The Extraordinary Adventures of Alfred Kropp by Richard Yancey

Alfred Kropp is a loser with a big head, yet he totally rocks. This book starts with Alfred being sent to live with his uncle when his mother loses the battle against cancer. Alfred is big for his age and doesn’t really excel at anything. He gets bad grades, kids make fun of him at school, and everyone keeps mentioning how huge his noggin is. Life couldn’t get much worse for Alfred, or could it? One night his Uncle comes home with a proposition, help him steal a sword from the office building where he works as a night watchman. His uncle is going to be paid a million dollars for the heist and offers to share it with Alfred in exchange for his help. At first Alfred refuses but his uncle threatens him with putting him into foster care. They eventually get the sword, but only after a sword fight with mysterious hooded monks. Plus the combination of the safe in which the sword was kept was Alfred’s own name. It seems that it’s all too much for Alfred’s big head to handle. But it gets worse. When Alfred and his uncle hand over the sword to the person paying them a million dollars, the dude immediately impales the uncle with the sword, takes the million dollars, and leave Alfred reaping the devastation.

It turns out that the sword is actually Excalibur, as in King Arthur’s Excalibur. And whoever wields the sword can conquer the world. When Alfred hears of this his heart just sinks lower and lower. First he stole a sword, then he gets his uncle killed, and now possibly the world. And this is just the beginning! Alfred tries to make up his failures by going on a quest to retrieve the sword. He encounters more hooded monks, knights of the round table, evil knights, a shadowy spy organization known as OIPEP, and even gets to drive really fast cars and shoot guns. The adventure takes him to Canada, Europe, Stonehenge, and eventually Merlin’s ancient secret lair.

This book has so much action in it. I couldn’t wait for the next chapter. Its a very exciting and humorous adventure yarn/coming of age story. At the end I absolutely adored Alfred and his ginormous head and am eager to read the second book in the series. Highly recommended. Appropriate for anyone 10 an up.

Posted under a librarian reads, review