CREEPY KID

A middle schooler makes friends with the ghost in his house.

After the death of Edgar “Poe” Alden’s best friend, who also happens to be his grandmother, her medical bills lead to the bank’s taking the family’s house. Now they’re moving to the “good side of the tracks.” Their new place on Valdemar Crescent is strange, though: It previously belonged to an old man with a hoarding problem, and Poe’s not-so-nice new schoolmates call it the Garbage House. Socially isolated 12-year-old Poe, who’s been called “Creepy Kid” since kindergarten, has been waiting his whole life to see a ghost, and now he’s in for a treat. There’s a ghost girl occupying his bedroom closet and a violent entity terrorizing the basement. Poe embraces the challenge of figuring out what on earth is going on in his new home. His jokey, authentically early-adolescent first-person perspective allows readers to quickly and fully identify with his struggles with peers and his grief over losing Grandma, as well as to experience his spectral interactions as believable and meaningful. Though the story’s core is truly eerie, Poe’s inquisitive, all-in attitude makes for a genuinely fun, playful read. There are a sprinkling of gross-out horror moments and some climactic peril that will satisfy young horror fans who may well identify as creepy kids themselves. Poe, his family, and his ghostly new friend are cued white.

Spooky, funny, and intriguing: an entertaining scary story with heart.