“Mark Twain and Sid Fleischman must surely be nodding their posthumous approval of so imaginative a cast and so preposterous and cunningly devised a plot—exactly the kind of story for which the term “rollicking” was coined.” — Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books (starred review)
“Cissy is a wonderful creation: inquisitive and adventurous. . . The ensemble cast of characters fairly brims with quirky, original characterization in this warmhearted paean to the milieu of Mark Twain and the tall tales of the American West.” — The Horn Book
“Pirates carouse, boilers explode, gamblers swindle, and Cissy and company meet each encounter with equal parts luck and pluck. McCaughrean invests her characters with humanity and shows a farcical sense for dialogue, while her arch narrative voice, with its theatrical vocabulary and clever turns of phrase, is a delight.” — Booklist
“Those readers who like their adventures with heavy doses of plot twists and tomfoolery will be smitten.” — Kirkus Reviews
Praise for The Death-Defying Pepper Roux: “[A] laugh-out-loud funny, picaresque adventure . . . poignant, odd, wonderfully composed and vastly entertaining.” — Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
“The whole is a more whimsical, French cousin to Neil Gaiman’s The Graveyard Book (2008), with a similar sort of timelessly classic feel.” — Booklist (starred review)
“This novel will be savored.” — School Library Journal (starred review)
“Creating vivid characters is just one of McCaughrean’s gifts. Readers will root for Pepper to get the ending he deserves—a happy one.” — Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“[T]horoughly entertaining. It’s McCaughrean’s way with language that establish[es] this picaresque tale as the latest evidence that she is one of the more remarkable novelists writing for children today.” — The Horn Book
