A well-spun tale that combines suspense with relatable emotional themes.
Creepy-crawlies take over a Halloween party.
Halloween is Andi’s favorite holiday—to her, it’s “serious business,” and she loves spiders almost as much as she loves her best friends, Carly and Devon. But now that they’re sixth graders, her friends are more interested in attending eighth grader Clementine’s party than going trick-or-treating as usual. Andi reluctantly agrees, lured by the promise of seeing the office of Mr. Mendez, Clementine’s science teacher dad, which is filled with spiders in terrariums. Andi recognizes the species in his collection—until she comes face to face with a spider that’s as big as a person’s head. Strangely, the more she looks into its red eyes, the more she wants to remove the lid and set it free. The party continues, but soon spiders start appearing out of every nook and cranny, all heading in the same direction. Andi and her friends follow them, discovering a giant funnel web where the adults are trapped. Andi suddenly fears spiders for the first time: Can she stop them before it’s too late? Russell’s sophomore novel balances slow-building creepiness with a genuine affection for arachnids and incorporates occasional scientific facts. The evocative descriptions of spiders and their webs make for some truly chilling scenes, and the explorations of loneliness and tween difficulties with making friends add human elements to the terror. Andi is Black, and there’s racial diversity among the secondary characters.
A well-spun tale that combines suspense with relatable emotional themes. (author’s note) (Horror. 9-12)Pub Date: Dec. 2, 2025
ISBN: 9781546129257
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Scholastic Paperbacks
Review Posted Online: Sept. 13, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A didactic blueprint disguised as a supernatural treasure map.
A girl who delights in the macabre harnesses her inherited supernatural ability.
It’s not just her stark white hair that makes 11-year-old Zee Puckett stand out in nowheresville Knobb’s Ferry. She’s a storyteller, a Mary Shelley fangirl, and is being raised by her 21-year-old high school dropout sister while their father looks for work upstate (cue the wayward glances from the affluent demography). Don’t pity her, because Zee doesn’t acquiesce to snobbery, bullying, or pretty much anything that confronts her. But a dog with bleeding eyes in a cemetery gives her pause—momentarily—because the beast is just the tip of the wicked that has this way come to town. Time to get some help from ghosts. The creepy supernatural current continues throughout, intermingled with very real forays into bullying (Zee won’t stand for it or for the notion that good girls need to act nice), body positivity, socio-economic status and social hierarchy, and mental health. This debut from a promising writer involves a navigation of caste systems, self-esteem, and villainy that exists in an interesting world with intriguing characters, but they receive a flat, two-dimensional treatment that ultimately makes the book feel like one is learning a ho-hum lesson in morality. Zee is presumably White (as is her rich-girl nemesis–cum-comrade, Nellie). Her best friend, Elijah, is cued as Black. Warning: this just might spur frenzied requests for Frankenstein.
A didactic blueprint disguised as a supernatural treasure map. (Supernatural. 10-12)Pub Date: Aug. 10, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-06-304460-9
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Katherine Tegen/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: June 10, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Deliciously dark and gripping.
Evie enters the otherworldly place called the Dark Sun Side, searching for Blight Harbor’s missing ghosts in this sequel to 2022’s The Clackity.
Twelve-year-old Evie Von Rathe returns, this time following the trail of missing ghost Florence and finding herself lured to the Dark Sun Side by ghoulish, evil Portia. Once there, Evie learns about the Radix, a swirling, black, oceanlike expanse of unforgiving magical power. In exchange for Evie’s return to the land of the living, Portia tasks her with retrieving the soul light from the center lantern of the Nighthouse. With the help of Bird, her tattooed sidekick who moves about her body at will, and a girl she meets on her journey named Lark, who is neither ghost nor human, Evie is pushed to her limits as she navigates this terrifying world on her important, soul-saving mission. Senf’s nightmarish, well-imagined supernatural landscape is original and compelling. Evie and Lark’s friendship is believably close and trusting, their shared pain and fear binding them together. Bird continues to be a scene-stealing companion, a necessary voice of reason and encouragement for Evie and readers alike. More than just a battle between good and supernatural evil, this story shows the ultimate power of empathy and tenacity. Readers will be left both satisfied by the ending and wanting more. Evie is cued white.
Deliciously dark and gripping. (Horror. 9-12)Pub Date: Oct. 17, 2023
ISBN: 9781665934633
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Atheneum
Review Posted Online: Aug. 11, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2023
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