Eerie and icky but benign both in specter and theme.
A campfire tale with a memorably macabre ghost.
Chupeco assembles a new Midnight Society to gather around the campfire for this tie-in to the TV series Are You Afraid of the Dark? and cleverly fashions a spooky yarn with themes that apply directly to the frame story. Levi, the new kid in middle school, gets a hostile reception from rival Blake, who’s trying out for the same position on the basketball team. Levi auditions to join the society with a story about Zane and Garrett, two like rivals who, after repeated visitations from the locally famous ghost of a woman with no lower jaw, find themselves allied in uncovering a 200-year-old mystery involving three vanished and presumably murdered orphaned children. Along with plenty of weird noises, creepy manifestations, and old books and bones unexpectedly revealed, the author adds extra measures of grossness by casting Garrett as the child of undertakers whom Zane watches carrying out their explicitly described work. (They also truck in Mr. Vink, an enigmatic recurring character on the show, for a guest appearance.) Nonetheless, come an end to the lurid dreams and screams, the ghost turns out to be benevolent for all her appearance, and like Zane and Garrett, Levi and Blake wind up on the road to friendship, differences resolved. One society member is nonbinary; Garrett’s dad is cued Filipino, and other cast members are minimally described.
Eerie and icky but benign both in specter and theme. (Paranormal. 9-13)Pub Date: June 27, 2023
ISBN: 9781419763496
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Amulet/Abrams
Review Posted Online: April 24, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2023
Convincing, humorous, warm, and definitely spooky.
Henry, the new boy in Barbara Anne Klein’s Seattle fifth-grade class, dresses oddly, but that isn’t the strangest thing about him.
Henry and narrator Barbara Anne (or Bitsy as her parents and grandmother call her) bond over their need to escape their assigned lunch table, and Barbara Anne soon discovers the subject of Henry’s absorbed sketching at recess: the boy who seems to be haunting him. Irrepressible, strong-minded Barbara Anne is not always aware of her limitations, and Siebel’s voice for her is both funny and warm. Henry battles a respiratory infection throughout much of the story even as he and Barbara Anne begin to realize that young Edgar, Henry’s ghost, did not survive the Spanish influenza pandemic in 1918. A session with a Ouija board and a letter and yearbook discovered in Henry’s attic tell part of the story. Edgar’s father’s journal, found in the public library archives, reveals the rest. Siebel cleverly weaves together the story of the developing friendships among Barbara Anne and her classmates and the story of Edgar’s friendship with Henry’s neighbor, Edgar’s playmate as a small child and now a very old woman. Henry, Barbara Anne, and Edgar present white; classmate Renee Garcia, who looks forward to eventually celebrating her quinceañera, and Barbara Anne’s teacher, Miss Biniam (“she looks like an Ethiopian princess”) are the only main characters of color.
Convincing, humorous, warm, and definitely spooky. (Ghost story. 9-12)Pub Date: July 2, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-101-93277-3
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: March 30, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
Nonstop, action-packed, episodic exploits against the voracious undead.
Resourceful kids battle hordes of the walking dead.
Residents of several Northern California counties are being advised to evacuate and “flee to safety” in the wake of a zombie epidemic. Lucy Santifer and her family just make it to their car when they are attacked and killed. Nearby, Lucy’s best friend, 12-year-old Joule Artis, climbs into her treehouse, the better to seek her missing father. Elsewhere, 11-year-old Oliver Wachs is holed up in the Redwood Zombie Brigade Headquarters, stocked with weaponry and populated by dedicated zombiefighters. And Regina, 12, is haunted by her narrow zombie escapes even as her mother, Dr. Celeste Herrera, unveils Project Coloma, an ingenious system that uses a zombie treadmill situated in an abandoned gold mine to create much-needed energy for the region. Weinberger’s monster thriller is long on suspense, with several close calls but no graphic violence. The action pings briskly among the three young protagonists, and the punchy prose is suitably pitched to a preteen readership. The plot thickens with the forecast of a Rogue Wave of zombies headed to town. The trio eventually joins forces, promising further fights for freedom. If this horror thrill ride makes readers want to join the zombiefighters, note that there is a video game tie-in. Play at your own risk. Oliver reads white, Regina is cued Latina, and Joule is minimally described and racially ambiguous.
Nonstop, action-packed, episodic exploits against the voracious undead. (link to play the online game) (Adventure. 9-12)Pub Date: Sept. 5, 2023
ISBN: 9781338881714
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: July 13, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2023
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