Montes makes a strong debut with this multistranded tale of two orphaned Puerto Ricans whose struggle to cope with being transplanted to northern California is considerably complicated by encounters with ghosts and other supernatural phenomena. Javi is understandably on an emotional sleigh ride. He’s grieving for his parents, feeling fiercely protective of little brother Nico, and surrounded by an often-unfamiliar new world. Furthermore, he’s trying to hold Tití Amparo at arm’s length. She’s a psychology professor who is having a hard time herself adapting to these two new additions to her single household. His worry sharpens when Nico acquires Hamish, an invisible playmate. Imaginary and harmless, Amparo insists, but Javi’s not so sure; there’s something menacing about the surrounding woods, Nico suddenly knows more English than he used to, and just once Javi catches a glimpse in a mirror of a small blond boy in a sailor suit. Then furniture starts moving on its own, faucets are left running, and the lights begin flashing on and off—not Hamish’s doing, Nico claims. While these and other events create mounting suspense, Javi is also trying Amparo’s large but not limitless fund of patience, encountering and responding strongly to prejudiced remarks from both a peer and an adult (a librarian, of all things), and improving his halting English thanks to Willo, a new friend. With Willo’s help, Javi discovers at last that there are two ghosts—a Depression-era child who perished with his brutal kidnapper—plus a poltergeist, created by Javi’s own anger and psychic abilities. The stage is set for a nail-biting rescue when Nico runs off into the storm-swept forest in search of Hamish, and is trapped by the malicious kidnapper’s spirit in an old root cellar. At once a perceptive look at how regional differences in American culture can either mesh or clash, and a rippingly good ghost story, this should find a large and eager audience. (Fiction. 10-13)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2000
ISBN: 0-15-202391-7
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2000
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A heartily satisfying string of entertaining near-catastrophes, replete with narrow squeaks and spectral howls.
Three young ghost trappers take on deadly wraiths and solve an old murder case in the bargain to kick off Stroud’s new post-Bartimaeus series.
Narrator Lucy Carlyle hopes to put her unusual sensitivity to supernatural sounds to good use by joining Lockwood & Co.—one of several firms that have risen to cope with the serious ghost Problem that has afflicted England in recent years. As its third member, she teams with glib, ambitious Anthony Lockwood and slovenly-but-capable scholar George Cubbins to entrap malign spirits for hire. The work is fraught with peril, not only because a ghost’s merest touch is generally fatal, but also, as it turns out, as none of the three is particularly good at careful planning and preparation. All are, however, resourceful and quick on their feet, which stands them in good stead when they inadvertently set fire to a house while discovering a murder victim’s desiccated corpse. It comes in handy again when they later rashly agree to clear Combe Carey Hall, renowned for centuries of sudden deaths and regarded as one of England’s most haunted manors. Despite being well-stocked with scream-worthy ghastlies, this lively opener makes a light alternative for readers who find the likes of Joseph Delaney’s Last Apprentice series too grim and creepy for comfort.
A heartily satisfying string of entertaining near-catastrophes, replete with narrow squeaks and spectral howls. (Ghost adventure. 11-13)Pub Date: Sept. 17, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-4231-6491-3
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Disney-Hyperion
Review Posted Online: May 28, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
Light on gore and corpses; otherwise a full-bore, uncomplicated shriekfest.
Does anyone who volunteers to spend a night in a derelict haunted hotel on a dare deserve what they get?
“The hotel is hungry. And we aren’t leaving here until it’s fed.” In what reads like a determined effort to check off every trope of the genre, Alexander sends new arrival Jasmine, along with two friends and several dozen other classmates, to the long-abandoned Carlisle Hotel for the annual seventh grade Dare—touching off a night of terror presided over by the leering, autocratic Grand Dame and complete with sudden gusts and blackouts, spectral visions, evil reflections in mirrors, skeletons, a giant spider, gravity reversals, tides of oily black sludge sucking screaming middle schoolers down the drain, and so much more. (No gore, though, aside from a few perfunctory drops of blood from one small scratch.) The author saves a twist for the end, and as inducement to read alone or aloud in the dark by flashlight, both his language and the typography crank up the melodrama: “He walks toward us, past the mirror, and I see it— / a pale white face in the reflection, / a gaunt, skeletal grimace, / with sharpened teeth / and hollow black eyes, staring at him / with its mouth / wide / open / in a scream….” Jasmine presents White; her closest friends are Rohan, whose name cues him as South Asian, and Mira, who has dark skin.
Light on gore and corpses; otherwise a full-bore, uncomplicated shriekfest. (Horror. 10-13)Pub Date: Nov. 2, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-338-70215-6
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Sept. 14, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2021
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