Gadgets and Gears: The Mesmer Menace

by Kersten Hamilton

Clarion Books (Houghton-Mifflin)

ages 9-12

Premise: The year is 1902, and young Wally Kennewickett topples into the first Gadgets and Gears adventure courtesy of Theodore Roosevelt. The president shows up on the front step of Kennewickett’s Amazing Automated Inn to ask Wally’s parents, who are brilliant scientists, to combat an organization of evil magicians. The Mesmers’ bid for world domination is met by steampunk innovation, for the Amaz...