The Assassination of Brangwain Spurge

Subverting convention, award-winning creators M. T. Anderson and Eugene Yelchin pair up for an anarchic, outlandish, and deeply political saga of warring elf and goblin kingdoms.

Uptight elfin historian Brangwain Spurge is on a mission: survive being catapulted across the mountains into goblin territory, deliver a priceless peace offering to their mysterious dark lord, and spy on the goblin kingdom -- from which no elf has returned alive in more than a hundred years. Brangwain's host, the goblin archivist Werfel, is delighted to show Brangwain around. They should be the best of friends, but a series of extraordinary double crosses, blunders, and cultural misunderstandings throws these two bumbling scholars into the middle of an international crisis that may spell death for them -- and war for their nations. Witty mixed media illustrations show Brangwain's furtive missives back to the elf kingdom, while Werfel's determinedly unbiased narrative tells an entirely different story. A hilarious and biting social commentary that could only come from the likes of National Book Award winner M. T. Anderson and Newbery Honoree Eugene Yelchin, this tale is rife with thrilling action and visual humor . . . and a comic disparity that suggests the ultimate victor in a war is perhaps not who won the battles, but who gets to write the history.

Author: M. T. Anderson, Eugene Yelchin
Publisher: Candlewick Press (MA)
Published: 09/25/2018
Pages: 544
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 1.90lbs
Size: 8.30h x 6.00w x 1.50d
ISBN: 9780763698225
Audience: Young Adult

Accelerated Reader:
Reading Level: 5.3
Point Value: 6
Interest Level: Middle Grade
Quiz #/Name: 197012 / Assassination of Brangwain Spurge


Award: National Book Awards - Finalist


Review Citation(s):
Voice of Youth Advocates 06/01/2018 - Recommended - Better Than Most
Booklist 06/01/2018 pg. 97
Kirkus Reviews 07/01/2018 pg. 104
Publishers Weekly 08/06/2018
Horn Book Magazine 09/01/2018 pg. 75
Bulletin of Ctr for Child Bks 09/01/2018
BookPage 10/01/2018
Hornbook Guide to Children 01/01/2019 - Outstanding, Noteworthy In Style

About the Author
M. T. Anderson is the author of Feed, winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize; the National Book Award-winning The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, Volume I: The Pox Party and its sequel, The Kingdom on the Waves, both New York Times bestsellers and Michael L. Printz Honor Books; Symphony for the City of the Dead: Dmitri Shostakovich and the Siege of Leningrad; Landscape with Invisible Hand; and many other books for children and young adults. He lives near Boston, Massachusetts.

Eugene Yelchin is a Russian-American author and illustrator of many books for children, including Breaking Stalin's Nose, a Newbery Honor book; The Haunting of Falcon House, a Golden Kite Award winner; and The Rooster Prince of Breslov, a National Jewish Book Award winner. He has also received the SCBWI Tomie dePaola Award for illustration. He lives in Topanga, California.