I want to start out by saying that I love the idea of this book. Having a Kids of Cthulhu-style opens up the mythos both for actual kids to start playing but also for adults to take on a whole new side of cosmic horror. It was smart to stick with the classic era for this, as well, since the rules are easily adaptable to the omnipresent 80's era but exploring the 1910's is fairly unique for coming-of-age stories. The history of scouting is also well explored here and I could perfectly envision what this style of campaign could look like at my table. Where the book falters is in its rules and adventures. Firstly, the rules. As kids, the game interprets them as being less capable than adults, which is totally fair. What this means in practice is that their skills are all lowered pretty dramatically. In a different game, this would make sense and could be compensated for by the Keeper but with Call of Cthulhu's skill system, it just means that either Players can expect to fail at many of the things they attempt or Keepers will need to only call for rolls in truly dire circumstances. They do narrow the skill focus pretty substantially to account for kids but I still think you're going to need a bigger party with very specific specializations to get anywhere rules as written. The game also swaps the Sanity system with a "Cool" system, which I think is a great terminology change. It both makes things more realistic, with kids being more flexible and resilient than adults, and makes it more kid-friendly. Great decision. Unfortunately, it throws the baby out with the bathwater and replaces your sanity score with a wound-style system that is somehow both overly complex and lacking any actual weight. There are numerous different boxes to check on multiple different layers but all of it ultimately doesn't have a mechanical impact outside of the character's roleplaying. I think I would have preferred to see the Sanity number kept in tact and had a system similar to Delta Green's breaking points which could have had a more concrete fear effect. As it stands, the system feels similar to some rules-lite systems but overly complicated. The adventures are in a similar boat. The concepts are all great but are basically unusable as written. Each one makes wild assumptions about what the players will do and rarely gives guidance on other paths. One adventure in particular sees PC's notice a delivery being made to a man's house. Based on this notable but otherwise innocuous encounter, it is assumed that players (portraying scouts, I might add) will want to break into this man's home and open his package for no other reason than they want to see what's inside. The game seems to know that this is bizarre so it has a special handout that you can give a player to let them know that their character is obsessed with this package and they need to convince the others to go along with them. To be clear, this isn't some cosmic horror insanity talking, it's just you as the Keeper telling a Player that this is the adventure and they need to get everyone on board. It's a bummer because the concepts for each adventure are great but Keepers will want to go into them with the understanding that they will need to do a lot of their own legwork to get things going and improvisation to handle situations where players inevitably jump the rails. Fortunately, the setting of Westhaven is perfectly suited for this. It gives just enough detail and just enough character to paint the picture while being flexible enough for use at any table. The town is small enough to keep players focused and not overwhelm them but big enough to encourage their ideas. I honestly love the setting and it's the best part of this book, in my opinion. It's not groundbreaking but it has a level of polish that sets it apart. I just wish the whole package had that level of polish because if so, this would be one of my favorite books Chaosium has put out. The ideas are all here but they just don't have that spit shine that they needed to be truly great. Still, if the concept speaks to you and you are a Keeper willing to put in the effort, this is a great seed for your next campaign. If you expect a book to be immediately ready to run though, you probably want to pass on this one. Fingers crossed that Chaosium gives it another go in the future!