The Swifts: A Dictionary of Scoundrels

Author: Beth Lincoln
Illustrator: Claire Powell

© Date: 2023
Publisher: Dutton Children’s Books
Pages: 338
Chapters: Yes
Illustrations: Yes, a few full page illustrations are sprinkled throughout, each chapter has a unique illustration to go with the title
Publisher Recommended Age: 8-12 years
Bonus Activities at End of Book: No

Summary from Book: On the day they are born, every Swift child is brought before the sacred Family Dictionary. They are given a name, and a definition. A definition it is assumed they will grow up to match.

Meet Shenanigan Swift: Little sister. Risk-taker. Mischief-maker.

Shenanigan is getting ready for the big Swift Family Reunion and plotting her next great scheme: hunting for Grand-Uncle Vile’s long-lost treasure. She’s excited to finally meet her arriving relatives—until one of them gives Arch-Aunt Schadenfreude a deadly shove down the stairs.

So what if everyone thinks she’ll never be more than a troublemaker, just because of her name? Shenanigan knows she can become whatever she wants, even a detective. And she’s determined to follow the twisty clues and catch the killer.

Deliciously suspenseful and delightfully clever, The Swifts is packed with games, word-play, and lots and lots of mischief as Shenanigan sets out to save her family and define herself in a world where definitions are so important.

Note: This review is done from memory. I originally read this a short bit ago.

Page Pig Thoughts: Quite enjoyable. I adored the word usage, uncommon ones were used, but the dictionary based character names also helped keep personalities straight. The mystery was slowly pieced together and the value of family was highlighted. I quite enjoyed Pamplemousse and was sad that he did not last for more of the story. I also adored the etymology introduction for British versus American word usage. That being said, this one is definitely not for everyone.

Gender identity issues are included. Love it or hate it, please see Item of Interest #24 if that is noteworthy for you. One uncle has had many husbands, but the other issue seems bigger. The “they” pronoun character is a big part of the story.

Take note that the font size seems smaller than average, so many more words are on each page. That means that you get lots of story packed into the pages, but maybe someone would be frustrated with the slower pace.

Use caution with younger or sensitive readers, people are dying and that may be unsettling.

Family Unit: Shenanigan lives with her older sisters, Felicity and Phenomena, as well as Arch-Aunt Schadenfreude, Uncle Maelstrom, and Cook (not a servant, an adopted member of the family). Shenanigan’s parents are always traveling and rarely seen by the girls.

Conflict/Social Issues:

Shenanigan doesn’t want to believe that she will only be her name, but has a knack for mischief.
Not all family members get along well, which is not unexpected for a large family.
Someone at the family reunion is injuring/killing people.
Many family members treat Cook as a servant even though she is not.
Family members are not overly nice to people who married into the family and treat them as outsiders.
Erf would like to go by a name other than what was given on their birth day, but their grandmother is not keen on that.

Positive Items:

Shenanigan finds a good mix of “in character” and “out of character” name traits to help her solve the mystery of who is creating the havoc in the house.
Shenanigan, Felicity, and Phenomena have their sibling quarrels but come together in the end to solve the mystery.
Erf finds a kindred spirit in Fauna, and in the end, acceptance from their grandmother, Inheritance.

Items of Interest:

