Book Review: The Misfits-A Royal Conundrum

I love spy stories. I can get lost in detective stories. Mix adventure and action with humor, and you’ve got me.

I was doing some sleuthing at my local library and came across The Misfits: A Royal Conundrum. A quick read of the back cover let me know that author Lisa Yee was about to take me on a wonderful adventure packed with mystery, intrigue, and smiles.

You may have already heard about this series, but since I’m having so much fun reading it, I want to share it again.

In Chapter 1, we are introduced to Olive Cobin Zang, an artistic middle-grader routinely picked on and bullied by her classmates. She doesn’t fit.

And suddenly, while her parents leave on another extended business trip, Olive finds herself enrolled in a bizarre new school, a converted castle on a rock of an island in the San Francisco Bay.

The school is, well, odd. The quirky students seem happy. The teachers are unusual. For example, there’s this tall, muscular mountain of a man who is likely to pirouette and ballet leap his way to the blackboard in the middle of, say, a history lesson.

But it’s not until after Olive puzzles her way through a proficiency test known as a “conundrum” that she’s finally admitted to the big secret of the Reforming Arts School—RASCH (which sounds exactly the same as “rash,” but is far different).

Olive has been recruited to be a member of the middle-school-aged crime-fighting team known as NOCK—No One Can Know.

“We are 100 percent under the radar,” teacher Monica explains. “NOCK operations have guarded public figures, rescued citizens, recovered stolen goods, and held bake sales—all without anyone knowing who we are.”

Olive, a skilled acrobat but unremarkable in every other way, is matched with four other awkward students who also are social outcasts, but who possess unique skills. There’s Phil, a tech specialist who wears computer rings on her fingers and invents all sorts of cool gadgets; James, a Battleship expert and walking encyclopedia; Iggy, a girl who loves combat arts but avoids people; and Theo, the chill dude who knows how to talk to grownups.

They give their team the codename Misfits. The Misfits are an experimental group of NOCK agents who, because they are “just kids,” can slip unnoticed into places that adults can’t go. If they are noticed, Monica taught them to stick a finger up their nose. That makes adults turn away fast.

“It’s often the underdogs who are in the position to make the most dramatic differences,” Monica notes.

The difference the Misfits must make: Recover the stolen Royal Rumpus diamond, and save RASCH from closing. It’s a crazy, wild chase that ends with dozens of skittering cats and barking dogs causing a royal ruckus in the airport from which the jewel thieves are trying to make their big escape.

The Misfits: A Royal Conundrum by Lisa Yee, with fun illustrations by Dan Santat, is not a faith-based book, but it’s clean, enjoyable, and upholds great moral standards of family and looking beyond the cover to see a person’s worth.

I have already returned to the library for Book 2, The Misfits: A Copycat Conundrum.