The Assassination of Brangwain Spurge
“Anderson and Yelchin’s fable of goblins, elves, and the cultural brouhahas that put their respective nations on a war footing is accessible, darkly comic, and rewarding.” — Gregory Maguire, author of Wicked
Co-Written with Eugene Yelchin
Candlewick Press (2018)
ISBN: 9780763698225
Ages: 10-14
Awards
National Book Award Finalist ● NPR’s Best Books of the Year ● People Magazine Best Book of the Year ● ALSC Notable Children’s Book ● Boston Globe Best Book of the Year ● New York Public Library’s 100 Best Books for Kids ● Chicago Public Library’s Best Books for Children and Teens ● BookPage Best Children's Book of the Year ● Booklist Editor’s Choice ● Horn Book Fanfare ● Kirkus Reviews Best Book of the Year ● Publishers Weekly Best Book of the Year ● Junior Library Guild Selection ● Evanston (IL) Public Library: 101 Great Books for Kids ● Judy Lopez Award for Children’s Literature (California) ● Oklahoma Sequoyah Children’s Book Award Nominee
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. This National Book Award finalist and hilarious, biting social commentary is rife with thrilling action, visual humor, and a comic disparity that suggests the ultimate victor in a war is perhaps not who won, but who gets to write the history.
Reviews
“Anderson and Yelchin’s fable of goblins, elves, and the cultural brouhahas that put their respective nations on a war footing is accessible, darkly comic, and rewarding.”
— Gregory Maguire, author of Wicked
“What a fun wild crazy smart gorgeous book! And oh! that art — insanely beautiful.”
— Jon Scieszka, first U.S. National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature
“The book, which is on this year’s National Book Award long list, is at times both moving and hilarious. Spurge is not just an unlikely hero — it’s hard to know if he’s a hero at all. But that only makes the finale of this political satire all the more surprising.” — New York Times
“Sophisticated, witty and sharply political.” — The Wall Street Journal
“[A] hilarious political satire…” — People Magazine
“If Hieronymus Bosch and Terry Gilliam had a love child, it couldn't be more twisted and brilliant than the silent visual sequences you'll find on these pages.” — NPR Books
★ “Biting and hysterical, Brangwain and Werfel’s adventure is one for the history books.”
— Booklist, starred review
★ “Together, Anderson and Yelchin craft something that feels impossible, a successfully unorthodox epistolary, pictorial, and prose narrative that interrogates the cultural ramifications of unchallenged viewpoints and the government violence they abet even as it recounts the comedic blunderings of a spy mission gone wrong. Monty Python teams up with Maxwell Smart for a wrestling match with Tolkien—splendid.” — Kirkus Reviews, starred review
★ “With the look and feel of medieval lithographs, they include touches of humor, whimsy, irony, and menace; as such, they are well suited to both the acerbic wit and the affecting tenderness of Anderson’s prose. The result is a fantasy that couldn’t feel more real, obliquely referencing a political climate marked by a lack of civility, underhanded diplomacy, fake news, widespread bigotry and prejudice, and the dehumanization of marginalized people.” — The Horn Book, starred review
★ “Told in narrative and illustrated pages—Werfel’s experiences and Spurge’s visual dispatches back home—the story blends the absurd and the timely to explore commonality, long-standing conflict, and who gets to write a world’s history.” — Publishers Weekly, starred review
“The Assassination of Brangwain Spurge is a work with layers, secrets and hidden gems that will certainly call for many rereads.” — Shelf Awareness
“A brilliant, satirical take on cultural chauvinism, objectivity and war and peace, The Assassination of Brangwain Spurge is witty, wise and wondrously unique.” — Book Page
“A hilarious and biting social commentary that could only come from the likes of National Book Award winner M. T. Anderson and Newbery Honor winner Eugene Yelchin…” — Book Riot
“[A] smart and smarting history with its consequential warning: Truthfully recall the past to change the future.” — San Francisco Chronicle
“This beautifully crafted, thrilling fantasy entertains even as it offers a powerful lesson about national narratives, the power of myth and the difficulty of acknowledging "the other." A perfect novel for our times.” — Buffalo News
“Hidden among Yelchin's ornate illustrations, Clivers' posturing, Spurge's sneaking and Werfel's confusion is a surprisingly humorous tale of misunderstanding, betrayal, miscalculation—and the power of preconceived notions. As both nations hurtle toward a new chapter in diplomacy, Yelchin and Anderson offer a sly commentary on who really gets the last word in history.”
— Virginian-Pilot
Interviews
Publishers Weekly, “In Conversation: M.T. Anderson and Eugene Yelchin” (September 11, 2018)
Seven Days Vermont, “The Power of Art, Engaged Youth & Great Diners: A Conversation with M.T. Anderson” (December 22, 2018)