Review: Janitors

Janitors (Book 1)
By Tyler Whitesides
Expected publication August 3, 2011 by Deseret Book Company

Did you know there is a secret magical society of janitors? Yeah, me neither. But two kids will discover how dangerous and powerful these janitors can be...

So, this book was basically thrust upon me at ALA as I walked by the publisher's booth. But I'm always willing to give new things a shot so I took it and added it to my pile of books to read. Now that I've finished it, I'm a little torn about how I feel about it. I think it has a lot going for it - easy to read, lots of action, magic, easy to relate to characters. On the other hand, maybe it's just me, but I don't really see a lot of kids clamoring to read a book about janitors, even if they are magical. So I don't know if this book will really be able to find an audience. I think the book is good, but there was nothing about it that blew me away. One thing that really bugged me is that the chapters are named, but they are simply sentences from within that chapter. They're not very descriptive or interesting, generally, so it seems really unnecessary to have them named at all. My overall impression of this book is that it was decent but I don't think it has a strong enough pull to find a big audience.

Thanks to the publisher for an advanced reader's copy.