Old-school, John Saul–style horror for preteens.
Will 12-year-old Cassidy’s summer escape from New York City literally be killer?
For the past two years, Cassidy Bean has been in a program that places city kids with suburban families for the summer. When the Tremonts seem hesitant to have her back, Cassidy thinks it’s because of something that happened the previous year. Still, they do invite her again, but when she arrives in Whitechapel, New Jersey, she finds the Tremont’s son Joey, also 12, is no longer fun or friendly. Cassidy also learns that the neighborhood’s creepy curmudgeon and hoarder, Mrs. Chambers, has died. After the Chambers house is cleared out and the townsfolk pick over her treasures, ghost sightings abound—and more people die. Cassidy and her new friend, Ping, persuade Joey to help them find out what’s behind the ghosts and the disappearing bodies. What they discover is worse than anything in Cassidy’s therapy journal, her Book of Bad Things. Poblocki’s return, full of mystery, monsters and ghosts, is sure to satisfy his fans. A solid main character, Cassidy is surrounded by a good supporting cast, and her past troubles figure nicely in the tale and its resolution. Ghostly bits and creepy action are more interesting than the cause of the “haunting,” but the book will nevertheless supply chills, especially if read at night.
Old-school, John Saul–style horror for preteens. (Horror. 9-12)Pub Date: Aug. 26, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-545-64553-9
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Slick sleuthing punctuated by action on the boards and insights into differences that matter—and those that don’t.
Brothers, one neurodivergent, team up to shoot baskets and find a thief.
With the coach spit-bellowing at him to play better or get out, basketball tryouts are such a disaster for 11-year-old Green that he pelts out of the gym—becoming the chief suspect to everyone except his fiercely protective older brother, Cedar, when a valuable ring vanishes from the coach’s office. Used to being misunderstood, Green is less affected by the assumption of his guilt than Cedar, whose violent reactions risk his suspension. Switching narrative duties in alternating first-person chapters, the brothers join forces to search for clues to the real thief—amassing notes, eliminating possibilities (only with reluctance does Green discard Ringwraiths from his exhaustive list of possible perps), and, on the way to an ingenious denouement, discovering several schoolmates and grown-ups who, like Cedar, see Green as his own unique self, not just another “special needs” kid. In an author’s note, King writes that he based his title characters on family members, adding an element of conviction to his portrayals of Green as a smart, unathletic tween with a wry sense of humor and of Cedar’s attachment to him as founded in real affection, not just duty. Ultimately, the author finds positive qualities to accentuate in most of the rest of the cast too, ending on a tide of apologies and fence-mendings. Cedar and Green default to White.
Slick sleuthing punctuated by action on the boards and insights into differences that matter—and those that don’t. (Fiction. 9-12)Pub Date: Aug. 23, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-66590-261-8
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Paula Wiseman/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 9, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A waggish tale with a serious (and timely) theme.
An age-old rivalry is reluctantly put aside when two young vacationers are lost in the wilderness.
Anthropomorphic—in body if definitely not behavior—Dogg Scout Oscar and pampered Molly Hissleton stray from their separate camps, meet by chance in a trackless magic forest, and almost immediately recognize that their only chance of survival, distasteful as the notion may be, lies in calling a truce. Patterson and Grabenstein really work the notion here that cooperation is better than prejudice founded on ignorance and habit, interspersing explicit exchanges on the topic while casting the squabbling pair with complementary abilities that come out as they face challenges ranging from finding food to escaping such predators as a mountain lion and a pack of vicious “weaselboars.” By the time they cross a wide river (on a raft steered by “Old Jim,” an otter whose homespun utterances are generally cribbed from Mark Twain—an uneasy reference) back to civilization, the two are BFFs. But can that friendship survive the return, with all the social and familial pressures to resume the old enmity? A climactic cage-match–style confrontation before a worked-up multispecies audience provides the answer. In the illustrations (not seen in finished form) López plops wide-eyed animal heads atop clothed, more or less human forms and adds dialogue balloons for punchlines.
A waggish tale with a serious (and timely) theme. (Fantasy. 9-11)Pub Date: April 1, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-316-41156-1
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Jimmy Patterson/Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Dec. 15, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2019
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