skygiants | (no subject)

I really enjoyed Adam Gidwitz's The Inquisitor's Tale a few years back and also I really enjoy espionage, so when

osprey_archer alerted us that Adam Gidwitz had written a children's WWII espionage thriller called Max in the House of Spies, I immediately jumped on board for a buddy read, about which here is

osprey_archer's post.

I knew from the inside cover that the plot of this book involved German Jewish refugee Max getting shipped off to the UK on the kindertransport and subsequently recruited for espionage, with an invisible dybbuk and an invisible kobold on his shoulder.

I did NOT know that it was also RPF ABOUT EWEN MONTAGU, MR. 'OPERATION MINCEMEAT' HIMSELF?!?!

The fact that the spy foster uncles whom Max meets in England are Ewen and Ivor Montagu, respectively Mr. Operation Mincemeat and The Communist Plot Device In Several Fictional Operation Mincemeat adaptations, altered the experience of the book significantly for me. I don't know that it made it better or worse per se but it immediately became much, much funnier.

To be clear Operation Mincemeat is not referenced at all in the text of the book, although Jean Leslie and Charles Cholmondeley make significant cameos (alas, no Hester Leggett, though we were eagerly awaiting her!). Ewen Montagu was chosen out of the many available interesting historical British intelligence officers this RPF project both because he's Jewish and he had a brother who was both Also an Interesting Guy and Also a Communist Spy. By putting Max between Ewen and Ivor, Gidwitz gets to explore the complex position of Jews in England, point out the moral ambiguities of Britain's role in the war, bring in some alternate political viewpoints, and also discuss the Inevitable Betrayals of Espionage in a way that remains appropriate for a middle grade novel. I think it's a very smart move and I appreciate it. It is just also, again, very very funny. I want the Ewen Montagu scion who wrote the politely scathing review of the Colin Firth film and its unnecessary romance plot to review this one for me please.

Now both

osprey_archer and

genarti, in reading this book at the same time I did, thought perhaps it was a bit implausible that British Intelligence would recruit a thirteen-year-old for active service duty. I did not have the same stumbling block. I have read Le Carre! And so has Adam Giswitz, because he talks about it at the end of the book. If you put yourself in Le Carre mindset, as indeed this book is very determined to be in the middle-grade version of the Le Carre mindset, it is only a small hop, skip and a jump to 'let's recruit a thirteen-year-old.' ("But,"

osprey_archer pointed out, "it's RPF and Ewen Montagu told us about everything he did and so we know he didn't recruit a thirteen-year-old." Small details.)

However, the thing that did throw me is the fact that the dybbuk and the kobold mostly seem to exist in this book to point out how absurd it is that British intelligence is attempting to recruit a thirteen-year-old. They Statler and Waldorf angrily around on Max's soldiers going 'this is ABSURD. why are they letting you do this! you are going to DIE!' I think it must be an intentional irony that the supernatural creatures are there as the voice of the reader/voice of reason, but I'm not sure it's an irony that ... works ...... I mean they're quite funny but if we are expected to believe these critters have been around since the dawn of time they surely have seen worse things in their thousands of years than a thirteen-year-old going to war.

Okay, aside from that, one other thing did throw me, which is the several times I had to stare at the page and hiss 'EXCUSE ME! THE OFFICIAL SECRETS ACT!'

With those two caveats I did have a great time, and I was both annoyed and excited to find out at the end of this book that it's part one of a duology and I have a whole second Max Espionage Adventure to experience.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

asakiyume

Yeah, I feel like through most of history children did whatever they were able to do to support Project Let's Stay Alive, and in a time of war, that'll mean doing various war-related things. I mean, plenty of people have also wanted to keep kids out of war! But I think maybe historically speaking that's as much "You are too small and unskilled to do anything other than get yourself instantly killed, and I love you and don't want you instantly killed" more than a conceptual notion that children should stick out of war.

From:

genarti

Right, to be clear, the implausible part for me was not "British Intelligence makes unscrupulous use of An Innocent Child"! It was "British Intelligence lets this child in on SO many secrets and sets up a plan depending on him not immediately folding under pressure and letting things slip knowingly or otherwise."

Which of course is par for the middle grade adventure course, and the fundamental issue here is that I'm no longer the target audience, but I do tend to have an easier time suspending my disbelief when the child is launching intrepidly into adventures than when actual historical figures subject to the Official Secrets Act etc are telling them a lot of people's real names and then launching them.

From:

asakiyume

Hahaha, fair fair! Yeah, I can get on board with that stumbling block (... to torture a metaphor a bit).

--Not least because kids have poor impulse control and are likely to spill said secrets!

