Zombie rats and ghastly ghosts galore—but the haunting comes from more than the spectral cast.
Glennon discovers the sinister reason why the Lake Superior island he’s visiting isn’t found on any map.
Writing in a distinctly metaphorical vein, Brandt tells a tale that is chilling on more than one level. Accepting an invitation she claims she received, 13-year-old Glennon McCue’s mother has brought him and his emotionally fragile sister, Leeunah, to stay with their Uncle Job, a lighthouse keeper, on remote Isle Philippeaux while their father is away for a fall semester fellowship. Readers will quickly cotton to the fact that all is not right—either on the island or in the McCue family—as, along with fogs, oddly localized gales, feelings of formless dread, frequent encounters with staring rats, and like atmospheric portents, both Glennon and Lee exhibit clear signs of PTSD. Brandt piles on further clues to what’s going on: On the one hand, there are sightings of gruesomely disfigured specters and the ominous news that the island is completely cut off from the mainland, and on the other, there are Glennon’s memories of years of his mercurial father’s patronizing put-downs and sudden rages. In the wildly stormy climax, Glennon confronts multiple terrors as, to prevent him escaping with his family, the malign island attempts to sabotage his newfound determination through psychological means. The main cast defaults to White.
Zombie rats and ghastly ghosts galore—but the haunting comes from more than the spectral cast. (map, author's note) (Paranormal. 10-13)Pub Date: May 3, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-72824-544-7
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Sourcebooks Young Readers
Review Posted Online: April 12, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2022
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
A tween gets in over his head in this introspective and nostalgic story.
Thirteen-year-old Joey Goodman spends every August in Atlantic City, New Jersey, at his grandparents’ hotel.
It’s 1975, and the city is soon to become a gambling resort as old hotels are replaced with casinos. Joey’s passion is playing Skee-Ball at the boardwalk arcades. There, he attracts the attention of shady Artie Bishop, known as the king of Steel Pier, and becomes involved in Bishop’s unspecified criminal activities. Suave Artie engages Joey in conversation about the boy’s favorite book, The Once and Future King, and Joey begins to regard him almost as a new King Arthur. Artie offers him a job chaperoning his daughter, Melanie, when she comes to visit. After Joey finishes his unpaid waiter’s shift at the hotel restaurant each day, he lies to his family, meets Melanie, and they explore the piers’ seedy amusements. Joey falls for 15-year-old Melanie, and she regards him fondly but is attracted to his older brother Reuben. The close-knit Jewish family of four bickering brothers, parents, uncle, and grandparents (especially wise grandpa Zeyde) is lovingly portrayed. The descriptions of Joey’s ponderings about God (he’s had his bar mitzvah but is undecided) and Artie’s business dealings may not hold young readers’ interest, and the immersive setting could appeal more to adults old enough to remember the time and place. All characters are presumed White.
A tween gets in over his head in this introspective and nostalgic story. (author’s note) (Fiction. 10-13)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-72843-034-8
Page Count: 248
Publisher: Kar-Ben
Review Posted Online: June 21, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2022
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