Warren the 13th and The All-Seeing Eye by Tania del Rio and illustrations by Will Staehle

Warren the 13th and The All-Seeing Eye by Tania del Rio and illustrations by Will Staehle
Format: Hardcover
Publisher: Quirk Books
Number of Pages:  224
Published:  November 24, 2015
Source:  Library

Warren is the 13th member in a long line of Warren's who have lived and worked in the Warren Hotel. He is the one who takes care of the grounds, is the bellhop, and all around handy man, while his Uncle Rupert and Aunt Annaconda have been running the place, practically into the ground.  All that will change on Warren's eighteenth birthday when the hotel will finally be his.  It's been five long years since a guest has stayed at the Warren Hotel, but now a mysterious guest has shown up requesting a room.   Aunt Annaconda suspects that he is looking for the All-Seeing Eye and she desperately wants to find it before the guest does.  Aunt Annaconda calls on her sisters Isosceles and Scalene to help her search the hotel, requesting  they keep the news secret, which of course means everyone finds out and the hotel is booming with greedy, noisy, destructive guests in search of the eye as well.     

I really enjoyed the way  the story and illustrations were laid out on the page, with both full page and smaller illustrations in black, white and red, similar to the cover.  Alternating with Aunt Annaconda's pages which were a black background  with white writing, giving  her pages a more spooky feel.  There are also Victorian cutouts on a few of the pages and interestingly the chapter titles for her pages were written in reverse.  While Warren is attending to the newly arrived guests, he begins to uncover some clues to the whereabouts of the All-Seeing Eye. Clues in the form of riddles and mirrored writings which I imagine would be fun for children to solve.  I'm rather fond of creepy old homes and Aunt Annaconda reminded quite a bit of the Grand High Witch in Roald Dahl's The Witches.  

*Warren The 13th and The All-Seeing Eye  has been nominated for the Cybils award and my review reflects my personal opinion, not the opinion of the Cybils committee.*