Nightmarish short stories threaded together by an intrepid reader’s determination.
A reader takes matters into her own hands after she discovers her favorite author is stealing his terrifying tales.
Tanya is beyond excited to meet Joel Southland. His scary stories are so relatable, and she treasures the signed bookmark he gives her when he visits her school…until late one night, when the ink from the signature appears to come to life. When a new Southland story feels entirely too familiar, Tanya begins to piece together the clues about where he’s getting his ideas, and she patiently develops a plan to turn the tables. Interwoven with Tanya’s journey to stop Southland are many of the short stories he’s credited with having written, creating a story within a story, all told in very short pieces. Particularly dark imagery (both written and illustrated) will be a strong draw for the intended age range. The contemporary relevance of the opening tale, which involves mask-wearing, will serve as a hook for young readers, and insertion of other pieces of short fiction results in the cliffhangers that heighten the suspense. This well-paced, rather disturbing, and very creepy collection will appeal to a wide variety of readers. Physical descriptions are minimal in the text, but Tanya presents white in the illustrations.
Nightmarish short stories threaded together by an intrepid reader’s determination. (Horror. 9-12)Pub Date: Sept. 12, 2023
ISBN: 9781459834095
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Orca
Review Posted Online: July 13, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
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
Pratchett-like worldbuilding centers immigrant kids in a story filled with culture, humor, and heart.
At home in Haiti, 10-year-old Gabrielle Marie Jean loves the rain, scary stories, beating the boys in mango-eating contests, and her family, most of all.
When her parents’ paperwork issues mean she must immigrate to the United States alone, every heavenly thing she believes about America can’t outweigh the sense of dread she feels in leaving everything she knows behind. A preternaturally sensitive child, Gabrielle feels responsible for not only her own success, but her whole family’s, so the stakes of moving in with her uncle, aunt, and cousins in Brooklyn are high—even before Lady Lydia, a witch, tries to steal her essence. Lydia makes her an offer she can’t refuse: achieving assimilation. Arnold skillfully fuses distinct immigrant experiences with the supernatural to express a universally felt desire for belonging. Gabrielle desperately wants to fit in despite the xenophobia she experiences every day and despite making new, accepting friends in Mexican American Carmen and Rocky the talking rat-rabbit. But in trying to change herself, Gabrielle risks giving Lydia the power to conquer Brooklyn. Gabrielle is a charming narrator, and of course, good guy (girl) magic wins out in the end, but the threat to immigrant lives and identities is presented poignantly nonetheless in this richly imaginative origin story of one Haitian American girl that offers a fantastical take on immigrant narratives.
Pratchett-like worldbuilding centers immigrant kids in a story filled with culture, humor, and heart. (Fiction. 9-12)Pub Date: Feb. 2, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-358-27275-5
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Versify/HMH
Review Posted Online: Nov. 26, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
PERSPECTIVES
PERSPECTIVES
PERSPECTIVES
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