Pardon me while I play the proud wife for a moment...

My husband's first book, The Order of Odd-Fish, is coming out on August 12. Needless to say, I'm pretty excited and proud!

There have been a few reviews so far. Today he emailed me this one, from Booklist:

The Order of Odd-Fish.
Kennedy, James (Author)
Aug 2008. 416 p. Delacorte, hardcover, $15.99. (9780385735438).
Delacorte, library edition, $18.99.
(9780385905244).

The basic plot of Kennedy's first novel is fairly standard fantasy fare—Jo, a 13-year-old girl who gets whisked off to a strange world, discovers that she is a child of destiny and must combat evil forces bent on the destruction of the world—but it's so dizzyingly arrayed with Monty Python–inspired window dressing that one might not notice. Jo is a squire to an order of knights dedicated to "fiddling about" and studying such topics as "the philosophy of napkins." Talking cockroach butlers, a Russian colonel who takes orders from his digestive tract, and a villain called the Belgian Prankster, who wants to either destroy the world or tell the worst joke in history, are just a few of the blatantly weird characters that veer the story into the ludicrous at nearly every turn. Some might find it difficult to sustain interest in such determined high jinks, but in small doses, this is quite hilarious, and readers with a finely tuned sense of the absurd are going to adore the Technicolor ride.
— Ian Chipman

I consider myself as having a "finely tuned sense of the absurd," so I guess I'm the right audience!

Other reviews:
Pop Thought
The Order of Odd-Fish by James Kennedy Delacourte Press, release date August 12, 2008

This was on display at the Delacourte Press table. When I picked it up and thumbed through it, the woman behind the table offered me an advance proof of the book. I don’t know whether she saw my press badge or if she’d have done that for anyone, but I’m grateful. This was a fun book.

Jo Larouche had lived for thirteen uneventful years, except for having been found in a basket as a baby with a note warning “This is a DANGEROUS baby.” Her ordinary life is abruptly interrupted, and she is launched into a world of talking cockroaches, floating heads, and knights who joust from the backs of ostriches. She struggles to find her place and fit in (this is a book for teens, after all) and largely succeeds, except that many of her new friends live in dread of the return of the dangerous baby. As she struggles to discover just how she is dangerous, and to whom, she partakes in a series of wacky, but increasingly dire, adventures.

I spent the first half of the book shaking my head as first-time author Kennedy piled weirdness on top of weirdness. I was prepared to dismiss it as mere weird-for-weird’s-sake when suddenly the plot kicked in. All at once, the book transformed from a fun-but-inconsequential voyage of self-discovery to a grand epic with real peril and devastating consequences. All of this without young Jo Larouche losing her charm or her supporting cast losing their endearing eccentricity.

I don’t know whether this transition was intentional or if, two hundred pages in, Kennedy finally found his voice, but I’m already looking forward to his next book.

Bulletin of the Center for Children's Literature
KENNEDY, JAMES The Order of Odd-Fish
Delacorte, 2008 [416p]

The day the impossibly large fish beaches itself and disgorges thirteen-year-old Jo, her aunt Lilly, and the missing building housing the Lodge of the Order of Odd-Fish is a day of rejoicing in Eldritch City, even though Jo and her aunt are considered outlaws. By the time their exile order is rescinded by the mayor, Jo has been named Lilly's official squire and they are happily enmeshed in the affairs of the city and the lodge. All is not well, however, since the shadowy Sisters of Silence and a discredited lodge member known as the Belgian Prankster are on Jo's trail. It turns out that Jo is the Ichthala, the missing piece of a seminal goddess known as the All-Devouring Mother, and legend has it that when Jo has been fed to the recently reassembled body of the goddess, the world as its inhabitants know it will come to an end. Kennedy has worked overtime to create his quirky world inhabited by cockroach butlers, a knight guided by his digestive system, and a plethora of silly lodge members who engage in everything from dithering to smell collection. The narrative is a crazy quilt of action, burdened with subplots involving the Ichthala legend and an aspiring but unsuccessful supper-villain named Ken Kiang, but the author uses sheer force of will to bind it all together for intrepid readers, creating an adventurous romp with singular characters. Fans of humorous chaos will find plenty of stimulations here.