Can unnameable forces of ancient evil be recycled?
Eleven-year-old Robert Arthur has been redistricted. While his friends in Dunwich, Mass., attend Franklin Middle School, he has to attend Lovecraft Middle School. Lovecraft is brand new (though some fixtures and other building materials came from a demolished, possibly haunted local mansion), and everything in the school is state of the art, but Robert is totally alone…except for Glenn Torkells, who daily extorts a dweeb tax from Robert (just like he did all through elementary school). Strange occurrences start on day one, when every student finds a rat in their locker. A trip to the school library lands Robert in a strange, dusty attic, where he acquires a two-headed stowaway in his backpack. Pip and Squeak (the polycephalic rat) infuriates the science teacher, Professor Garfield Goyle, who turns out to be much more (scary) than he at first appears. Can Robert and his new friend Karina solve enough of the mysteries surrounding their school to survive? Gilman’s debut and series kick-off will be great fun for fans of light horror. The changing image on the cover will snag interest, and the spookily realistic black-and-white illustrations throughout complete this slick, scary, funny package.
Delectable hints of age-appropriate, Lovecraftian Otherness…with none of the purple prose. (Humorous horror. 9-12)
