Ghost-story fans won’t be disappointed in the end, if they can slog that far through all the low-wattage civil-service...
The threat of imminent shutdown prompts a small government agency to hire a pair of young independent contractors to capture a ghost in this British import.
On the way to a pleasantly tidy ending, Shearer delivers some comical chills and twists, but he takes too long to set them up. Driven by a blustering government cost-cutter’s ultimatum, the four (or five, counting the cat) remaining members of the antique Ministry of Ghosts—originally founded in 1792 to determine whether spirits are bunkum or real—decide a fresh approach is needed. The “help wanted” card they place in the dusty window of their ramshackle building draws two students from the local school: strong-minded Thruppence Coddley, daughter of a fishmonger, and timorous but game classmate Tim Legge, both white. The author salts his tale liberally with subtle clues and oddly quaint characters, and he eventually arrives at some startling (for unobservant readers, at least) revelations. But aside from brief mentions in a prologue, the two young people don’t even show up to get the ghost hunting under way until seven wordy introductory chapters have trundled slowly by, filled with eye-glazing exchanges and daily routines in an office where nothing much has changed in decades.
Ghost-story fans won’t be disappointed in the end, if they can slog that far through all the low-wattage civil-service satire. (Fantasy. 10-12)Pub Date: May 3, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-5107-0473-2
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Sky Pony Press
Review Posted Online: March 1, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2016
A die-cut cover scene and Margiotta’s chapter-head views of huge-eyed gamins posing in canted settings add to the pervasive...
In a sequel that cycles around the same track as the opener, Castro sheds light on the past and nature of the aptly named Gloom mansion and the saturnine lad who lives there alone with armies of animate shadows.
Just as in Gustav Gloom and the People Taker (2012), Fernie What, recently moved into the house across the street, joins her new friend Gustav in a long flight through the eerie mansion’s seemingly endless halls and rooms. They are pursued this time by October, a relentless shadow- (and people-) eating creature disguised as a decrepit ice-cream man (spooky!) who is after the hidden, ominously named Nightmare Vault. Despite quick visits to a Gallery of the Almost Famous, a prison for evil shadows and like quirky locales, the chase turns tedious as the children pass through dozens of doorways and up or down more dozens of flights of stairs on the way to a climactic, predictably resolved face-off. Along the way, between moments of contrived melodrama, Gustav drops needlessly strung-out revelations that explain the house’s origins, his lack of parents and other mysteries.
A die-cut cover scene and Margiotta’s chapter-head views of huge-eyed gamins posing in canted settings add to the pervasive air of strangeness, but it’s still a slog. (Fantasy. 10-12)Pub Date: April 18, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-448-45834-2
Page Count: 248
Publisher: Grosset & Dunlap
Review Posted Online: Jan. 15, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
Buckets full of gross, but are readers guano scoop up an entire series? Snot likely.
A blatant bid for the Goosebumps audience, with added gushes of vomit.
Nerdy middle schooler Chris discovers that the old-age home at which he volunteers is populated by decrepit, bingo-loving vampires, werewolves and other monsters. As if that’s not terrifying enough, the home is attacked by an army of cat-sized “sussuroblats,” cockroaches with sharp teeth in drooling human mouths. The plot makes a convenient framework on which to hang tantalizing references to grease, farts, school-lunch items like “Salisbury Snake” and suchlike. They escalate into actual juicy burps, funky smells, cascades of phlegmy goo in decorator hues and encounters with the odd slimy tentacle or crunchy spider before the main attraction begins: hurling, and lots of it. As it turns out, learning that the butyric acid in vomit is death to sussuroblats, Chris and his buddies need only manage to lead them all into the local amusement park’s dizzying Gravitron and have them spew all over each other to dissolve the threat. Easy peasy.
Buckets full of gross, but are readers guano scoop up an entire series? Snot likely. (Gross-out horror. 10-12)Pub Date: Aug. 15, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-448-46226-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Grosset & Dunlap
Review Posted Online: May 28, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2013
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
