PURE DEAD MAGIC - Debi Gliori

It's hard to really describe the events of this children's book for ages ten and up ... mainly because so, so much is going on throughout it.  The residents of the Strega-Borgia mansion are not having much good luck lately; mom and dad had a fight, leading to dad's storming out of the house - and then getting summarily kidnapped by some thugs working for his evil brother, as Signora Strega-Borgia wigs out and tries to pretend things are business as usual, including going off to her witchcraft classes.  Older children Titus and Pandora both enjoy torturing each other, even as both also join forces in resenting the new nanny recently come to the home.  Baby Damp, in fact, seems to be the only one happy - that is until, following a hoard of rats, she's shrunk and sucked up into her brother's computer.  Oh yeah, and a dragon, Bigfoot-like monster, and griffin live downstairs, not to mention the crocodile in the moat who hasn't had a good meal since the previous nanny.  Add a talking spider, a thug in a bunny suit, and a rescue mission conducted on the lanes of the superhighway of the worldwide web, and it all makes for a (needless to say) busy novel that isn't necessarily badly-written, but just has too much going on to really be able to focus on anything.  Sadly, that extends to the characters, who never come off fully real or sympathetic.  Well-written and kids might like the comic book-like events throughout, but I could never find myself buying into the story (storIES) or characters.  **