Fans of the movie may enjoy it.
A demon catches four young teens on Halloween, intending to turn them into monsters.
This middle-grade series kickoff features teens Beth, Kellen, Luke, and Nicole, white except for Asian-American Nicole. Kellen yearns for childhood friend Beth, Nicole seems to have a crush on Kellen, and Luke cares only about cracking jokes. ’Tis the season, and Dr. Hysteria arrives in town with his Hall of Horrors, supposedly holiday entertainment for the town. But Beth takes a wrong turn inside the attraction and realizes that the monsters are real. When she stumbles on the titular cabinet, she finds not only a girl who went missing a year ago from another town, but also many others, some in historical clothing. She realizes that Dr. Hysteria is a demon and that he has trapped her friends…and perhaps also has trapped her. Adapting the book from the screenplay for the 2015 film R.L. Stine’s Monsterville: The Cabinet of Souls, Ferguson keeps the creep factor high and the originality factor low. Befitting its status as a movie tie-in, the book contains glossy photos of the characters in a four-page inset. While the story starts with some unrequited romance, it quickly begins to focus on suspense and horror, with beautiful, blonde Beth as the star trying to save herself and her friends.
Fans of the movie may enjoy it. (Horror. 8-12)Pub Date: July 26, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-338-03252-9
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: March 15, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2016
Adventure, sleuthing and a NYC travelogue in one quick read.
Molly and her intrepid team of Omegas continue their fight against the undead of New York City.
The four friends from Dead City (2012) solve a riddle that leads them to the attic of the Flatiron Building, where they join the elite Baker’s Dozen. In order to avoid detection, they can only use paper and a manual typewriter. Smart preteens that they are, they search for patterns and are able to track the zombies through Manhattan subway stations. The zombie in charge of the Union Square station has used aliases such as Grant, Burnside and McClellan, they learn. More sleuthing takes place during the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade and culminates in Times Square on New Year’s Eve. Milton Blackwell, one of the original undead—the one responsible for the 1896 subway explosion—gets a voice in occasional chapters as he tells his story. Ponti’s often humorous narrative focuses on deduction and detective work, but there is enough gore, smell and martial arts fighting to suit action-oriented fans. Museums, the Roosevelt Island tramway and Grand Central Station all play important roles. What stands out is the fascinating twist that the author introduces as zombie fighting morphs into political intrigue. The undead are determined to gain control—but not through fists and kicks. New Yorkers beware!
Adventure, sleuthing and a NYC travelogue in one quick read. (Horror/fantasy. 8-12)Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-4424-4131-6
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Aladdin
Review Posted Online: Aug. 20, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2013
While the author’s belief in the importance of helping others and finding meaningful outlets for creativity are laudable,...
Twelve-year-old Granite Flowerpetal finds an unusual way to raise the spirits of his family members and bring happiness and prosperity to his new hometown.
Gran, as he calls himself, isn’t looking forward to the move to Carousel. But he, his sister, Maisie, and their mother and father head there in hopes of steady work. Sadly, that’s not the case, and Eggers’ text obliquely reveals that the stress of financial instability creates an ongoing domestic conflict. Gran, meanwhile, attempts to find his place in a new school. He fixates on classmate Catalina Catalan, despite her less-than-friendly actions, and discovers that she’s involved in a quirky effort to protect the town from a malevolent force known as the Hollows. Characterization is slight. Maisie has a propensity for vomiting, Gran’s mother uses a wheelchair, and both Catalina and Gran are small for their ages. One character appears to be Latinx; all others read as white. Limited action and ponderous pronouncements further weaken the story’s appeal. Efforts at offbeat humor, such as the secondary character who blames all of the town’s problems on moose attacks, serve only to emphasize the overall bleakness of tone.
While the author’s belief in the importance of helping others and finding meaningful outlets for creativity are laudable, the dull and joyless vehicle he’s created to convey them likely won’t convince many readers . (Fiction. 10-12)Pub Date: April 24, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5247-6416-6
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Jan. 12, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2018
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