responsible for the monster's swath of destruction. The plot dashes through near-misses and various dangers, with a cinematic sense of pacing and pratfalls. The return of Frances's parents brings several dire conclusions and a revelation about her past (ample clues may lead readers to it much earlier). The ending teases new monsters, both creature and human. This "remix" repurposes Frankenstein's plot points and characters into a madcap adventure, nicely balancing whimsy and peril. Character arcs and the scope of the plot are incompletely realized, but there is room for a sequel to capitalize on this book's promise. The lessons (the nature of monstrosity, knowing yourself) may land with a wobble, but Frances is both a terror and a delight. The author clearly had a rollicking good time, and readers will, too. Alex Schaffner

(Copyright 2023 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)

January 1, 2023
Ever since a car accident seven years earlier, Frances has not left the old mansion where she lives with her scientist parents, Victor and Mary. While attending a conference, they leave Frances in the care of a robot; she outfoxes the robot and plunges into the secrets of her grandfather's infamous laboratory. There she awakens a long-dormant creature who rampages through town. Frances pursues the creature, joined by new friend Luca and the head (only the head) of the robot. A furious constable follows them, convinced that the children are responsible for the monster's swath of destruction. The plot dashes through near-misses and various dangers, with a cinematic sense of pacing and pratfalls. The return of Frances's parents brings several dire conclusions and a revelation about her past (ample clues may lead readers to it much earlier). The ending teases new monsters, both creature and human. This "remix" repurposes Frankenstein's plot points and characters into a madcap adventure, nicely balancing whimsy and peril. Character arcs and the scope of the plot are incompletely realized, but there is room for a sequel to capitalize on this book's promise. The lessons (the nature of monstrosity, knowing yourself) may land with a wobble, but Frances is both a terror and a delight. The author clearly had a rollicking good time, and readers will, too.

(Copyright 2023 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)