This bare-bones supernatural story still entertains despite its indistinctive quartet of heroes.
Four friends visit a place where it’s Halloween every day, which inspires several witches there to escape and terrorize the friends’ town in Scygiel’s YA horror yarn.
Danny Hays, Bobby Brown, Jeff Casey, and Adam Holmes, all just past their teens, have been childhood pals and next-door neighbors for years in Oak Mill, Michigan, and they crave adventure. A Sunday trip to the local oak mills holds promise, but ultimately nothing comes of it. It’s there, however, that a magical crow spots them and follows them home. The next night, the same crow and a ghost named Charles visit each friend’s room; Charles drops off letters and mischievously leaves their bedroom doors ajar. The missives contain a time, date, and location back at the mills, where the crow and Charles, after having some fun scaring the friends, invite them to the Halloween Village, accessible through a secret room in the town’s Haunted Mansion. The village, where it’s Halloween 365 days a year, is populated by witches and mummies and boasts a wealth of candy. The affable residents tell the young men that they’re there to learn the history of Halloween and the 600-year-old town. The downside is that four witches take the opportunity to flee the village for the sole purpose of frightening all the people in Oak Mill. Scygiel’s short novel is a quick read that highlights all the fun of Halloween. It’s certainly enjoyable, though never outright scary, as nearly everyone in the village welcomes the four guys and the witches’ plan isn’t truly sinister. The author forgoes giving Danny and friends individual personalities, though, so they’re disappointingly interchangeable: they’re all 20 years old, live with their parents, and say many of the same things, such as, “You got that right.” The action is likewise repetitive: each friend is shown waking up, saying good morning to his mother and father, and asking about the open door and letter, for example. Nevertheless, Scygiel ups the ante in the final act as the four buddies determine to stop the witches and take them back to the village. There’s also a hint of another potential nightmare awaiting the friends at the end of the novel.
This bare-bones supernatural story still entertains despite its indistinctive quartet of heroes.Pub Date: April 29, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-5246-0595-7
Page Count: 116
Publisher: AuthorHouse
Review Posted Online: June 20, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Little Blue’s fans will enjoy the animal sounds and counting opportunities, but it’s the sparkling lights on the truck’s own...
The sturdy Little Blue Truck is back for his third adventure, this time delivering Christmas trees to his band of animal pals.
The truck is decked out for the season with a Christmas wreath that suggests a nose between headlights acting as eyeballs. Little Blue loads up with trees at Toad’s Trees, where five trees are marked with numbered tags. These five trees are counted and arithmetically manipulated in various ways throughout the rhyming story as they are dropped off one by one to Little Blue’s friends. The final tree is reserved for the truck’s own use at his garage home, where he is welcomed back by the tree salestoad in a neatly circular fashion. The last tree is already decorated, and Little Blue gets a surprise along with readers, as tiny lights embedded in the illustrations sparkle for a few seconds when the last page is turned. Though it’s a gimmick, it’s a pleasant surprise, and it fits with the retro atmosphere of the snowy country scenes. The short, rhyming text is accented with colored highlights, red for the animal sounds and bright green for the numerical words in the Christmas-tree countdown.
Little Blue’s fans will enjoy the animal sounds and counting opportunities, but it’s the sparkling lights on the truck’s own tree that will put a twinkle in a toddler’s eyes. (Picture book. 2-5)Pub Date: Sept. 23, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-544-32041-3
Page Count: 24
Publisher: HMH Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 11, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2014
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Cookie-cutter predictability.
After all the daring escapes in the How To Catch… series, will the kids be able to catch Santa?
Oddly, previous installments saw the children trying (and failing) to catch an elf and a reindeer, but both are easily captured in this story. Santa, however, is slippery. Tempted but not fooled by poinsettias, a good book (attached to a slingshot armed with a teddy bear projectile), and, of course, milk and cookies, Santa foils every plan. The hero in a red suit has a job to do. Presents must be placed, and lists must be checked. He has no time for traps and foolery (except if you’re the elf, who falls for every one of them). Luckily, Santa helps the little rascal escape each time. Little is new here—the kids resort to similar snares found in previous works: netting, lures, and technological wonders such as the Santa Catcher 5000. Although the rhythm falters quite a bit (“How did we get out you ask? / It looked like we were done for. / Santa’s magic is very real, / and I cannot reveal more”), fans of the series may not mind. Santa and Christmas just might be enough to overcome the flaws. Santa and the elf are light-skinned, one of the children is brown-skinned, and the other presents as Asian. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Cookie-cutter predictability. (Picture book. 3-6)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2023
ISBN: 9781728274270
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Sourcebooks Wonderland
Review Posted Online: Aug. 15, 2023
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