Donna St. Cyr

Reviewed by Allison Fraclose for TeensReadToo.com

Thirteen-year-old Robert Montasio had already been having a rotten day, but it gets even worse when his bratty little sister, Janine, starts shrinking before his eyes!

He was the one who had found that bottle of "Madame Gorgonzola's Effervescent Elixir" on the school bus, but Janine is the one who grabbed the bottle from his hand and chugged the contents straight down without even asking what it was. When Robert notices that she looks a lot smaller than she used to, he calls the Consumer Safety Hotline on the bottle label, and ends up meeting face-to-face with Madame Gorgonzola herself.

This blue-veined, crumbling woman (who looks and smells a lot like the cheese for which she is named), tells Robert that he is descended from a great line of cheesemakers, and that his father in fact did not desert his family two years ago like Robert and Janine had believed.

Marc Montasio had been on a mission for the Secret Syndicate of Cheese to secure the Mystic Cheese of Eliki. Said to have incredible healing powers, Robert must now complete his father's mission to find this cheese if he is going to save Janine from shrinking out of existence. Together, the siblings strike out to face manticores, gorgons, and other beasts, using the powers of different cheeses to protect themselves.

A short, fast-paced read, this book features a hilarity that will be especially appreciated by younger readers. Heck, even I enjoyed imagining what sort of powers different exotic cheeses might possess, and what might happen if I use them on my next sandwich. Other adults that I have shown this book to have declared that they wish they could be a member of the Secret Cheese Syndicate.… (mais)