The book opens with a funeral for Arch-Aunt Schadenfreude. On this day, the casket is dropped and the lid falls off. After that is when we learn that the funeral is a rehearsal. Every month the family that lives in the house practices.
The cellar of the house has a gravestone for every family member that is born. When they die, the gravestone goes to the family cemetery.
The Swift family has periodic reunions at he main house. Each reunion is for staying in touch with family members and searching for the hidden treasure of Grand-Uncle Vile.
Long ago, one family member killed another on his quest for riches.
Despite her differences with her sister, when Shenanigan realizes that some relatives are making fun of Felicity, without Felicity realizing, Shenanigan creates a little mischief to get back at those family members.
Schadenfreude is the Matriarch of the Swift family. She resolves all family grievances and approves marriages. She says that she intends to retire at the end of the reunion and will name a new Matriarch or Patriarch. No matter what resolution to grievances she offers, the family members must comply. Shave your head, dig a hole, whatever, the family complies.
At the start of the family reunion, someone pushes Arch-Aunt Schadenfreude, the family matriarch, down the stairs. She seemed dead, but was only unconscious. She is laid out on her desk and watched over by Cook. The thing that likely saved her was the iron collar that she always has locked around her neck. Yes, a metal collar. No, why she wears it is not clearly spelled out.
Partway through the story, Schadenfreude fakes her death and is appalled at the funeral that is held for her. In the end, she pretends to be a ghost when she reveals herself to the killer.
Gumshoe is a family member that is naturally a detective, just not a very good one. While investigating in the library, he meets an unfortunate end. It appears that he set off one of the many booby traps in the library. A very heavy bust is laying on top of his body where his head should have been. In the end, it turns out that the booby trap that he actually set off was a hidden crossbow bolt that went through his head. But the person who would go on to injure/kill others wanted the crossbow, so he altered the scene to look like a heavy statue fell on Gumshoe.
Pamplemousse was an old school style french family member, with a powdered wig and ruffled clothes. He consistently told people that he needed to defend his own or someone else’s honor and would challenge someone to a nonsensical duel. No one really took him up on the duels though until Pamplemousse challenged the killer to Scrabble to the death. The family had a tennis court sized Scrabble court. The killer hid on the roof of the house and shot crossbow bolts down to the ground to declare his chosen words. Pamplemousse loses Scrabble and the final crossbow bolt goes through his chest.
Word usage – Pamplemousse says “merde” just before the crossbow bolt kills him.
Bodies of the dead family members were placed in the freezer.
One of the reunion events is a Mock-Up, which is an insult contest. Two members shout ridiculous insults at each other. The first person to laugh is out and personal insults get someone disqualified. The contest is fun until Shenanigan and Felicity are picked and the insults are rather personal. Everyone winds up a loser after that.
Flora gets shot in the shoulder by the killer. Since a palm pistol was used, the damage isn’t excessive, but other family members wind up stitching her together and trying to get the blood to stop.
Phenomena loves experiments and chemistry. She is constantly working on something in her attic lab. Due to an accident years before, she lost her sense of smell. She inadvertently creates things like cyanide that wind up properly labeled and stored on a shelf.
In the end, the killer takes several of her bottles to use for a master plan. He puts cyanide in Phenomena’s knowledge juice potion that she constantly drinks. He uses a flammable potion to create a fire in a closet. He also destroys her lab by breaking everything.
The killer hides a tank of laughing gas, nitrous oxide, in a closet and opens the valve. The issue with nitrous oxide is that the dosage is hard to control. The killer intended for everyone in the family to die the unfortunate “accident” of laughing to death.
The killer whacks his fiancee over the head with a crossbow bolt and knocks her out.
The killer winds up being Candour, a doctor that has been swindling heiresses for years. His current fiancée was the most recent victim of his money stealing ways. He was planning on becoming the family patriarch and bringing money and prestige back to the family using the money he stole from his fiancée.
When Arch-Aunt Schadenfreude appears again, not dead, she declares that Candour will be stripped of his name, titles, and assets. No one in the family will acknowledge him and he will be left on his own. Family law stated that nothing he did was really far out of bounds.
Arch-Aunt Schadenfreude does name her successor, Fauna, who declares that police can also deal with Candour.
Flora and Fauna are identical twins that do everything to look like each other. If one spills something on a shirt, then the other spills on her shirt. After Flora gets shot, they decide to harness their individuality. Fauna said that looking at bleeding Flora was like looking at herself dying and she didn’t want to see her dead sister every time she looked into a mirror.
In the course of the story, we learn that the family is out of money. So the main house is in disrepair due to lack of funds for repairs. In the end, the swindled heiress is not allowed to pay for house repairs for family pride. One of the well off relatives decides to pay for the house repairs.
The end of the story has Shenanigan sitting near the old buried treasure. She is not sure if she will tell anyone about it and ponders recovering it slowly, piece by piece.
Gender Identity – When Shenanigan first sees Erf, she is not sure if they are a boy or a girl. She decides to ask, and Erf says that they are neither a boy or a girl. Shenanigan didn’t know that was a possibility. Erf never puts on their reunion nametag with their given name. Erf’s grandmother is Inheritance and is responsible for all family history, so she is the person most reluctant to recognize Erf’s desired name. Erf finds a kindred spirit in Fauna. Fauna says that when she was born, the doctors and everyone else said that she was a boy. When she learned to talk, she explained the situation to them and “they were terribly embarrassed by their mistake.” Erf said something similar happened to them, no one asked who they were either. Erf asks if Fauna had a hard time getting people to listen. Fauna said that “There will always be people who think they know you better than you know yourself. But I quickly learned that they don’t matter; the people who love you are the people who listen.” Fauna tells Erf that if they want to change their name, then they should change it. “Your gran doesn’t get a say in who you are. No one in the world makes that decision but you.” At the end of the story, Erf’s gran, Inheritance, calls Erf by their chosen name and puts a band-aid over the original reunion nametag and writes “Erf” on it.

Other Books in Series (At Time of Posting):

Book 2 – The Swifts: A Gallery of Rogues