Alcatraz Versus the Evil Librarians

Alcatraz Versus the Evil Librarians>
by Marc Tauss
Alcatraz Precedes The Scrivener's Bones
Released	October 1, 2007
Publisher	Scholastic Press
ISBN	ISBN 0-439-92550-9

Alcatraz Versus the Evil Librarians is a juvenile fiction novel by Brandon Sanderson, published in October 2007 by Scholastic. The book is named after its main character, Alcatraz Smedry.

Plot summary

Alcatraz Versus the Evil Librarians is a young teen novel which tells the story of Alcatraz Smedry, a young teen who is always breaking things. After receiving a bag of sand for his thirteenth birthday, he stumbles into a strange set of events which begins with a group of librarians stealing his bag of sand, which turns out to be rather unusual sand.

The book starts with Alcatraz setting fire to his foster parent's kitchen. It is revealed that he has been sent to countless of foster parents, all ending up with Alcatraz "destroying" things that were precious to the people taking care of him. Ms. Fletcher, Alcatraz's personal caseworker then arrives at his recent foster parent's home and scolds him about destroying his foster parent's kitchen and leaves.

The next day, however, an old man knocks on the door and claims to be his grandfather and tells Alcatraz that he has a special, but powerful talent for breaking things. He later finds out that there is a special force called the Librarians, whose purpose is to conquer the remaining Free Kingdomers and rule the world.

Characters

The plot of the book revolves around the title character and a small group of freedom fighters operating against the cult of evil librarians that secretly rule the world. These freedom fighters include Alcatraz's grandfather, Leavenworth, usually just referred to as "Grandpa Smedry"; Bastille, Grandpa's bodyguard and a Crystin Knight; Sing Sing - Sing for short - Alcatraz's Polynesian cousin; and Quentin, another cousin. The Librarians include Shasta / Ms. Fletcher, Alcatraz's case worker, who turns out to also be Alcatraz's mother, and Radrian Blackburn, a Dark Oculator.

Smedry Talents

In the course of the book, it is revealed that Alcatraz's biological family, the Smedrys, all are born with amazing talents that they use to combat the evil cult of librarians.

Alcatraz has the talent of breaking things.

Grandpa Smedry, Alcatraz's grandfather, has the power to arrive late to appointments. As such, he is always running behind the clock. But his power also allows him to arrive late to other things, like bullets, which always miss him, and his blood can arrive late to wounds so that he doesn't bleed to death. In his own words "I've been arriving late to my own death for years now."

Sing, Alcatraz's cousin, has the talent of falling down at opportune moments. And, while it is admitted that this is less powerful than Alcatraz or Grandpa's talents, it allows Sing to make amazing diversions while the others slip by Librarian eyes undetected. Sing can also tell when danger is approaching by uncontrollably falling down.

Quentin, another cousin, has the talent to speak gibberish or nonsensical phrases. His talent was beneficial after being captured by the librarians, as they could not understand him and thus could not gain important information from him, even through torture. It was through some of Quentin's supposed gibberish that Alcatraz was prompted to know what do to in future events.

Film Adaptations

Dreamworks Animation SKG acquired the film rights to Alcatraz Versus the Evil Librarians in June 2008.