This review first appeared in Booklist on December 1, 2025.
Twelve-year-old Roman is the youngest in a large family with a complicated history full of secrecy and mystery. Everyone appears determined to keep him in the dark about most things, leaving him feeling lonely and isolated. The only family member who truly connects with Roman is Grandpa Henry, a weird and wonderful man who loves spinning unusual yarns, the oddest of which involves the loss of his toe and how it heralded the arrival of the Toe Beast—a story that spooks Roman so much he’s never had the courage to hear it all the way through. When Grandpa Henry passes away suddenly, Roman is tasked with clearing out his old house. There, he stumbles upon a smattering of unusual objects that seem to lend credence to his grandfather’s odd tales. These discoveries set Roman on a fantastic and bewildering journey through the tangled past, where he will uncover not only the secrets that make his family extraordinary but also the courage to carve out his own place within it. Brimming with heart and creativity, Starmer’s strange and spellbinding story of family, kinship, and coming of age is a triumph of imaginative storytelling that belongs on the same shelf as other offbeat classics of children’s literature like Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events and Catherynne M. Valente’s Fairyland series.
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