A thrill for any reader who knows the only thing more frightening than an unopened door is being locked behind one.
Five unhappy children think their troubles are over when they step inside a mysterious house—until the house refuses to let them leave.
The kids have one thing in common: misery, caused by a variety of neurodivergent symptoms. Poppy, a white orphan living in a group home, has only one friend in the world: the dead girl she sees behind her in every mirror. In Japanese-American Azumi’s disturbing dreams, she relives the loss of her sister in the Aokighara forest and is terrified that she is losing herself as well. Not only can no one hear the overwhelmingly beautiful music in white Marcus’ red head; no one understands his desperate need to play. And as their acting career abruptly ends, brown-skinned twins Dash and Dylan are losing their grip—Dash is having nightmares about failing to save his brother, and when Dylan isn’t feeling invisible, he is having flashbacks to a trauma he can’t quite grasp. All five receive different letters offering to make their dreams come true, but when they all arrive at Larkspur, nothing greets them but endless rooms and masked, murderous ghosts—it’s one thing to survive being different, it's quite another to survive a haunting. Although the choice to equate neurodivergence with the influence of hauntings is questionable, Poblocki’s meticulously crafted narrative is chilling and reminiscent of the best Goosebumps and Are You Afraid of the Dark? terrors.
A thrill for any reader who knows the only thing more frightening than an unopened door is being locked behind one. (mobile app) (Horror. 10-15)Pub Date: Aug. 30, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-545-92550-1
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: May 17, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Is this the end? Well, no…the series will stagger on through at least one more scheduled sequel.
Sure signs that the creative wells are running dry at last, the Captain’s ninth, overstuffed outing both recycles a villain (see Book 4) and offers trendy anti-bullying wish fulfillment.
Not that there aren’t pranks and envelope-pushing quips aplenty. To start, in an alternate ending to the previous episode, Principal Krupp ends up in prison (“…a lot like being a student at Jerome Horwitz Elementary School, except that the prison had better funding”). There, he witnesses fellow inmate Tippy Tinkletrousers (aka Professor Poopypants) escape in a giant Robo-Suit (later reduced to time-traveling trousers). The villain sets off after George and Harold, who are in juvie (“not much different from our old school…except that they have library books here.”). Cut to five years previous, in a prequel to the whole series. George and Harold link up in kindergarten to reduce a quartet of vicious bullies to giggling insanity with a relentless series of pranks involving shaving cream, spiders, effeminate spoof text messages and friendship bracelets. Pilkey tucks both topical jokes and bathroom humor into the cartoon art, and ups the narrative’s lexical ante with terms like “pharmaceuticals” and “theatrical flair.” Unfortunately, the bullies’ sad fates force Krupp to resign, so he’s not around to save the Earth from being destroyed later on by Talking Toilets and other invaders…
Is this the end? Well, no…the series will stagger on through at least one more scheduled sequel. (Fantasy. 10-12)Pub Date: Aug. 28, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-545-17534-0
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: June 19, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2012
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Rich and strange (and kitted out with an eye-catching cover), but stronger in the set pieces than the internal logic.
Chainani works an elaborate sea change akin to Gregory Maguire’s Wicked (1995), though he leaves the waters muddied.
Every four years, two children, one regarded as particularly nice and the other particularly nasty, are snatched from the village of Gavaldon by the shadowy School Master to attend the divided titular school. Those who survive to graduate become major or minor characters in fairy tales. When it happens to sweet, Disney princess–like Sophie and her friend Agatha, plain of features, sour of disposition and low of self-esteem, they are both horrified to discover that they’ve been dropped not where they expect but at Evil and at Good respectively. Gradually—too gradually, as the author strings out hundreds of pages of Hogwarts-style pranks, classroom mishaps and competitions both academic and romantic—it becomes clear that the placement wasn’t a mistake at all. Growing into their true natures amid revelations and marked physical changes, the two spark escalating rivalry between the wings of the school. This leads up to a vicious climactic fight that sees Good and Evil repeatedly switching sides. At this point, readers are likely to feel suddenly left behind, as, thanks to summary deus ex machina resolutions, everything turns out swell(ish).
Rich and strange (and kitted out with an eye-catching cover), but stronger in the set pieces than the internal logic. (Fantasy. 11-13)Pub Date: May 14, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-06-210489-2
Page Count: 496
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Feb. 12, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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