Mister Monday (Keys to the Kingdom

In the post J.K. R*wling era, I'll take a "series about a young boy whisked off to a mystical world as the chosen one" story liberally. This was a charming introduction to a children's series that has my interest piqued. I actually found myself drawing a lot of comparisons to some contemporary adult fiction that I can't help but feel pulled influence from this series ('The Keys to the Kingdom' walked so 'The Starless Sea' could run). Overall, this book isn't anything to write home about. As the series introduction, I was hoping it would be a bit more interesting than it was. It relied heavily on (what I consider to be) weak writing tropes like deus ex machina and non existent character development. But I keep having to remind myself that this is a children's series, and I personally don't think it would be fair to view it with the level of scrutiny that I usually do when reading fiction. At face value, it's a whimsical story about a boy's adventures in a strange, mystical world. If I'm thinking whether this book does a good job of introducing that kind of story, I'd have to say, yes, it does.