Dr. Critchlore’s School For Minions, Twice Cursed review

Dr. Critchlore’s School For Minions, Twice Cursed is the fourth and final book in this series by Sheila Grau with illustrations by Joe Suthpin. It’s three-ring-circus of a book for mid-elementary through middle school that jams monsters, plot twists, more monsters and laughs. Just when you think that nothing else could happen in the book, something does and it only adds to the greater story.

Fans of the series will be thrilled at the conclusion. Those new readers (like me!) will take about two chapters to catch up to where each of our characters are in the monster hierarchy. Dr. Critchlore’s School For Minions is the best in the business at training servants of evil overlords. All of the students are monsters and our lead character, hero and all round werewolf, whose human form is Runt.  He was abandoned at the school as a baby and has been there ever since. He’s the school’s biggest defender, even though he’s dwarfed by many of the school’s other, more monstrous students.

Runt is also cursed to die when he turns 16. The curse was put on him by an evil witch who has the ability to lift the curse, if they’re able to find her. Runt is also a prince; he’s the last prince of Andirat and carries lots of cache with certain people, while others are simply out to use him by any means necessary. See what I mean about lots of plot points happening in the book? And all of these are just with one character!

There’s also a school rivalry between Dr. Critchlore, his troops (and students) and Dr. Pravus. At this point Pravus is winning and seems to have more monsters and better planning. To top all of this, Runt is missing and Critchlore has no idea where he is.

Twists. Fans of the series will have twists upon twists in Twice Cursed that will satisfy their curiosity as to all of the what’s, where’s and how’s that they’ve had with Runt and his monster friends. It’s worth nothing that even new readers will walk away from Twice Cursed with a taste of the adventure that happened in the previous three books. They’ll enjoy the trip that was the fourth book and be their newfound curiosity about the school, the many monsters and humor that happens along the way.

Each chapter in Twice Curse is approximately six pages long and have vocabulary that ages 9 and up will be able to read fluently.   For example, our 8 year old is able to read all of the words, but just needs a little more confidence to jump over to a book of this length.