Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

In the kick-off novel in the Mad Misadventures series, 14-year-old pioneering aviatrix Emmaline Cayley is afraid of one thing: plummeting to her doom. Fortunately, 12-year-old Robert Burns, an indestructible village boy, is not. Absurdly unafraid of bodily harm, ?Rubberbones? is the ideal pilot for Emmaline's experiments with flight.But before Emmaline can perfect a flying machine with the aid of her new friend, she is sent off to St. Grimelda's School for Young Ladies --- to be cured of her decidedly unladylike ways. It is a school so strict, so severe, so forbidding that it makes the brutal misery in the tales of Charles Dickens look cheery by comparison. With a horrifying headmistress, terrifying teachers and food that is even worse than Aunt Lucy's, this medieval stronghold also houses a terrible secret and a mysterious way of keeping its prisoners, er, its students in line. All Emmaline can think of is escape. But no one has ever escaped from St. Grimelda's. And our heroine soon realizes that the only way out is to face her greatest fear.

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School Library Journal Review

Gr 5-8-Emmaline Cayley grew up in India, but as she approaches the age of 14, her very proper mother (who is married to a very proper British colonial official) sends her home to England to attend the harsh St. Grimelda's School for Young Ladies. Emmaline is not interested in becoming a young lady-she wants to follow in the footsteps of her great-great-uncle, Sir George Cayley, and design flying machines. In the weeks before school starts, she teams up with Rab, a 12-year-old village boy whom everyone calls "Rubberbones" because he can fall out of a tree or get hit by a brick and suffer no damage, and the two of them build several gliders. Once Emmaline goes off to St. Grimelda's, her potty Aunt Lucy, Rubberbones, and their allies realize what a horror the place is and initiate an elaborate plot to help her escape on a giant, smuggled-in, homemade kite. This comic tale of a slightly alternative Victorian England is goofy and fun. It loses some of its impact, however, because the school-which uses the fearsome pterodactyls it has owned since the 16th century to catch any girls who try to escape-is built up as a horror. But its pompous, ruler-wielding headmistress and teachers don't seem to frighten Emmaline and her friends much, so they won't scare readers, either. Slavin's intricate pen-and-ink drawings are properly atmospheric. A sequel is virtually guaranteed.-Walter Minkel, New York Public Library (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Kirkus Book Review

In this lighter-than-air Victorian school story, young Emmaline Cayley, consigned to Yorkshire's forbidding St. Grimelda's School For Young Ladies, Est. 1552, forms several alliances, including one with a startlingly bloodthirsty Indian princess, while outside her proudly "indestruckable" friend Robert Burns (aptly dubbed "Rubberbones") joins a quirky crew of adults to plot her rescue. That rescue turns out to be tougher than expected as the school is defended not only by its evil headmistress Malvolia Wackett, but also by a pair of trained pterodactyls. Still, after many reversals, the deed is done at last, with the help of unexpected aid from schoolmates, a large kite and a stash of gloriously unpredictable fireworks created by a mad American inventor. Slavin's frequent, fluidly drawn ink sketches portray the cast members with just the right degrees of sympathy or savagery. An entertaining mix of high and low comedy: Expect sequels, and look forward to them. (Fantasy. 10-12) Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.