Come for the ghost. Stay for the pirates
A class of school kids on a field trip gets an infusion of piratical machinations in this latest book in a series, following Gargoyle Hall (2015).
Living in a boarding school is the best thing ever to have happened to Araminta Spookie. And when the class field trip turns out to be to creepy Skeleton Island, she has no difficulty filling her classmates in on the mysterious pirate ship that sank beneath the seas nearby. A run-in with two nefarious girls leaves Araminta and her best friend, Wanda, stranded on the island, where they have the particular misfortune to run into bat guano, ghost girls, and skeleton pirates with a sweet tooth for buried treasure. Araminta is not particularly nice to Wanda, but it’s intriguing to watch her use her brains to get the two of them out of sticky situations. Kelly’s black-and-white illustrations temper the tiny traces of scary material, leaving the book appropriate for younger ages, though they appear to depict an all-white cast. Skeleton pirates are nothing new, and Araminta offers the usual goth-girl-in-a-jam formula. Still, there are enough piratical high jinks to keep young readers on their toes.
Come for the ghost. Stay for the pirates . (Fantasy. 7-10)Pub Date: July 26, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-61963-945-4
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Review Posted Online: April 12, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2016
Aimed straight at proto-Goosebumps fans, this formulaic series opener pits two 9-year-olds against a great white shark with legs. Having lost his bike in a lake thanks to the latest hare-brained scheme of his impulsive cousin Henry, bookish Keats reluctantly agrees to finance a replacement by earning some money taking on odd jobs at a spooky local mansion. The prosaic task of weeding the garden quickly turns into an extended flight through a series of magical rooms after a shark monster rises out of the ground and gives chase. Dashing from one narrow squeak to the next, the lads encounter a kitchen with an invisible "sink," a giant vomiting bookworm in the library, a carpet pattern in the hall that (literally) bites and, most usefully, a magic wand that they get to keep (setting up future episodes) after spelling the monster away. Tilted points of view give the occasional illustrations more energy than the labored plot ever musters, and the characters rarely show even two dimensions. Fledgling readers will do better in the hands of Jim Benton’s Franny K. Stein series or Bruce and Katherine Coville’s Moongobble and Me books. (Horror. 8-10)
Pub Date: April 26, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-375-86675-3
Page Count: 112
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: April 5, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2011
Lighthearted spook with a heaping side of silliness—and hair.
Fifth graders get into a hairy situation.
After an unnamed narrator’s full-page warning, readers dive right into a Wolver Hollow classroom. Mr. Noffler recounts the town legend about how, every Oct. 19, residents don fake mustaches and lock their doors. As the story goes, the late Bockius Beauregard was vaporized in an “unfortunate black powder incident,” but, somehow, his “magnificent mustache” survived to haunt the town. Once a year, the spectral ’stache searches for an exposed upper lip to rest upon. Is it real or superstition? Students Parker and Lucas—sole members of the Midnight Owl Detective Agency—decide to take the case and solve the mustache mystery. When they find that the book of legends they need for their research has been checked out from the library, they recruit the borrower: goth classmate Samantha von Oppelstein. Will the three of them be enough to take on the mustache and resolve its ghostly, unfinished business? Whether through ridiculous plot points or over-the-top descriptions, the comedy keeps coming in this first title in McGee’s new Night Frights series. A generous font and spacing make this quick-paced, 13-chapter story appealing to newly confident readers. Skaffa’s grayscale cartoon spot (and occasional full-page) illustrations help set the tone and accentuate the action. Though neither race or skin color is described in the text, images show Lucas and Samantha as light-skinned and Parker as dark-skinned.
Lighthearted spook with a heaping side of silliness—and hair. (maps) (Fiction. 7-10)Pub Date: Aug. 31, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-5344-8089-6
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Aladdin
Review Posted Online: June 15, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2021
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