Author Tyler Whitesides takes the janitorial concept so over the top that it becomes awesome!  Completely unfettering the imagination to the border of absurd really works for this series.  An outrageous concept–that janitors with magical powers are really protecting the education of students from the evil Board of Education Maintenance (a little irony there for adults to appreciate)–is strengthened by some fun characters:  a complex and infuriating bully, a gullible and sweet girl, and a germ phobic and brave boy.

Janitors:  Secrets of the New Forest Academy is the second book in a series.  It is recommended that the reader first read Janitors because some, but not the entire, back story was provided.  Janitors:  Secrets of the New Forest Academy concludes with some successes, but leaves plenty to be resolved in the next book.  Hop on a tricked-out janitor cart and have a little fun–middle grade readers will love and parents will be quite amused.

This book was sent to Compass Book Ratings for review by Shadow Mountain

Content Analysis:

Profanity/Language:  None

Violence/Gore:  Bully pushes, shoves, threatens other characters; characters hit other characters with brooms; a character bites another character’s finger; magic is used to temporarily paralyze characters; characters are imprisoned; characters are kidnapped; property is damaged in magical encounters; 2nd hand report of a death; characters give chase (some crashing involved); a character’s head is purposely bashed and their nose bleeds; a character is killed by a mythical creature (non-detailed);  there are a few extended scenes in which characters battle fantasy creatures with magical devices, kicking, hitting, stabbing, etc. where human injury occurs (mention of blood) and fantasy creatures die.

Sex/Nudity:  None

Mature Subject Matter:

Death, Kidnapping, Imprisonment, Bullying.

Alcohol / Drug Use:

There is a brief reference to a character’s dad, implying that he is often drunk.