MIDDLE-GRADE NOVELS
After a decade in hiding, the Crow Toes Quarterly staff resurfaced to bring the world seven more issues of its groundbreaking magazine. The act of defiance wasn’t without peril. Shady organizations, mythical monsters, caffeine-addicted aliens and Mathematics teachers were still out there trying to make them disappear for good. And that’s no good!
Crow Toes Quarterly: More Tales From A Playfully Dark World (2026) is a collection of terrifying, hilarious, magical and unbelievable stories that take place between each issue of CTQ magazine. Join the Narrator, the Staff Villain, Poinsettia Park and Ogilvy the lackey as they battle volcanoes erupting marshmallow lava, pterodactyls, tired interns, unruly bees, creatures missing their knees and so so much more.
How dangerous can it be publishing an art and literature magazine for children? Read this book to find out. Or better yet, don’t! It’ll be safer for you.
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Mr. Pockets: and Other Unsettling and Unbelievable Stories (2023) includes ten terrifying, mind-bending, heart-wrenching, hilarious and truly tragic tales about ten particular kids and the totally unfair, totally unsettling, totally unbelievable consequences they face when they are careless, dishonest, snarky, dirty, aloof and arrogant.
Garrett Kline is one of the unfortunate children mentioned above. He’s out way past his curfew. But it’s Halloween night, so it’s easy for a kid to lose track of the time. That doesn’t forgive him for the crime, though! He’s sure his parents are going to ground him up and put him in a salt shaker. Little does he know, it’s not his parents he has to worry about. Oh no! It’s Mr. Pockets, who’s waiting in the shadows, just around the corner.
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Listen to Dandelion (AKA Dandelion On The Moon), read by Sarah Campbell
In late 2006, a shadowy character appeared on the literary scene. He called himself the Narrator and his dream was to publish a playfully dark arts and literature magazine for children. He hired a staff villain, a lackey named Ogilvy and a reporter named Poinsettia Park, and soon after he released the very first issue of Crow Toes Quarterly. Over the next four years, sixteen issues of the magazine were published.
Crow Toes Quarterly: Tales From A Playfully Dark World (2012) is a sometimes hilarious, often terrifying collection of experiences compiled by the Crow Toes Quarterly Narrator during those four years and sixteen issues. It is proof that running an arts and literature magazine for children can be downright dangerous at times.
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This macabre adventure abounds with non-stop creepiness and features a memorable crew: a vicious hyper monkey, plagues of locust, museums of human legs, and a tomato-growing, one-eyed giant with a deliciously evil plan. In The King of Arugula (2007) the story’s narrator, is trapped in a nasty hole with the strange Mr. Flex who recounts the quest of Twig to restore the sight of his friend, Onus. With the help of Twig’s sister’s ghost, Isis, and the green-haired, tattooed punker, Clay, the boys set out to find the magic tomato of Arugula and must defeat the evil intentions of the villainous leg collector William Ernest Fang.
Fowl, Swine and Things That Send Shivers Down Your Spine (2012) picks up right where The King of Arugula left off. Having just saved the town of Arugula, restored Twig’s sight and exposed the sinister William Ernest Fang for the person he really is, Onus and Twig are ready to get home and go to bed.
Unfortunately, a run in with a cat named Lemy sends them far off course…so far in fact, they end up in a strange town called Cygnus Monde, where the streets are overrun with hair-stealing swans and the adults are oddly fixated on one thing: a place called Tchaikovsky’s.
When Twig catches swan lice and refuses to move because of how uncomfortable his head is, Onus must leave his friend and find a cure. Along the way he finds a pigpen full of kids, a man dressed up like a pack of gum, a shop filled with animals that look like statues, worms the size of jet airplanes and a “next to impossible” truth that puts the “hole” situation in perspective – swan lice and strange residents are the least of Cygnus Monde’s problems.
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The Healing Sand (2013) is the final book in Christopher Millin’s Hole Stories and it starts right where Fowl, Swine and Things That Send Shivers Down Your Spine ended. Onus and Twig have inadvertently ruined another of William Ernest Fang’s elaborate plans and have left the villain trapped under a giant stuffed bear named Gertrude. Thanks to a promise from a tiny farmer and a scent-tracking mox named Gromley, the boys believe they are finally on their way home. But as we have learned over and over again in The Hole Stories, home isn’t the easiest place to get to. And so, a chance encounter with a broken man leads Onus and Twig to a strange town that is hiding two very big secrets. One: the town possesses a magical sand only spoken about in urban legends. And two: the sand, which is used for so much good, has a dark side to it that no one is willing to acknowledge…it is a dark side that may keep Onus and Twig from ever getting home.
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christopher millin: author 