The House in the Cerulean Sea

 Klune, TJ. The House in the Cerulean Sea. 2020. 398p. ISBN 9781250217288. Available as an ebook on Overdrive.

For the last seventeen years, Linus Baker has worked as a case worker for the Department in Charge of Magical Youth, the organization that governs how young people imbued with magical powers and abilities are supervised and "protected." his job consists of visiting orphanages where magical youths are placed, observing the conditions, and reporting back through an exhaustive report to the Department. Linus is good at what he does, but at 40 he has no friends aside from his cat, and lives a very lonely life.

When Linus gets called away from his desk to meet with Extremely Upper Management, he is distraught. What could he have done that would warrant such attention? His supervisor, Mrs. Jenkins, all but threatens him to keep quiet about his working conditions, but she shouldn't have worried. Extremely Upper Management tasks Linus to undertake a secret mission. He is to travel to Marsyas Island and spend a month there observing the operations of the local orphanage. The whole task is classified level 4, and when Linus is finally given seven files for the six children and the headmaster, he literally faints. Arthur Parnassus, the headmaster, runs the school in an isolated location, across from a small village only reached by ferry. Six children presently live at the orphanage, and all of them are deemed extremely dangerous.

There is the gnome Talia, who at 263 years old is about to enter her gnomish teenage years. A great gardener, Talia threatens Lucas with burying him in her garden where no one will ever find him. There is Theodore, one of the last wyverns left alive, and who is accumulating a hoard of buttons under the couch since he is small enough to fit there. There is Chauncey, a green blob akin to a jelly fish, but no one quite know what he is, and whose dream in life is to become a bellhop. There is Sid, who turns into a Pomeranian when scared and who doesn't talk much but has the heart of a poet. There is Fi, a sprite who controls plants and who can talk to tree. And there is Lucy, a sweet six year old who also happens to be the son of the Anti-Christ. 

Extremely Upper Management expects Linus to observe and use his well-developed sense of fairness to gauge whether the orphanage should remain open or whether it should be closed. Greeted by Zoe, the sprite of Marsyas island, Linus discovers that things will be more complicated than he thought. As he learns more about the children, he also grows close to the enigmatic Arthur Parnassus, and realizes that things are not as they have been portrayed by Extremely Upper Management. Linus is soon faced with a terrible choice: Risk his comfortable life and take a chance on Arthur and the children, or risk watching the whole world be destroyed at the hands of the devil's child.

A delightful tale that reminds the reader of Far Far Away, The House in the Cerulean Sea explores issues of fairness and nature versus nurture. It is possible for individuals to escape their circumstances and become greater and better than their heritage, something Linus learns during his stay at the orphanage. Fans of light fantasy will love this book!