Edited Date: 2025-07-31 03:10 pm (UTC)

From:

osprey_archer

--Not least because kids have poor impulse control and are likely to spill said secrets!

Right, obviously Max is not going to do this because he is our hero, but you can 100% imagine some other Child Spy being unable to resist bragging to the other kids about all the secrets he knows. All they'd have to do to get him to tell everything was pretend not to believe he knows any secrets at all, and then he'd HAVE to tell.

From:

osprey_archer

Yes, I think that the book was trying to be both a Children's Adventure Novel but also Realistic and to a certain extent fell between two stools. These things are simply not fully compatible, at least not in the Child Spy Sent from Britain to Nazi Germany situation that Gidwitz has created here. Either we needed to go full adventure novel with the dybbuk and the kobold cheering for Team Child Spy, or we needed to go... well, maybe not full realism, would full realism make a good middle grade novel after all, but more realism in having at least a little respect for the Official Secrets Act.

From:

sovay

Either we needed to go full adventure novel with the dybbuk and the kobold cheering for Team Child Spy

A child spy being aided against the Nazis by two folkloric spirits from Germany, one Jewish, one not, would actually be pretty awesome.

From:

skygiants

Right, especially at an age like twelve or thirteen, which seems impossibly young to us -- and has indeed seemed impossibly young to many people throughout history! -- but also has historically been an age at which people have done adult tasks and made adult decisions ....

That said, "this will get you instantly killed" IS absolutely a plausible reaction to the Task that Max is Undertaking.

From:

larryhammer

Regarding recruiting kids for espionage work, I can only point out that the first spy novel I ever read (and therefore imprinted on) is Kim.

From:

skygiants

Today I Learned that Kim (which I've never read) is a spy novel!!

From:

larryhammer

It’s a novel of the Great Game, no less. You can read it as a kid without noticing the actual espionage plot (the spycraft training is more obvious), or as an adult seeing all the undercurrents beneath the kids adventure story.

From:

kore

"thought perhaps it was a bit implausible that British Intelligence would recruit a thirteen-year-old for active service duty. I did not have the same stumbling block. I have read Le Carre!"

Heh, that makes me remember Le Carre dryly remarking on the inexpensiveness of Jim's recruiting the schoolboys for reconnaissance in TTSS. Poor Bill, he really is a tiny Smiley.

From:

skygiants

Smiley would absolutely recruit Max. My learned colleagues do however have a solid point in that Smiley would probably not reveal quite so much classified information to Max while doing so ...

From:

chestnut_pod

This sounds so interesting o.o

From:

skygiants

I would be fascinated to hear your thoughts -- for me it's a lot of very interesting swings, mixed with of course some misses.

From:

osprey_archer

I'm so glad we read this at the same time, because otherwise I might have remained tragically unaware that Ewen Montagu etc were all real people and it adds so much to the book to knew that Jean Leslie in fact existed.

I didn't mind the implausibility/general all-around bad idea-ness of the child spy (actually just twelve! Max fervently insists he is GOING on THIRTEEN so it's FINE but he is in fact not quite thirteen yet) so much as the fact that the book kept reminding me, through the medium of dybbuk and kobold Statler and Waldorf, that the twelve-year-old spy was a TERRIBLE idea. We are in a children's adventure novel here, a twelve-year-old spy is par for the course, let us embrace this and move on and give Statler and Waldorf something else to do.

As you know I've had the second book in hand for ages and have not managed to start it yet because I am so concerned about what might happen to Max the bad idea twelve-year-old child spy... The first book spent so much time establishing that this is a TERRIBLE idea and he's probably going to DIE that I will be disappointed, from a craft perspective, if nothing bad happens to him, but on a personal emotional level I want him to have children's adventure story plot armor.

From:

skygiants

I love the book's commitment to ~*~Dreamy Jean Leslie~*~!!

There's so much Statler and Waldorf could be doing besides consistently opining on what a terrible idea Max's new job is ... perhaps they do do other things in the sequel. don't tell me! I will get there soon, I promise!!

From:

osprey_archer

If you don't write Jean Leslie as a dreamboat than what are you even DOING with your life??

From:

sovay

I want the Ewen Montagu scion who wrote the politely scathing review of the Colin Firth film and its unnecessary romance plot to review this one for me please.

SECONDED.

From:

skygiants

I realize that Ewen Montagu's descendants probably have many other things to do with their lives and time than read and review every one of the ever-increasing supply of Ewen Montagu Media Properties but, consider: the public is waiting!

From:

bookblather

The Statler and Waldorfing was genuinely my favorite part of this book, but I also haven't read Operation Mincemeat so I didn't get the chance to delightedly point at every real person.

And I too was taken aback by the cliffhanger! I thought it was just a book! Adam Gidwitz!!