Neither funny nor frightening, but it will have an audience.
Librarian of the Haunted Mansion (and nominal “author”) Amicus Ravenswood tries to outfright four 12-year-old tale spinners.
Tim, Noah, Willa, and Steve call themselves the Fearsome Foursome. They all love the horror writing of Edgar Allan Poe and H.P. Lovecraft and convene every week at their clubhouse to try to outscare one another by telling frightening tales. One stormy day, their clubhouse is destroyed; in its place are four fancy invitations to an unfamiliar address. That evening they meet at the ornate gates of a sprawling estate and enter (at their own risk, of course) to find a creepy librarian ready to tell them eerie tales—four in all, each starring one of the Fearsome Foursome. Tim finds a cursed baseball glove. Willa wishes her pets back to life with a “gypsy” token. Noah grows some primordial life-forms in the backyard pool. And Steve gets caught in a deadly game of dare…or dare. Each tale has a grisly (if unbelievable) end, as does the collection. Esposito comes to books from film and TV, including R.L. Stine’s The Haunting Hour, and the four stories in this slick, scare-free package, narrated intrusively by cut-rate Crypt Keeper clone Ravenswood, could have been plucked from any tome in Jovial Bob’s Goosebumps book brand. Final art by comic artist Jones not seen; the text does not paint the characters as notably diverse.
Neither funny nor frightening, but it will have an audience. (Horror. 8-11)Pub Date: July 19, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4847-1329-7
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Disney Press
Review Posted Online: March 29, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
A grand, giddy, and, at times, literally soaring tale.
Farm animals and French children unite to save the fledgling United States from a scheming mastermind in this airy 18th-century adventure.
Well-informed readers will recognize the titular creatures as the passengers carried into the skies by Montgolfier’s inaugural hot air balloon flight at the Palace of Versailles in 1783. Few, however, will be aware that the three—brilliant aeronautical sheep engineer Bernadette, swashbuckling rooster Pierre, and gifted duck tactician Jean-Luc—went on to lead secret lives righting wrongs and battling evildoers. Notable among the latter is the villainous magician Cagliostro, who, having caught wind of the fact that Benjamin Franklin, a witness to the famous flight, jotted down plans for weaponizing hot air balloons and creating a giant heat ray, has seized both the renowned inventor and his notebook in pursuit of a nefarious plan to make himself King of America. Here, in a mix of prose and profuse graphite drawings that break into mostly wordless sequential panels for action scenes, Phelan lays out a rousing series of chases, clashes, ambushes, and rescues both on and above the ground on the way to a triumphant outcome. The author adds to the animal trio two young humans to do the piloting. He also trots in a host of other historical personages, including Joseph Guillotin (“as sharp a fellow as you are to find in Paris”), Franz Mesmer, King Louis XVI, and Marie Antoinette.
A grand, giddy, and, at times, literally soaring tale. (author’s note) (Adventure. 8-11)Pub Date: March 8, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-06-291100-1
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Greenwillow Books
Review Posted Online: Dec. 14, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A lightweight, spooky adventure with an unusually exotic cast.
A trio of whirling weasel assassin spirits with Freddy Krueger–style claws ambush a Japanese-British child on an abandoned farm. Whoo-hoo!
Having dealt with a monster with a detachable head in the opening episode (Takeshita Demons, 2010), Miku is alert to the presence of other Japanese spirits who have followed her transplanted family overseas. These turn out to be dismayingly common, as a school camping trip becomes a nonstop series of encounters with supernatural creatures. These range from the comical one of the title—an “aka-na-me,” who delights in cleaning bathrooms and like places with its tongue (“Disgusting, but useful,” Miku notes)—to a malign shape-shifting fox who first orchestrates a campfire storytelling rite (Hyaku Monogatari) to create a nest of Sickle Weasels (kama itachi) then leads Miku into their midst. Salting her tale not only with Japanese folklore, but sickening odors, an abrupt power failure, classmates behaving oddly and other suspense-building elements, Burne sets up an exciting if clumsily choreographed extended battle. In it, Miku, with unexpected help from eldritch allies, vanquishes her attackers while ending up covered in soot and slime (she avoids being licked clean, but a classmate is not so lucky).
A lightweight, spooky adventure with an unusually exotic cast. (Light horror. 9-11)Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-84780-136-4
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Frances Lincoln
Review Posted Online: Sept. 25, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2012
BOOK REVIEW
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