Booklist

Poison Ivy and her friends search for a magical doorway on their quest to save the king from his illness and deliver the people of Caux from the clutches of the malevolent guild of food testers. Can Ivy find the king before the guild finds her? In this second book in the Poisons of Caux series, Appelbaum continues to thrill and enchant with vivid descriptions and inspired plot twists. Here is an imaginary place to stand alongside Harry Potter’s world, replete with tasty villains and true-hearted heroines, and a worthy next step from Kate DiCamillo’s Tale of Despereaux (2003) or Brian Jacques’ Redwall series. — Cindy Welch

VOYA Magazine

Eleven-year-old Ivy Manx dabbles in poisons like everyone else in the world of Caux. Ivy’s uncle, a healer, tried to teach her the value of plants, without much success. Setting out to heal the king, he leaves Ivy to the care of Mr. Flux, a member of the Tasters’ Guild. When her uncle does not return, Ivy sets out to find him with the help of Rowan, a young taster who failed to detect the poisoned dish of his employer. Chased by a mysterious Outrider and Mr. Flux, wanted by the evil Guild master, and pursued by Ivy’s mother for reasons of her own, Ivy must navigate through intrigues and dangers to secure her uncle’s release. Furthermore, as the proclaimed “noble child,” Ivy is expected to fulfill the prophecy of healing the old king, thus saving Caux. Appelbaum’s first novel quickly captures the imagination. She weaves elements of the background seamlessly into the story, enabling the reader to focus on the fast-paced action. As in Philip Pullman’s The Golden Compass (Knopf, 1995/VOYA June 1998), the main character must save the world while resisting her mother’s own pressures to steer her away. Caux is a well-designed fantasy world with enough appeal to satisfy younger readers, who will not want to wait to see what happens to Ivy and Rowan in the second installment of this trilogy. —Etienne Vallee

Chicago Tribune

In the land of Caux, poisoning is a way of life and anyone who’s anyone must employ a taster. Even young Ivy Manx, known to her clients as “Poison” Ivy, works at turning plants into something else. Ivy is being raised by an innkeeping relative who has mysteriously disappeared. What keeps it all quite readable is the omniscient narrator, whose take is always witty: “The Mildew Sisters” style of housekeeping was one that overlooked neatness and timely repairs and embraced chaos and decay.” King Nightshade is conventionally wicked but unexpectedly small, thin, whiny and married to a queen who enjoys wickedness as a hobby. They’re scheming against little Ivy, but Ivy, now accompanied by a novice taster, Rowan Truax, whose first public performance was a flop, thinks she is fleeing from a mysterious visitor to the inn. Like many other fantasy journeys, the two young people discover their own selves as well as landscapes and histories they didn’t know. (A “bettle,” by the way, is not a “beetle,” but a sort of jewel with a surprising interior.) Ivy and Rowan encounter a lively assemblage of eccentrics, bound to return in later volumes of the Poisons of Caux trilogy.

School Library Journal

This second book in the trilogy continues 11-year-old Ivy’s quest to fulfill her role as the prophesied “Noble Child” destined to cure her country’s rightful king from a strange illness. In The Hollow Bettle (Knopf, 2009), Ivy defeated the evil monarch who usurped control of Caux from good King Verdigris and had a penchant for poisoning the unhappy population. Those with money hired food tasters trained by the secretive Tasters Guild to keep from becoming a victim. Ivy and her friend Rowan, an inept Guild-trained taster, were forced to run away after he failed to detect poison in his employer’s food. Now they must save King Verdigris. Many of Verjouce’s henchmen pursue them but Ivy’s most persistent enemy is Sorrel Flux, her former taster, who keeps trying to kill her. When Ivy’s exposed to a deadly weed that can transport its victims to a dark realm, she’s not sure she can defeat it. This inventive story is full of strange and mysterious characters with peculiar names and viscerally descriptive locations. Kids are sure to love it. –Sharon Rawlins, New Jersey State Library, Trenton

The Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books

In the kingdom of Caux, you either poison or serve as an accredited taster to help others avoid it, or else you are likely dead or on your way as a victim of poisoning. If this sounds a bit extreme, it really isn’t, especially under the tyrannical rule of the current king and queen, who poison for fun, profit, punishment, and whim.

Enter Ivy, an extraordinarily talented eleven-year-old apotheopath (expert in the pharmaceutical uses of herbs) who has learned a great deal about creating healing herbal remedies from her beloved uncle (and even more about mixing poisons to satisfy her private customer base). Unfortunately, said uncle has disappeared, and Ivy, paired with a new friend Rowan, who is an earnest if extremely inept taster, sets off for the castle where she knows her uncle was headed last. What unfolds is a true epic quest, the completion of which must wait for subsequent volumes in the planned trilogy.

Appelbaum offers plenty of reunions, poisonings, and plant-related battles throughout, though, so readers who are seeking clear resolution in this book will find sufficient satisfaction as well. The carefully described morbid, darkly elegant setting in a well-developed cast of intriguing and subtle characters add depth and balance to the quick pace and sarcastic tone of the book. The resulting novel is at once rollicking adventure and thoughtful fantasy, accented aptly with occasional illustrations that highlight key events. Part of the beauty here is that they author understands that while the study of healing herbs might be moral, poisoning (especially the clever ways there characters do it) is much more captivating. -AS

BOOKLIST

Ten-year-old Ivy Manx prefers concocting poisons to learning herbal remedies, as her apotheopath (healer) uncle would have her to do. But when that uncle disappears during a mission to cure the King of Caux, Ivy’s darker side stands her in good stead. She heads off to save her uncle and along the way encounters true evil, a crystal-sniffing pig named Poppy, a dishonored young poison taster, and the tastiest food this side of a trestleman’s table. Appelbaum’s first novel, opening the Poisons of Caux trilogy, is a deeply satisfying, humor-laced quest with elements of wizardry and herbology, deeds of a dastardly nature, and ultimately, redemption.
Similar in tone but not as darkly Dickensian as Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events, this adventure pulses with imaginatively named characters, gratifying close calls, and a landscape that is vividly alive. Readers, individually or as part of a read-aloud experience, will savor young Ivy’s expedition and eagerly await more adventures in the land of Caux.  —Cindy Welch

The Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books

“A true epic quest. . . . The carefully described morbid, darkly elegant setting and a well-developed cast of intriguing and subtle characters add depth and balance to the quick pace and sarcastic tone of the book. The resulting novel is at once rollicking adventure and thoughtful fantasy.”

VOYA Magazine

Ivy Manx, the “noble child” who, it is prophesied, will heal the land and free the old king, finds  herself back in Caux, a prisoner of Sorel Flux. With help from her friend Rue and unlikely ally  Lumpen Gorse, she escapes and is reunited with her friend Rowan and the rest of the rebels.  With an army of scarecrows and birds, they march to Rocamadour to confront the growing  power of Director Verjouce, Ivy’s father, as the scourge bracken, a toxic and deadly weed  controlled by the director, threatens to engulf the whole of Caux. Can Ivy fulfill the prophecy by  defeating evil and restoring the old king, or has the scourge bracken permanently tainted her?

Appelbaum’s third novel continues to captivate the imagination. She weaves elements of  the background seamlessly into the story, enabling the reader to focus on the fast-paced action.  As in Philip Pullman’s The Amber Spyglass, the main  character must save the world while confronting the threats posed by her father. In this third and  final installment of the Poisons of Caux series, the fortunes of the multitude of characters  encountered in the first two books come to a satisfactory conclusion. Caux is a well-designed  fantasy world with enough appeal to satisfy younger readers, who will wish for a fourth book.— Etienne Vallée.