Strange things are happening at Lovecraft Middle School. Rats are leaping from lockers. Students are disappearing. The school library is a labyrinth of secret corridors. And the science teacher is acting very, very peculiar. Robert Arthur knew that seventh grade was going to be weird, but this is ridiculous. With the help of some unlikely friends, Robert discovers there's more to Lovecraft Middle School than meets the eye. Can he uncover the secrets of the school before it's too late...?

Professor Gargoyle is the first book in the Tales from Lovecraft Middle School series by Charles Gilman.

The story opens with our hero, Robert, moving to a new school. He's moving up to middle school but because he lives in a different catchment area to his friends he ends up being sent to a school where he knows hardly anyone... well, apart from Glenn a bully from his previous school.

As Robert settles in he starts to realise everything is not as it seems. He discovers an intelligent two-head rat; a strange girl who wants to be his friend; a hidden attic within the library; and a rather odd teacher who seems to be plotting something.

The book is aimed at the younger end of the teenage market and a novel idea is the inclusion of a lenticular cover which shows professor Gargoyle as a normal man, but as you move the book he transforms into his demon self. The image gives the appearance of depth too with his horns sticking out of the book. The finished result is truly mesmerising and I couldn't help but constantly move the book to change Goyle back and forth from human to demon and back again. It's such a simple idea, and clever use of some very old technology, that I'm surprised it's hardly used for publishing these days.

This is an enjoyable book for young readers and also includes a few teaser pages for book two in the series.

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Nick Smithson