A good tale to hand to readers not sure they can handle grisly ghosts.
Can Jules solve the mystery of the ghostly girl in the third-floor window?
Sixth-grader Jules is tired of moving every time her father, who specializes in restoring historic houses, gets a new job. The newest lands them just outside of Hillsborough, Virginia, living in an addition to a crumbling mansion called Oak Hill. While Dad starts to renovate from the ground up and Mom continue to draft her latest mystery novel, Jules is stuck in the middle of the woods with no friends. At first, she doesn’t know she’s being observed by a ghost girl who has forgotten her own name, but soon each begins seeing visions of the other. Something happened in the past that made the ghost girl lock herself in the third-floor room, and the event plays out again every night. With a new local friend, Jules researches what happened at Oak Hill. Can they actually make a difference in the ghost girl’s afterlife? Edgar winner and ghost guru Hahn turns out a surprisingly unspooky history mystery, good for readers who aren’t ready for her chilling Wait till Helen Comes. Jules and the ghost alternate chapters as focal characters; Jules’ are in first person and the ghost’s in an appropriately attenuated third. The menace is mostly in the past in this slightly shadowy, modern fantasy with an alternate-world spin that causes the tale to feel unresolved. The cast is white by default.
A good tale to hand to readers not sure they can handle grisly ghosts. (Supernatural mystery. 7-11)Pub Date: Sept. 4, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-328-85092-8
Page Count: 200
Publisher: Clarion Books
Review Posted Online: May 22, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2018
Another winner from Mills, equally well suited to reading aloud and independent reading.
When Franklin School principal Mr. Boone announces a pet-show fundraiser, white third-grader Cody—whose lack of skill and interest in academics is matched by keen enthusiasm for and knowledge of animals—discovers his time to shine.
As with other books in this series, the children and adults are believable and well-rounded. Even the dialogue is natural—no small feat for a text easily accessible to intermediate readers. Character growth occurs, organically and believably. Students occasionally, humorously, show annoyance with teachers: “He made mad squinty eyes at Mrs. Molina, which fortunately she didn’t see.” Readers will be kept entertained by Cody’s various problems and the eventual solutions. His problems include needing to raise $10 to enter one of his nine pets in the show (he really wants to enter all of them), his troublesome dog Angus—“a dog who ate homework—actually, who ate everything and then threw up afterward”—struggles with homework, and grappling with his best friend’s apparently uncaring behavior toward a squirrel. Serious values and issues are explored with a light touch. The cheery pencil illustrations show the school’s racially diverse population as well as the memorable image of Mr. Boone wearing an elephant costume. A minor oddity: why does a child so immersed in animal facts call his male chicken a rooster but his female chickens chickens?
Another winner from Mills, equally well suited to reading aloud and independent reading. (Fiction. 7-10)Pub Date: June 14, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-374-30223-8
Page Count: 144
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: March 15, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2016
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Lighthearted spook with a heaping side of silliness—and hair.
Fifth graders get into a hairy situation.
After an unnamed narrator’s full-page warning, readers dive right into a Wolver Hollow classroom. Mr. Noffler recounts the town legend about how, every Oct. 19, residents don fake mustaches and lock their doors. As the story goes, the late Bockius Beauregard was vaporized in an “unfortunate black powder incident,” but, somehow, his “magnificent mustache” survived to haunt the town. Once a year, the spectral ’stache searches for an exposed upper lip to rest upon. Is it real or superstition? Students Parker and Lucas—sole members of the Midnight Owl Detective Agency—decide to take the case and solve the mustache mystery. When they find that the book of legends they need for their research has been checked out from the library, they recruit the borrower: goth classmate Samantha von Oppelstein. Will the three of them be enough to take on the mustache and resolve its ghostly, unfinished business? Whether through ridiculous plot points or over-the-top descriptions, the comedy keeps coming in this first title in McGee’s new Night Frights series. A generous font and spacing make this quick-paced, 13-chapter story appealing to newly confident readers. Skaffa’s grayscale cartoon spot (and occasional full-page) illustrations help set the tone and accentuate the action. Though neither race or skin color is described in the text, images show Lucas and Samantha as light-skinned and Parker as dark-skinned.
Lighthearted spook with a heaping side of silliness—and hair. (maps) (Fiction. 7-10)Pub Date: Aug. 31, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-5344-8089-6
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Aladdin
Review Posted Online: June 15, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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