Engaging but not without flaw.
A boy without a shadow falls for a 20th-century ghost girl in this supernatural graphic novel.
White, diminutive Greg has been angry and sullen ever since his mom, mayor of their small town, died three years ago. The current mayor’s son is a dark-skinned jock, a “professional buffoon and arrogant jerk extraordinaire,” and Greg is convinced that his dad’s new girlfriend (visually coded as Asian-American) is trying to take the place of his mom. But it’s the summer before 10th grade, and his white, curvy best friend, Layla, is ready for them to get up to some shenanigans at the local rumored-to-be-haunted house. No one has ever seen a ghost there—until shadowless Greg arrives and comes face to face with ghostly Eleanor, a white teenager who’s been dead for decades. They become instantly smitten. But someone—or something—is starting to wreak havoc on the town, and everyone believes it’s Greg. It’s up to Greg, Layla, and Eleanor to put a stop to it. While all questions are ultimately answered, many aspects of the worldbuilding go underexplored, leaving both the character development and the internal logic of the world feeling rushed. Espinosa’s grayscale art (tone is by Eckman-Lawn) has a storyboard softness that is reassuring and appealing. Both the intrusive narrator and adolescent characters are prone to disability insults (“Lame”; “Are you…blind?”), and the haunting gleefully and consciously piles up stale horror tropes, including an “Indian burial ground” (complete with totem pole; Greg points out in frustration that “Indians didn’t even have totem poles in the northeast!”).
Engaging but not without flaw. (Graphic supernatural fiction. 10-17)Pub Date: Oct. 10, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-59643-877-4
Page Count: 224
Publisher: First Second
Review Posted Online: Aug. 20, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2017
Reminiscent of fairy tales and full of enchantment.
In this sequel to the 2022 series opener, Long Live the Pumpkin Queen by Shea Ernshaw, Sally must mend time itself.
It’s been a year since Sally married Jack Skellington and discovered her Dream Town origins, and she’s spread thin between performing her duties as Pumpkin Queen and managing relations among all the holiday realms. Arguments and misunderstandings have arisen between visitors and residents of each realm, so Sally proposes hosting cultural exhibitions to help smooth over their interactions, starting with one in Halloween Town. To help with the extra work, Sally takes on an apprentice—fellow rag doll Luna, a teen with dreams of going on adventures instead of following in the family business of writing bedtime stories. Chaos ensues during the festivities when a swapped potion ingredient opens a portal that sucks Sally and Luna into Time Town. Even worse, Halloween Town’s magical clock has been destroyed by a shadowy enemy, setting the realm’s timeline to the distant past. To get back to the Halloween Town of her present, Sally embarks on an adventure with Luna and their new friend, a dragon called Scorch. Sally, Luna, and Scorch make a fantastic trio, with Sally’s maturity and bravery contrasting with Luna’s wide-eyed youthfulness and Scorch’s desire to become a hero. Despite a slow start and stereotypical elements in some of the towns, the engaging lore and tense, thrilling race to fix time will engage readers.
Reminiscent of fairy tales and full of enchantment. (Fantasy. 12-16)Pub Date: July 8, 2025
ISBN: 9781368089302
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Disney/Random House
Review Posted Online: Aug. 16, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Characters to love, quips to snort at, insights to ponder: typical Spinelli.
For two teenagers, a small town’s annual cautionary ritual becomes both a life- and a death-changing experience.
On the second Wednesday in June, every eighth grader in Amber Springs, Pennsylvania, gets a black shirt, the name and picture of a teen killed the previous year through reckless behavior—and the silent treatment from everyone in town. Like many of his classmates, shy, self-conscious Robbie “Worm” Tarnauer has been looking forward to Dead Wed as a day for cutting loose rather than sober reflection…until he finds himself talking to a strange girl or, as she would have it, “spectral maiden,” only he can see or touch. Becca Finch is as surprised and confused as Worm, only remembering losing control of her car on an icy slope that past Christmas Eve. But being (or having been, anyway) a more outgoing sort, she sees their encounter as a sign that she’s got a mission. What follows, in a long conversational ramble through town and beyond, is a day at once ordinary yet rich in discovery and self-discovery—not just for Worm, but for Becca too, with a climactic twist that leaves both ready, or readier, for whatever may come next. Spinelli shines at setting a tongue-in-cheek tone for a tale with serious underpinnings, and as in Stargirl (2000), readers will be swept into the relationship that develops between this adolescent odd couple. Characters follow a White default.
Characters to love, quips to snort at, insights to ponder: typical Spinelli. (Fiction. 12-15)Pub Date: Aug. 3, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-593-30667-3
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 31, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2021
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