CLABBERNAPPERS

Bailey's debut novel introduces Danny Ray, "the best dang rodeo cowboy in Oklahoma," by his own admission. All swagger and confidence, he cannot resist when a carny shows him a door simply labeled "Adventure." Danny finds himself in the kingdom of Elidor, where the Queen has just been kidnapped. The King believes that Danny Ray was sent to him by "the engine in [his] dreams," and so Danny Ray is tapped, along with an insufferable prince and a pair of two-faced lords, to rescue her. The cowboy must bring back the queen in two weeks, lest Elidor fall to "dark, faraway Trowland." Their journey takes them to the Checkered Sea, a vast expanse of marble that is home to titanic coal-powered chess pieces; a garbage-trawling rook picks up Danny Ray and the Prince, which leads to an extended battle with some 10-feet-tall pirates with a "whiplike tail" and "sharp barbed jaws." Those who are attracted to Danny Ray's plucky cowboy attitude ("It's a bet then?" he asks a ghost, "If I can do something you can't, then you'll skedaddle with your two spooky Halloween friends, and leave us alone?") and over-the-top dialect will find this a fun, fast read with an honest, effective ending. Ages 10-up. (Feb.)