THE GHOUL NEXT DOOR

A cemetery-obsessed kid finds himself in ghoulish company.

On his way to school with his friend Marshall, Grey splits off to take a shortcut through the cemetery. Grey trips, accidentally dropping his school project—a diorama of the cemetery—into an open gravesite. Before he can get it back, a clawlike hand drags the diorama into the shadows with a “HsssSSSsss.” Grey high-tails it out of there and goes to school empty-handed. That night, that very creature visits Grey in his room and disappears when spotted. Grey finds the diorama on his doorstep not only intact, but improved. Next comes a series of strange gifts. When accosted, the gift giver—a young ghoul named Lavinia—warns that the “cemetery’s not safe” for “surface-dwellers.” But when the other ghouls threaten people important to Grey, Grey must brave the Kingdom of the Dead. What—and where—have Grey and his new “ghoul-friend” gotten themselves into? More macabre than spine-tingling, this fast-paced blend of humor and horror is essentially an against-the-odds friendship story. Though the quality of Farris’ watercolor art alone distinguishes it from other full-color graphic novels, her skeletal, shadowy silhouettes are wonderfully (and unforgettably) nightmarish. Bunn’s ghoul lore offers a fresh alternate post–Salem witch trials narrative. Visual cues code Grey as biracial, with a mom of color and a White dad; Marshall presents White. A sequel will follow.

A fun story with art that’ll knock readers dead.