The Klutz as Hero: Alcatraz and the Evil Librarians by Brian Sanderson

Accident-prone Alcatraz Smedry has finally done it! He sets his foster parents' kitchen on fire--accidentally, of course--and finds himself being rescued by a grandfather he never knew he had. What's more, he learns that he is an Oculator, a sort of alien spy from the Free Thinkers universe, and his klutziness is really a magical power needed to save the human world from a takeover by the network of evil Librarians.

Alcatraz and Grandpa Leavenworth must recover Alcatraz's thirteenth birthday present, an innocuous-looking bag of sand, actually the magical Sands of Rashid, which the evil Librarians need to carry out their nefarious plot to control all knowledge. To do so, Alcatraz must infiltrate the library and use his trackers' lenses glasses, his magical klutziness, and his grandfather's magical talent of being terminally tardy for every event, as well as a succession of fantastical characters who pop into the plot, to save the human world.

With the same sort of humor and fast-paced magical action that made Harry Potter and A Series of Unfortunate Events so appealing, Alcatraz and the Evil Librarians has already acquired a reputation as a great family readaloud, as much fun for parents as it is for 'tween and young teen readers. Any book which brings these two groups together in a literary experience is a good thing. Here's hoping there are sequels in Alcatraz's fictional future.