Twelve-year-old Nell Perkins knows there is magic at work that she cant yet understand. Her mother has been taken by witches and turned into a bird. Nell must journey to get her mother back, even if it takes her deep into the Wicked Places the frightening realm where Nightmares resides. There she must break the spell and stop the witches from turning our world into a living nightmare. Gr 5–8—Twelve-year-old Nell Perkins lives in the small town of Mist Falls with her mother, Rose, and her brothers, George and Speedy. A dark cloud filled with evil witches sucks Rose up, and Nell and her brothers team up with local resident Duke Badger and follow the cloud into the Dreamlands, the wondrous and horrific realm of all dreams. Badger, conveniently, is a Fearless Traveler. Armed with lightsaber umbrellas and guidebooks, he and his group informally monitor the Dreamlands. Nell and her group follow Rose's trail around the Dreamlands, facing challenges from frightening creatures. It turns out that Rose and other mothers have been changed into birds by the witches known as the Dark Daughters. If Nell wants her mother back, she will need to thwart the witches' plans and free Ravenhead, the king of all the birds. Picture this novel like a Victorian living room, stuffed with details, intricate rules of conduct, and plot twists. For most of the book, there is no respite from the barrage of detritus. Readers will have to concentrate carefully to comprehend the world that Begler has created. Nell's love for her mother acts as a powerful motivation and makes her likable. Her brothers are more static, and George's humor seems artificially rude. The author tries to set up meaningful moments, but often they appear contrived rather than the result of genuine character growth and discovery. VERDICT Begler's boundless imagination chokes under flawed execution.—Caitlin Augusta, Stratford Library Association, CT STARRED REVIEW! This magical book is as dark as a Tim Burton film -a land of walking skeletons, rains of knife blades, encounters with slave-driving clowns, and more-but there is great power (and some successful humor) in creating a world so entirely original. Bursts of modernity startle and shake the otherwise fantastical tone of the piece, and the eponymous handbook plays less of a role than perhaps it should-yet, still, this is a gripping, surreal, and utterly delightful adventure that pairs the unsettling, off-kilter wonkiness of Neil Gaiman and Roald Dahl with the zinging imagination of L. Frank Baum. - Booklist --Booklist STARRED REVIEW! An insecure young girl's quest for her missing mother leads her to Dreamlands, a parallel world of incredible dreams, dark nightmares, and dangerous deceptions . . .Throughout the relentlessly paced, endlessly twisting plot, remarkable Nell emerges a fearless traveler; in her own right . . . A wildly imaginative, richly textured, and complex fantasy. - Kirkus Reviews --Kirkus Reviews A triumph of world building that combines familiar fantasy elements in surprising ways. . . .[Begler] successfully balances the cozy anthropomorphism of a Narnia-type land with the borderline horror of Neil Gaiman or Stephen King. The vividness of this imaginary world would undoubtedly lend itself well to a big-screen adaptation. - Foreword Reviews --Foreword Reviews Pete Begler lives in Los Angeles with his wife and two daughters. He writes for movies and television, including the Hulu drama Chance.